British Columbia activist Jim Demers’s long-standing battle with the provincial government’s Access to Abortion Services Act may be coming to a close.

Demers, of Nelson, B.C., received a two-year suspended sentence in February for a series of protests outside Vancouver-area abortion clinics.

Provincial Court Judge Jack McGivern ruled that Demers would be arrested and fined up to $500 if he appears outside an abortuary over the next two years.

The judge chose to ignore Demers’s argument that Canadian and international law should recognize the right to life and security of person of the unborn child.

Demers’s action began in December 1996 with a series of actions designed to test the province’s “bubble-zone” legislation which restricts pro-life witnessing near abortion clinics.

Throughout the ordeal, Demers and counsel Paul Formby attempted to convince the court that Charter of Rights references to “everyone” being afforded the right to life, liberty and security of person should extend to the unborn child.

Demers made a number of personal sacrifices to effect his protest, including spending most of the Christmas and New Year’s season behind bars, separated from his wife and five children.