Cissy von Dehn distributes information about the bubble zone outside a Vancouver abortion facility.
Cynthia (Sissy) von Dehn is a respected matriarch of British Columbia’s pro-life movement. She has stood at the forefront of Canada’s pro-life battles for 40 years. She converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism when she was 10 and has attempted to live her life according to Catholic teaching on faith and family since. She and her husband have been married for over four decades and they have six children – one of whom is deceased.
As a registered nurse, von Dehn first became aware of abortion in the 1960s. She had been working in England at the time, in the midwifery department of a hospital, when abortion was widely introduced. “It became an issue of conscience,” Sissy says. “Many of the doctors and nurses quit so as not to violate their conscience.” Von Dehn’s conscience would not allow her to assist in an abortion. She returned to Canada in 1969, but soon realized that even in Canada, she could not escape the horrors of abortion. Since then, she has undertaken many projects and battles on behalf of Canada’s children in the womb.
Two of von Dehn’s most notable accomplishments have been Gianna House and fighting B.C.’s bubble zone against pro-life activism.
Gianna House began as a response to Henry Morgentaler’s free-standing abortuary in Vancouver. Von Dehn was notifying neighbours that an abortuary was coming to their neighbourhood when she noticed a house for sale. “She put everything on the line and purchased the house,” says John Hof, the president of Campaign Life Coalition B.C.
“(The abortuary) had a sign saying ‘Every Woman’s Health Centre’ and we had a sign stating ‘Every Woman’s Help Centre,'” von Dehn told The Interim. Gianna House became a centre of pro-life activism in the area. It offered support and counselling to women in crisis pregnancy situations, as well as information to women on alternatives to abortion, and it housed regular prayer meetings for an end to abortion. Finally, Gianna House served as a base for pro-lifers who picketed the abortuary across the street.
Although pregnant women never stayed at the house – “We felt it was to close to the abortion clinic,” she explains – Gianna House kept a contact list of places where women in crisis pregnancy situations could seek shelter.
Gianna House’s neighbourhood presence and effectiveness infuriated those who oversaw the abortuary. Von Dehn soon learned that any activity or pro-life display on Gianna House’s front lawn would lead to a visit from local law enforcement. “The police were there all the time,” von Dehn recalls. “They tried to stop us from praying, but we told them it was none of their business what we were praying for.”
This controversy became the catalyst for British Columbia’s infamous bubble zone, enacted in the mid-1990s. The law created a legal bubble around abortuaries in which pro-life activism was prohibited (no pro-life information can be presented near the abortion facility, although pro-abortion information can). Gianna House was forced to take down many of its pro-life signs and police even attempted to curtail the house’s pro-life prayer meetings. Under the law, pro-lifers found themselves harassed by police whenever they passed through the bubble zone to gain access to Gianna House or even if they walked to the corner store to buy a bag of chips.
Von Dehn recognized this law as an attempt to shut down pro-life activism in the province by curtailing the free speech rights of pro-lifers. She knew her only choice was to fight it. While the bubble zone curtailed picketing activities, “it was not as effective as they had wanted.” Gianna House was a private home and as such, it could continue to host pro-life activities. The abortuary eventually moved, taking its bubble zone with it. However, several pro-life activists were arrested in the meantime for violating the bubble zone. Additionally, many pro-life activists became discouraged by the arrests and disappeared from the movement.
The decline in pro-life activism became von Dehn’s largest concern during the fight against the bubble zone. When pro-lifers are reluctant to identify themselves publicly as pro-life, the movement loses the opportunity to help women in immediate need, she says. “To the pro-abortionists, we are all one person,” saying pro-lifers will be persecuted regardless of how they approach the issue. “A lack of activism is a more effective bubble zone than any provincial legislation,” she said.
As far as the legal struggle against the bubble zone, von Dehn left the nuts-and-bolts to John Hof. “He looked after the details, but I knew I had to support him,” she said. The two are close friends who still picket together every Friday at a Vancouver abortuary.
For his part, Hof states that the prayers and encouragement he received from von Dehn while fighting the bubble zone have helped him to continue. “There is no one I have met in the British Columbia pro-life movement who has been more committed, dedicated and willing to sacrifice for the pro-life cause than Sissy von Den,” he says. “She put everything on the line with Gianna House, which became the base of operation for pro-life activism in the province, and said this is what I’m willing to do. She is front-line activist who is there for those most harmed by abortion.”
Von Dehn is now active with Nurses for Life, an Ontario-based national activist group for pro-life nurses.
