HAMILTON, Ontario, December 2, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The city of Hamilton will look into crafting new legislation to shut down a peaceful weekly pro-life demonstration that uses graphic banners on the bypasses of the city’s busy expressway. A motion to investigate a new bylaw passed unanimously at a city council meeting last Wednesday.
Pro-lifers from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) have been targeting Hamilton with abortion-victim photography since October. The group drapes large banners held by four volunteers over the overpasses. The banners show the body of a baby destroyed by abortion with the message “Abortion Kills Children” and the website “EndTheKilling.ca”.
The group says that the banners are creating the effect they intended by sparking conversation about abortion. While police have said that the group is not breaking any federal, provincial, or municipal laws, city officials are targeting the demonstration.
Councillor Terry Whitehead, who spearheaded the motion, says he hopes the city will produce a strict law that prohibits all such banners.
“I’m asking public works and legal (staff) to take a look to see if we have safe grounds to presume banning anything,” he told CBC News.
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When LifeSiteNews.com asked Whitehead in a recent interview if the unborn should be protected, he responded: “I’m not getting into that debate. In my opinion, [abortion] is a personal choice.”
Stephanie Gray, CCBR’s Executive Director, says that flying the banners is part of her group’s right to freedom of speech.
“Councilors like Terry Whitehead show themselves unfit for office when they try to censor a message about children being killed instead of stopping the killing of children,” she told LifeSiteNews.com.
Gray defended the use of abortion-victim photography in a recent piece, calling such images an effective way of exposing the “outrageous horror of abortion”.
“The silent screams of the pictured aborted children were never heard. But their broken bodies can be seen. Covering them up doesn't help those children. It only helps those childrens' killers,” she wrote.
Contact info:
Mayor of Hamilton Bob Bratina
Hamilton City Hall
2nd floor – 71 Main St. West
Hamilton, Ontario L8P 4Y5
Phone: 905-546-4200
Email: [email protected]