In November 1985, Henry Morgentaler lectured on abortion to the student body of the University of New Brunswick. The visit was, naturally enough, controversial and the student organizers subsequently agreed to give equal time for the pro-life view. On January 29, 1986, New Brunswick Right to Life sponsored a visit to Fredericton by Dr. John Willke. Dr. Willke, president of the International right t Life Federation, is also president of the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Willke’s first engagement of the day was on a Fredericton-area radio talk show known as “Reaction.” Here he stated that every third baby in the U.S. is killed by abortion and that in Canada every sixth baby is killed by abortion. He mentioned Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver as areas where particularly large numbers of abortions are done. He said that many women abort their babies simply because of the wrong sex – usually female.
20,000 people killed
Dr. Willke mentioned Michelangelo as one who would have been aborted if rape were allowed as a reason for abortion. In any case, he remarked that women always recover from the horror of rape, but they do not always recover from having killed their unborn child. He said that a woman knows that her unborn child is innocent of the father’s crime. She soon realizes that the crime was not her fault and that she has nothing to be ashamed of, but if she aborts her child, she knows that she herself had made the decision to abort.
During the call-in period, one woman complained to Dr. Willke that some pro-lifers had “behaved rather badly” during Morgentaler’s University of N.B. lectures. While stating the need for behaviour, Dr. Willke defended pro-lifers. He stated that abortion is a very emotional issue, that pro-lifers really do care about the mothers and their babies. Later, he pointed out that it is not the abortionists who provide alternatives to abortion, or help the mothers after an abortion, although pro-lifers do.
Dr. Willke’s next engagement was a luncheon given in his honour at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel by New Brunswick Right to Life, where he spoke on the topic, “Abortion and Public Policy.” Among the guests of honour were Antoinette Wasson, president of W.E.B.A., (Women Exploited by Abortion), and Fay Frenette, Liberal M.P. for the Moncton Riding. Beautiful pro-life music was provided by Rev. Mark Welch of the Wesleyan Church, Moncton. At this luncheon Dr. Willke spoke about his trips to Europe. The audience reacted with horror when he mentioned that last year twenty thousand people were killed in Holland by euthanasia on demand because of the refusal of judges to convict those caught committing the crime.
Dr. Willke spoke of the 3,000 feminists in Spain, who were angered by the refusal of most Spanish doctors to support that country’s new abortion laws. At a feminist conference they took part in two abortions. Two women were taken into an adjoining conference room where the lives of their innocent healthy unborn babies were snuffed out. The two victims were then presented in bottles in the hall where the feminists cheered loudly, and almost all of them signed confessions, claiming responsibility. Dr. Willke compared this event to events in ancient Rome where Romans watched and cheered as the Christians were fed to the lions.
Dr. Willke spoke about the California Holocaust where 16,433 unborn baby corpses were found preserved in formaldehyde. Pro-abortionists tried to prevent these little ones from receiving a Christian burial. After a three-year battle, these little ones were finally buried, although requests for a religious ceremony were refused by Los Angeles County officials.
The Silent Scream
Following the luncheon, Dr. Willke held a press conference with N.B. Right to Life and W.E.B.A. At this press conference, Dr. Willke spoke about The Silent Scream. Pro-abortionists, he pointed out, alarmed by the way this film is hurting their cause, are claiming it is a fraud. Dr. Willke said, “In spite of the objections, they have produced no other film to back up those charges. Before the movie they were saying that this was only a cell, not life. Now they are arguing about why the heartbeat speeds up.” He said 28 million Americans saw this film last year, and that about 6 per cent moved in the pro-life direction last year, stated, “we are past the time when abortion is accepted by our culture.”
He stated, “we are past the time when abortion is accepted by our culture.” We are dealing with a living human life in the womb, from the first cell stage. We hope to protect that life through the due process of the law, the same as all other lives are protected.”
At this point, Bonita M. Kirk, President of N.B. Right to Life invited Antoinette Wasson to join them in the interview. Antoinette Wasson said that she had had an abortion. She said, “The doctors said it was just a blob of blood. If I knew then, what I know now, my baby would still be alive.” Wasson told the press that one girl in Fredericton had asked her if the emotional pain from her abortion would ever dull. She also mentioned the fact that there are many women in hospital psychiatric wards who are mentally ill because of their abortion. These women would not be there if they had been offered a real way out of their dilemma by the abortionists instead of killing their child.
Finally, at the University of New Brunswick, Dr. Willke gave his two talks. In the afternoon he spoke on “Abortion: The Tide Has Turned,” and in the evening his lecture was titled “Medical Ethics and the Question of Human Abortion.” The second talk was given especially for the University of N.B. nursing students.
Picketers don’t bomb ‘clinics’
Dr. Willke spoke against the bombings of abortion clinics, stating they have harmed the pro-life cause. On the other hand, he made it quite clear that those responsible have never been members of the pro-life movement. He pointed out that though the abortionists have tried to pin the blame particularly on peaceful, pro-life clinic picketers, it is the abortionists themselves who provoke the property violence. Even if the peaceful picketers were absent, the bombings would still have occurred, because in most cases the property violence was provoked because of the violence done to a particular innocent unborn child. Men whose girlfriends killed their child, and grandparents whose daughters killed their child, devastated by the loss of their own flesh and blood without their knowledge or consent, have committed these property crimes. The way Dr. Willke put it was, “They wanted to get even.”
Dr. Willke told us of an actual incident where a man revealed to his wife, Barbara, his intention to blow up an abortion clinic. Needless to say, she spent some time trying to get him to change his mind. Fortunately, the man did not perform the bombing. What made this particular man so upset was the abortion of his only granddaughter, which she had without his knowledge. The abortion was doing damaging to her uterus, that she is probably sterile for life.
Dr. Willke also remarked that although he could not prove it, he is convinced that at least two of the abortion bombings were done by the abortionists themselves to collect the insurance. So successful, he said, were the pro-life picketers at these clinics in saving mothers and their babies right at their door, that these clinics were going out of business. There are clinics, which have closed down because of such successful picketing.
During Morgentaler’s visit to Fredericton in November, one individual had accused him of having been found guilty of performing unsanitary abortions by the Quebec Medical Association. This incident, which has been well documented, refers to his re-use of surgical instruments, which meant that he risked spreading infection just to save a little money. Morgentaler called this man an example of the pro-life fanatics, rather than properly answering this serious charge.
When this same man told Dr. Willke about this incident during one of Dr. Willke’s lectures, he responded by describing the clinics in the Unite States. Dr. Willke stated that hospital abortions were much safer than clinic abortions. He was not of course suggesting that hospitals were safe for abortion, for abortion is not safe under any circumstances. Dr. Willke pointed out that hospitals at least have equipment to try and deal with an emergency whenever an abortion goes wrong. He stated that clinics do not have such equipment.
