WINNIPEG, Manitoba (LifeSiteNews) –– Canada’s top pro-life group has blasted the recently-elected New Democratic Party premier of Manitoba for passing a law prohibiting pro-life activism outside of abortion mills, saying the measure makes it “easier to kill people.”

“It just became illegal in Manitoba for pro-life advocates to try to persuade a mother against having an abortion within 50 meters of a baby killing center,” wrote Campaign Life Coalition’s (CLC) Director of Communications Pete Baklinski on X (formerly Twitter) last Thursday, in regard to Manitoba’s Bill 8, the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act officially becoming law on June 4. 

It just became illegal in Manitoba for pro-life advocates to try to persuade a mother against having an abortion within 50 metres of a baby killing centre.

Bill 8, the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, received royal assent on June 4. It creates access zones around abortion… pic.twitter.com/tRWPnG5ihR

— Pro-life Canadian Man (@PeteBaklinski) June 6, 2024

“It’s something no Manitoban should be proud of.” 

Manitoba’s far-left premier Wab Kinew has pushed a rather radical pro-abortion/LGBT-charged agenda since taking power from the Progressive Conservatives last year. 

CLC has long been sounding the alarm over the now-active law, with CLC Manitoba chapter president Maria Slykerman saying in months past that the Kinew-backed bill is “utterly totalitarian” in its censorship of pro-life speech. 

In 2021, when Manitoba was governed by a Progressive Conservative government, it voted against a bill very similar to the one that has now passed and become law. 

Despite the failure of the 2021 bill, the Kinew government on March 7 announced Bill 8, promising at the time to “establish protected access zones outside clinics and facilities that provide abortion services and at service providers’ residences and offices.”  

Baklinski last Thursday observed that Bill 8’s intent is to keep people “safe,” namely abortion-bound mothers and abortionists, “but it does this at the expense of the preborn, making it easier to kill the smallest members of the human family.” 

“Ultimately, Bill 8 is about making it easier to kill people,” he observed.  

He blasted Kinew for “abandoning the smallest and most vulnerable among us,” the child in the womb, “with this evil legislation.” 

“And, shame on MLA Nahanni Fontaine for sponsoring a bill that makes baby-killing easier,” he noted. 

Witnessing in front of abortion mills is integral to pro-life activism 

When it comes to abortion, the reality is that Canada has some of the most relaxed laws in the world, with there being no law banning the grisly procedure after any particular gestational period.   

“Abortion centers are extermination centres of preborn humans. This evil law now makes it more difficult to save human lives lost to the holocaust of abortion,” observed Baklinski. 

“When pro-life advocates peacefully and prayerfully witness to life in front of these killing centres, they are engaging in a work of mercy. They are trying to save lives. They are trying to save the mother from making the terrible mistake of killing her child, a mistake that she will regret for the rest of her life. Pro-life advocates recognize the truth that human life exists in the womb. It is worthy of protecting and defending because every life matters.” 

According to CLC, abortion has killed over four million preborn babies in Canada since its legalization in 1969, which is roughly equivalent to the total population of the province of Alberta.  

Other Canadian provinces besides Manitoba, such as Alberta and Ontario, already have in place laws that ban protests outside places where abortions are performed.   

In 2017, Ontario passed the misleadingly titled “Safe Access to Abortion Act” that barred pro-life activists from demonstrating or ministering within 50 meters (roughly 150 feet) of the property line of an abortion clinic.    

Ontario’s law recently saw Canadian veteran pro-lifer Linda Gibbons arrested and jailed for a second time in two weeks for witnessing to the unborn in front of the notorious Morgentaler abortion clinic in Toronto. She was released last Friday.  

In 2018, Alberta passed a province-wide “bubble zone” law that came into force under then-Premier Rachel Notley of the NDP. The law made it illegal for pro-lifers and counselors to come within 50 meters of an abortion facility for any activism-related purposes.  

Under the harsh law, first-time violators face a $5,000 fine and up to six months in prison.  

In 2022, Calgary City Council passed a motion directing its managers to draft a bylaw that would severely limit the distribution of pro-life flyers to people’s homes in what is being described by a leading pro-life group as a direct attack on “pro-life speech.”