Paul Tuns:
On Sept. 9, Saskatoon city councilor Bev Dubois proposed that the city restrict the distribution of flyers featuring abortion victim photography.
The Saskatoon Abortion Support Network launched a petition in support of banning such flyers and it has reportedly received more than 3200 signatures. Angie Kells, a volunteer abortion doula at the Network, spoke at the meeting considering restrictions, saying, “When abortion is restricted, women die,”
Dubois tabled a motion at the governance and priorities committee meeting in response to complaints from city residents who received a pamphlet distributed by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform in early August that feature bloody images of children killed by abortion. “All I’m asking is for city administration to do some research,” Dubois said in support of her motion, which passed unanimously.
Dubois favours restrictions like those in Calgary, Alberta, and London, Ont., that require such information be contained in opaque envelopes with warnings about their contents. She is seeking support from fellow councilors to study how best to regulate pro-life material being distributed in the city. She also said she would be interested in supporting other Saskatchewan communities seeking to restrict use of abortion-victim photography.
Dubois claimed to “totally support free speech” but believes there is a “happy medium” to prevent the pro-life message from being seen by those who might not like it.
Quiana Casamayor, CCBR’s western volunteer coordinator, told the CBC, “All that we’re doing falls within our Charter rights to freedom of expression as we’re seeking to educate the public on the reality of what abortion does to a preborn child.” She added, “We take any challenge to our Charter rights very seriously.”
Dubois said some residents were so offended by the content of the flyers they called police about their concerns. She called abortion victim photography “very disturbing” images.
Casamayor told Global News, “If we’re concerned with children seeing images like these, shouldn’t we be concerned with children becoming the images in these photos?”
CCBR’s strategic initiatives director Blaise Alleyne told the Star Phoenix, “CCBR was delivering flyers with photos of abortion victims to show the evidence that abortion is an awful act of violence that kills an innocent human being and to advocate for peace.”
Campaign Life Coalition communications director Pete Baklinski tweeted, “Here we go again. Saskatoon City Council is considering action against graphic abortion flyers after residents said the images were ‘very disturbing’.” Baklinki conceded that such images are disturbing: “Yes, residents are right. Abortion is disturbing. That is why the flyers show it. These photos exist because abortion exists.”,
Baklinski said “The point is not to upset people for its own sake. It is to force the public to look at what abortion does.”
In 2023, St. Catharines, Ont., set out to restrict flyers with graphic abortion imagery from being distributed by mail, but repealed the bylaw the following year when it was challenged in court by the Association for Reformed Political Action. Currently, the London, Ont. bylaw is facing a legal challenge, which ARPA argues that the restrictions, “unjustifiably infringe freedom of expression on a matter of profound public importance.”
Baklinski said, “Saskatoon can spend public money shooting the messenger, or it can face the reason the flyers are horrific: abortion itself. If council is genuinely horrified by what these flyers depict, the honest response is not a study on how to silence the distributors. It is a motion to reopen the abortion debate and examine why these images are so horrific in the first place.”
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