Lawyers are calling it the most important civil rights case of the decade.
The Ontario Attorney General is trying to persuade the courts to grant a blanket injunction banning pro-life activity in front of 23 locations across the province this month.
As well as the injunction, Attorney General Marion Boyd has also singled out 18 pro-lifers from across the province and launched a law suit against them.
Lawyers for the pro-lifers will be arguing that the case is a clear-cut civil rights situation. They will say that the pro-lifers who are on the streets counselling are offering information to pregnant women which they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. They say the government is trying to take away their constitutional right to free speech and assembly through this attempt to gag them.
Lawyers representing the pro-life defendants, the government and the abortion clinics, have finished the examinations of the witnesses and will be making their arguments before Justice J. Adams on January 10, 1994.
The pro-life movement considers the injunction application by the government to be politically motivated and intended to put a stop to a movement which has been a thorn in its side and which is opposed to its policies.
In an unprecedented decision, Justice Adams ruled that the Attorney General, Marion Boyd, should be examined under oath by lawyers to determine her motivation in launching this action against the pro-life movement.
David Brown, Peter Jervis and Peter Lauwers are the three main lawyers representing the pro-life defendants. They have engaged in an aggressive defence of the 18 pro-lifers in the face of a daunting government action which is lavishly funded with taxpayers’ dollars.
