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VIEW ROYAL, British Columbia, October 28, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An attempt by a Vancouver Island MLA to expand the “bubble zone” around the island’s abortion clinic from 50 to 60 meters has had the unintentional effect of increasing the visibility and boosting the number of people signing up for an ongoing peaceful vigil to end abortion outside the clinic, according to organizers of the vigil.

“40 Days for Life is getting more press, thanks to the New Democratic MLA Kariaganis, who is happy to have the Capital Region’s abortion clinic in her riding, but unhappy that anyone look at its activities from a moral perspective,” Choose Life Victoria stated on its blog.

As well, Alex Berns, 40 Days for Life vigil coordinator and member of Choose Life Victoria, said that there has been a 10 percent increase in people signing up to participate in the vigil.

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Maurine Karagianis, NDP MLA for Esquimalt-Royal Roads, made provincial headlines last week when it came to light that earlier this month View Royal City Council had voted down her bid to increase the “bubble zone” around the Vancouver Island Women's Clinic. 

Local pro-lifers, now on day 34 of the 40 Days for Life campaign — an international campaign to end abortion through prayer, fasting, and peaceful vigil at abortion clinics — had been accused by Karagianis of “verbal assault” and “emotional assault” on women “seeking services” at the abortion clinic.

But Steve Weatherbe, President of Choose Life Victoria, last week called Karagianis’s claims “just bogus”.

“It’s just Karagianis interpreting our presence as assaultive,” he told LifeSiteNews.com.

Berns said that Karagianis’ “bubble zone” campaign “shows just how effective the 40 Days for Life vigil is.” This is the fifth 40 Days for Life campaign the group has participated in. The group claims 231 members. 

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“The news from the States and from other 40 Days for Life vigils is quite clear: that it’s effective. They [pro-aborts] can’t win this battle, whether they push us 10 meters back, or 50 meters back.” 

“They can’t win this battle of prayer,” he said. 

Berns said that the group’s effectiveness comes from “just by being quiet”. He said that the pro-aborts are exposing themselves for who they really are through their rantings. 

Online commenters on the “bubble zone” stories carried by local media have wished that the pro-lifers were aborted by their mothers, or that they had been raped. Pro-lifers were repeatedly insulted as “idiots”, “illiterate”, and told that they should “go back to school”. Unborn children were called “parasites.” 

Weatherbe said that while Kargianis has led the charge for increasing the “bubble zone,” she has participated in two news interviews and one 15-minute segment on the radio without saying “abortion”.

“If this is such a morally neutral procedure, and indeed an expression of individual self-determination and so on, why can’t she say the word?”

“The pro-abortion side — and I include Karagianus — wants us to believe two quite contradictory things: on the one hand that abortion is an action with no moral content to it, like getting a tattoo, and on the other, that our mere presence causes the abortion clinic's customers great emotional anguish.”

“But we are not causing the anguish — it is their own consciences that cause these women anguish,” he said.

Berns said that no matter what happens with the push for increased “bubble zones”, he and his group will not lose focus on the work they are doing.

“Our focus is the babies and the mothers and the fathers and everyone else involved in this abortion holocaust.”

“We will stay focused on why we’re there.”