TORONTO, July 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In her first public appearance after 28 consecutive months in prison for silently witnessing to life in front of an abortion facility, Linda Gibbons thanked attendees at the Toronto Pro-Life forum on June 25 for their support, saying, “It’s so nice to be back in the pro-life family.”
The mild-mannered yet stalwart pro-life activist, who has spent ten of the past 17 years in prison for life, encouraged her fellow pro-lifers, saying, “We may not always win, but we always fight.”
Gibbons, who was greeted with a sustained standing ovation, told the audience of one time she was in prison watching television. “Standing there in my prison greens,” she said, she saw the news about a massive Tamil Tiger demonstration blocking the Gardiner Express Way.
She said that the Chief of Police – the same one who had had Gibbons arrested – told the media (in Linda’s words), “isn’t it wonderful – this is what it means to live in a democracy?” Overcome at the unfairness of it all, “you creep” was all she could say.
Gibbons said that one of the most frequent questions she is asked both by inmates and guards after her many years of imprisonment is, “aren’t you tired yet?” She replies, she said – borrowing a slogan from the U.S. civil rights movement – “No. I’m not tired yet.”
After applause died down she assured her listeners: “God goes before us and God will never give you something to do and not the grace to stand in it.”
Gibbons, a 63-year-old grandmother, expressed her heartfelt thanks to all those who prayed for her 89-year-old mother while she was in jail. “God takes care of our loved ones,” she said.
Explaining her willingness to suffer for the pro-life cause, Gibbons said: “The end of abortion is Armageddon, that’s the price we’ll pay for the sin of abortion if we don’t carry this battle forward.”