Friday June 18, 2010
Western Canadian Pro-Life Campaign Changes Hearts and Minds
By Patrick B. Craine
See LifeSiteNews’ earlier piece: Alberta Pro-Life Campaign Makes Splash in Local Media
CALGARY, Alberta, June 18, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In addition to getting big media coverage, the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform’s “Reproductive Choice” campaign across Southern Alberta last week generated strong feedback from the public – both positive and negative.
“Our hope is by getting the abortion issue discussed and debated in the public again we’re opening up what the other side has been trying to shut down for so long,” said Jose Ruba, co-founder of CCBR. “I think that’s where success is happening.”
The week-long tour, which aimed to show the truth about abortion through graphic images, ended Sunday. The campaign featured an 11-meter long box-bodied truck carrying a billboard as well as sidewalk demonstrations to engage passersby.
The box truck also advertises a phone line, through which the pro-life organization receives many strong reactions. One woman who called was outraged by the CCBR’s approach and said, “Your signs made me throw up.” Another simply said the campaign was “F***ing disgusting!”
But the group maintains that what is really disgusting is abortion. “What’s more disturbing? The pictures of babies who have been killed, or the fact that babies are being killed?” asked Stephanie Gray, CCBR’s other co-founder. “What should disgust every Albertan, and Canadian, is that innocent human beings are being dismembered, decapitated, and disembowelled – and it’s paid for with our tax dollars.”
Ruba shared one experience in Medicine Hat when a woman, who identified herself as a member of the Hell’s Angels, brought a half dozen people from her tattoo parlor to protest the campaign. Ruba said the group employed various “intimidation tactics” and were “rather vocal, rather loud.” Nevertheless, he reports that he was able to talk with them and explain the pro-life arguments.
While they were “very hostile right from the beginning,” he said, “in the end, it was good to be able to shake hands.”
Many passersby honked their horns and gave them thumbs up as they drove by, the group said. Some who witnessed the campaign experienced a total change of heart. On their Facebook page CCBR reported that 3 CCBR members had a discussion with one man who concluded, “I have to admit I came here expecting to win this, but I admit that I’ve lost. I’m now against abortion.”
At a similar demonstration a couple weeks ago in Calgary Cameron Wilson, a CCBR intern who is one of the University of Calgary students that faced expulsion earlier this year for his pro-life activism, at one point approached a woman who was staring at their posters. “You must think I am a horrible person,” she told him. But when he replied that it was not his intent or place to think that, she told him, “Then God must have sent you.”
The woman explained that she is pregnant and addicted to cigarettes, but is unable to break the habit. She said that she is afraid of what the smoking would do to the baby, which made her think she should have an abortion.
Wilson was able to explain that no disability would ever make it worth killing her child, and in the end, she said she was going to have her baby. “God must have sent you,” she repeated.
The campaign “went really well,” said Ruba, noting that they got good media coverage and were able to spark debate in towns where “abortion is not often debated.”
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Alberta Pro-Life Campaign Makes Splash in Local Media
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10061105.html
Calgary U Finds Pro-Life Students Guilty over Display
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10051002.html