B.C. laws trample on citizens who protest abortion

Bubble zones and censorship laws treat British Columbians differently in the eyes of legal system

Cecilia von Dehn waits to be put into a police wagon while VPD officers chat with a handcuffed filmmaker John 
Stuart (in white shirt). Von Dehn, and Donald Spratt were arrested for protesting in an abortion access zone outside the Every Woman's Health Centre on Commercial Drive in June, 2009. Hetherington was later released. John Hof / Special to The B.C. Catholic.

If a B.C. politician tells you abortion is just a federal manner they're wrong. While the feds do mandate the legality of abortion, our province facilitates abortions by trampling the rights of protesters:

In 1995 the Glen Clark NDP Government instituted the "Access to Abortion Services Act,"(AASA) which pro-life activists refer to as the "bubble zone" law.

The AASA states the zones around abortion clinics extend 50 metres from the facility and can be amended by the lieutenant governor in the case of "different dimensions for different facilities." The access zones around an abortion provider's home extend 160 metres.

The law also says no person can engage in protest, sidewalk interference (ministering), or besetting (harassing), abortion facility workers.

With the passage of the bubble zone law, pro-lifers were effectively shut out of exposing abortion in front of clinics. Instead they turned to exposing abortion through freedom of information requests. But after Hof and Ted Gerk, who also works for Campaign Life Coalition B.C., had success uncovering some troubling abortion truths, the NDP government added an amendment to the freedom and information law in 2001. It effectively censored abortion information.

Hof and Gerk had learned there was a special government panel called the Abortion Services Working Groups, which was comprised of cabinet ministers meeting with abortion activists. They also discovered that 15 babies survived abortions between 1995 and 1998 at Vancouver General Hospital, while investigating the death of a woman from abortion complications.

Read the full story at The B.C. Catholic website.