Ramblings

Josie Luetke:

Last month, I shared how Campaign Life Coalition, with the help of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, is legally challenging the rules barring abortion victim photography or any “signs or banners that display explicit graphic violence or blood” on Parliament Hill.

Our hearing date, originally scheduled for Oct. 2, has been postponed, but since I last wrote, the respondents, the Parliamentary Protective Service or PPS, have submitted their factum (written arguments). It is everything the cross-examination suggested it would be and more. 

Their counsel argues that our signs depicting abortion victims are both “misleading” and “discriminatory.” However, they also took issue with the website listed on the signs, which refers to abortion as the intentional killing of a child. They write, “It is uncontroversial that intentionally killing someone is murder. The website fails to explain that abortion is legal in Canada or that fetuses are not considered human beings under Canadian law. The clear message is that abortion is killing. This is categorically false in Canadian law.”

I could spend page after page attempting to unpack this Orwellian rubbish.   

Firstly, whether a fetus is a human being under Canadian law is somewhat irrelevant to the question of whether abortion is killing. You can kill a bug. You can kill a plant.

Secondly, counsel didn’t bother trying to argue that the claim is untrue, just that it’s untrue under Canadian law, which says far more about Canadian law than it does the website.

Again, they suggest over and over that we shouldn’t be allowed to call abortion intentional killing, because “on any reasonable view, likening women and doctors who legally terminate a pregnancy to murderers is likely to promote hatred against them.”

For me, the kicker is that they set themselves up as defenders of freedom of expression, claiming, “Exposing a group to discrimination and/or vilification can distort the robust and free exchange of ideas by silencing that group. The Applicants seek protection for speech that does just that. The posters and website expose women who have had abortions, or are considering abortions, to discrimination and/or vilification — which may unacceptably silence their voices.”

And that’s why it’s okay for the PPS to silence ours, just like the voices of the pre-born.

What’s also ironic is that not once did counsel for the PPS acknowledge the affidavit we solicited from a post-abortive woman, who attested that she wished she could have seen abortion victim photography prior to her abortion. Her voice, I suppose, doesn’t matter either.

Cut to me watching a video of a young woman with a septum ring and micro bangs delightedly telling her father that pro-life conservative commentator Charlie Kirk deserved to be killed. The only example she cites in explanation is Kirk’s insistence that even if his daughter were raped, he would want her to go through with the pregnancy.

Cut to me seeing a photo of a woman presumably counter-protesting the March for Life in the United Kingdom wearing a shirt with the message: “The only good pro-lifer is a dead one.”

Speak of discrimination and vilification. Opposition to the killing of innocent human beings is now apparently grounds for getting killed yourself.

The devil’s advocate may claim these individuals are outliers, but they’re not alone.

“Qazal,” a self-described “irreligious” bisexual feminist, posted on X, “never forget when charlie kirk said that if his 10yo daughter gets pregnant through rape, the baby should be delivered” and added, “the world is a better place without him.” The post received 197,000 likes.

A post from “flav” with a GIF of actress Anne Hathaway clapping and the remark “charlie kirk’s daughter is going to grow up without a father who thinks kids/women should keep their rapist’s baby” received 584,000 likes.

Many others celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and have condoned or dismissed violence against pro-lifers over the years. They often make these comments brazenly, unafraid of repercussions, because they know they’re largely aligned with public sentiment and the institutional powers of the day.

Undergirding all of this is the drip, drip, drip of counsel for the PPS intimating that you shouldn’t be able to say such things (that abortion kills innocent human beings); of bubble zones already criminalizing pro-life expression in certain places; and of a softer censorship denying pro-lifers educational and career opportunities.

Over the years, I’ve written much about how before we can convert others to the pro-life position, we must normalize talking about it, by being identifiable and recognizable pro-lifers, such that pro-choicers could understand how a reasonable person could be pro-life— that is, could oppose the killing of innocent human beings. I worry we’re failing.

You’d think at least the silver lining with the burgeoning persecution and crystallization of stakes would be a similar cementation of conviction and clarity amongst Christians that opposition to killing the innocent is paramount.

Cut to me trying to find a zone captain for one of the Life Chains in the Toronto area and being told by a parish manager that it’s a busy weekend for them, because the day prior to Life Chain, they’re blessing pets for the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi.

Cut to Pope Leo XIV—my pope—acknowledging he didn’t know much about Cardinal Blase Cupich’s announced intention to give pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his efforts to support immigrants, but nevertheless saying, “It’s very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, 40 years of service in the United States Senate . . . It’s important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the Church.” To my knowledge, he has not provided a correction since.

Cut to me holding up a sign during Life Chain stating: “Abortion kills children.”

Cut to the PPS lawyer’s words: “This is categorically false in Canadian law.”

I am going mad.

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