More Media Reaction To CCBR Graphic Mobile Billboards Of Aborted Fetuses

Two newspaper stories about CCBR's "street message" appeared yesterday in the newspapers of Canada:

The Calgary Herald, in a report by Nigel Hannaford entitled A Message to Remember,

The van and its images are the work of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, a militant pro-life group. Executive director Stephanie Gray says it will be around for the indefinite future. So there it is. If you drive in Calgary, you are going to see this, one of these days.

And, in my view, a good thing, too.

However, reasonable people could certainly disagree about the display of pictures, as a catalyst for social change.

Those unswervingly committed to abortion on demand, will of course find the truck irredeemably objectionable.

But then, pro-lifers feel the same about poisoning babies in the womb with saline solution, then cutting them up with surgical tools. Displaying the bloody results is for them, a challenge to the other side to justify what they do.

The National Post reports fairly on the event in a piece entitled Activists drive home anti-abortion message

If the display does provoke a reaction, well, that's the point. Three-metre-high posters cover the truck's cargo box, with photos of bloody fetuses, accompanied by the simple phrase, in huge letters: "Choice."

Ms. Gray makes no apologies for her confrontational methods, likening them to those of early social reform movements such as abolitionism, ending child labour in the U.S. and the civil rights campaign. She is fond of quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. and argues that it was only when people were exposed to photographic evidence of "injustices" that they were moved to demand change.

….snip

Celia Posyniak, executive director of Calgary's Kensington Clinic, an abortion provider, has heard from several people outraged over the truck.

"I just think in Canadian society, it's really a rude, crude display. It shows a lack of manners," Ms. Posyniak says. Such "scare tactics," she insists, don't work, since women seeking an abortion have "very compelling reasons" for doing so and will only be upset, not influenced, by the billboards.

….snip

In the U.S., where the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform operates 10 trucks and several bannered planes, opponents and municipalities have tried censoring the graphic signs. The CCBR expects the controversy will intensify here once the school year begins, as parents are forced to explain the bloody pictures on the passing truck to distressed kids in the back seat. The CCBR may even make a point of driving past junior and high schools. "Where people are old enough to have abortions, they're old enough see abortions," Ms. Gray explains.

Both articles note the objections of Calgary’s Bishop Frederick Henry. As Vote Life, Canada! noted on previous occasions, with friends like this, the Unborn need no enemies. Like Nehemiah who rallied the people behind God’s cause, faced down the naysayers with the truth of God’s promise, and was quick to say, “…the God of heaven will make us prosper,” pro-lifers determined to show the entire truth of child-killing in Canada will win out in the end.

Imagine Celia Posyniak of Calgary's Kensington Clinic—the most unredeemable place in Calgary—accusing the CCBR of rudeness and crudeness. She claims it’s "a lack of manners" and "scare tactics." Imagine the brazenness from the director of a facility that violently kills over 2900 unborn children annually. How might one characterize Posyniak’s manners?

When interviewed last year by Calgary Herald columnist Naomi Lakritz, and asked whether patients are counselled on fetal development,

Posyniak at first appeared not to understand the question. "Women aren't stupid. They know what stage of pregnancy they're in," she said. When pressed, she said, "If they ask, we'll show them, but it's not forced on them. Why should they see fetal development?"

No doubt Posyniak laments that now they, as well as all Calgarians, must also see the graphic results of their “choice” when they daily drive the streets of their city.