A long row of anti-abortion protesters lined Kingsway in Burnaby Saturday, silently holding signs that read “Abortion Kills Children” and “Jesus Forgives & Heals.”
Dubbed a “Life Chain,” the event is held across Canada and the U.S. on the first Sunday in October every year.
“Life Chain is a peaceful and prayerful public witness of pro-life individuals standing for 90 minutes praying for our nation and for an end to abortion,” states a description on the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver’s website. “It is a visual statement of solidarity by the Christian community that abortion kills children and that the church supports the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception until natural death.”
Colleen Stevenson, a demonstrator who has participated in about 20 Life Chains, told the NOW she was at the event to raise awareness about Canadian laws on abortion and about other options and support available to women with unwanted pregnancies.
“If they knew that there was an option, they might consider it,” she said. “If they knew that there was somebody to help them and that, even if their family maybe doesn’t support them, that there’s other people that would gladly help them with food or clothing or even a place to live if there was somebody who was needing that – if they knew that, maybe they wouldn’t feel so awful.”
When asked if the demonstration Sunday got that message across, Stevenson said she was open to other ideas but that demonstrators need to grab the public’s attention to get conversations started.
“I’d love to find a way to get the message across,” she said, “and if this doesn’t work, it would be great to have ideas from even the public: How do we share the message in a way that puts it out to the public, that’s not threatening, that’s just available?”
