A 2000 article told the story of Linda Gibbons, a pro-life sidewalk counselor at a clinic in Canada. Gibbons describes what she tells women who are entering the clinic:
“I’ll see a woman who is walking toward the clinic and try to talk to her. I’ve got about seven seconds. Sometimes I’ll say “You do not have to do what you came here to do” or I might say “Did you know your baby’s heart is beating?” I’m not judging them and if she doesn’t stop, if she walks right by, that’s it. We never have more than one counselor approach the woman and we never, ever block her way. She’s anxious enough as it is and it’s unfair to overwhelm her. You don’t have much time, but you try to acknowledge all the pressure and all the circumstances in her life that brought her here.”
Gibbons has “spent most of the past five years in jail serving up to six months at a time.”
In Canada, it is illegal for protesters to go near abortion clinics, even to hold a sign or hand out literature.
A neighborhood said of Gibbons:
“I cannot imagine and I have never heard her say anything abusive or hurtful, let alone scream, yell or swear. That goes for the other picketers as well. It would be out of character from what I have seen of their behaviour.”
Pro-lifers were also arrested for educating public by displaying “obscene signs”
The pro-lifer holding the sign said:
“So I had a picture of a baby and I said “what is the sexual component here? And the poor officer- he was obviously forced to do this- he said the baby was conceived by sex.”
Another woman, (Mrs. Connell) was praying near abortion clinic and was arrested. She has eight children, four of whom are adopted. Two of the adopted children were from Vietman, another two from Brazil. She takes pregnant abandoned teenagers into her home.
As one pro-lifer said of her “She doesn’t just say “have a baby” she gives them a room in her house.”
The Court wanted six months in jail for her.
Meanwhile, the same day:
“Another woman was being sentenced for mischief, you know, vandalism. She had been drunk or on drugs and had caused a huge amount of damage to someone’s property. She had a record as long as her arm and the Crown was looking for three months.”
Leonard Stern “Abortion Wars” The Ottawa Citizen Sun 28 May 2000
