Posted on 06/18/2012 12:28:00 PM PDT by Morgana
THUNDER BAY, Ontario, June 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-life activists with the Canadian cross-country New Abortion Caravan were shocked Saturday as they were doused with chocolate milk while campaigning in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
The pro-life project, led by the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, is travelling from Vancouver to Ottawa with large box-bodied trucks featuring graphic images of aborted babies. They have faced strong opposition in many of the communities they have visited, with counter-protests led in part by the Canadian Auto Workers Union, Canadas largest private sector union.
A Youtube video depicts a man, a local resident and business owner, walking behind several women holding signs with graphic images while he pours chocolate milk over them. He was stopped by police before he was able to empty a second carton on the pro-lifers.
Arrest me. I dont care, says the man. Im speaking for everybody around here. We put all this money together, trying to beautify our neighbourhood, and you come in here
After the incident, the pro-life activists continued their campaign and delivered a presentation, as scheduled, in Thunder Bay that evening.
We are disturbed that this man would bully and assault young women trying to speak up for other women as well as children, said Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform.
But we are inspired by the calm response of our team members who refuse to fight violence with violence. By their actions, my courageous colleagues echoed the sentiment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who once said, We will match your ability to inflict suffering with our ability to endure suffering.
I’m not interested. I know that the domestic terrorists take drastic measures...that’s what makes them domestic terrorists. I’m telling you that the Anti-abortion people need to take the high road. This is enough debate for me. Have a nice day.
You’re calling prolifers ‘domestic terrorists’?
Of course I'm thinking clearly. Yes, the pictures are disturbing and disgusting. I've already acknowledged that; it's kind of the point.
What I'm not doing is allowing my emotional reaction to those images to cloud my judgment. If my only reaction was, "Oh, sick, disgusting, get those horrible things out of my sight," and I then refused to even contemplate what those pictures represent, and whether I want to live in a country where such a thing is legal and unrestricted, then I would not be thinking clearly.
What they are doing is worse than what PETA does.
The reality that they are protesting is worse than what PETA is protesting. Emphatically so, since I don't buy into PETA's flawed assumptions that animals are humans' equals.
But if I accepted for the sake of argument that meat is murder, then I would also accept PETA's use of graphic images of dead animals to change people's minds. Just because I think their message is bogus, doesn't necessarily invalidate their means of suasion.
. . . or allow them to be seen by passing children and families.....you only turn people against you.
Since this incident, the CCBR have put up a more in-depth blog post about it (The Thunder Bay Assault: A Child's Conscience Versus a Man's Anger). It turns out that Brian, the chocolate-milk assaulter had a small child with him. She wasn't traumatized by the offensive pictures. She wanted to know: what happened to the baby? Why did it get hurt? It appears that Brian attacked the pro-lifers at least partly because their presentation didn't upset her as it did him.
Thats not the way to change peoples minds.
The fact that it does change minds, and one person on this thread has already said it changed his mind, belies this assertion.
Hand out education or other information in a sane peaceful way..
Just by way of reminder, remember which side was peacefully holding up signs and talking to passers-by, and which side was flinging chocolate milk.
and change the law.
Changing the law is not going to happen in our present political reality. We have a liberal Supreme Court, and a government which, though headed by a pro-life Prime Minister, refuses to reopen the abortion debate in Canada. CCBR's mission isn't to make abortion illegal; it's to make abortion unthinkable. When we've managed the latter, then we can take care of the former.
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