A Toronto pro-life group is launching a billboard campaign to speak directly to women who regret their abortions.
In an effort to bring about greater awareness of the abortion issue and its terrible consequences on women, their children and their families, the Right to Life Association of Toronto is launching a public campaign this summer in which 16 large billboards will be placed around Canada’s largest city. These strategically placed billboards are professionally designed and will display a large image of a group of women who have had abortions. The heading over the image reads, “We regret our abortions. If you do too, there’s help.” The billboards are designed by organizers of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign (SNMAC), a U.S.-led campaign to expose the pain caused by abortion.
Efforts to mount this campaign began last October, when the Right to Life Association held a gala event and invited one of the co-founders, Georgette Forney of the SNMAC, to be the keynote speaker. Forney began the campaign with Janet Morana of Priests for Life and it has had enormous success in North America. It is now spreading its message to Britain, Spain and other European countries.
Forney had an abortion as a young woman and when she finally came to terms with it 19 years later, the devastation she felt and the subsequent anger at not having her pain acknowledged spurned her to activism. She and Morana run a slick, visually effective campaign using well-designed posters, television and radio ads featuring women who have suffered abortion, including celebrities like Jennifer O’Neil and Dr. Alveda C. King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King.
The Right to Life Association hopes that the campaign this summer will garner media attention that will help to further the message that abortion is bad for women and their families. The effectiveness of this message cannot be underestimated when one considers where the abortion debate is at currently. We are no longer debating the humanity of the unborn – that has been clearly established. The Silent No More Campaign is hitting at the very heart of the rights claim, exposing abortion as an action that can never be good for a woman, let alone a human right.
The Association is launching a media page on its web-site at http://www.rtl-toronto.org that will have extensive information about the Silent No More Campaign and the research surrounding post-abortion complications. Pro-life volunteers will also be hitting the streets with thousands of handouts relevant to the campaign. Natalie Hudson is executive director of the Right to Life Association of Toronto.
