The national headquarters of Choose Life Canada opened on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 16 at 87 Harbord Street in Toronto, directly adjacent to Henry Morgentaler’s abortion clinic. Founder Ken Campbell, evangelist, and member of his Emmanuel Baptist Church in Milton, Ontario, along with 500 or more well wishers and friends (throughout the day), held a six pm prayer and dedication service on the shared steps of the abortuary. The name of the new Choose Life counseling centre is “The Way Inn.”

Reverend Campbell explained that Choose Life Canada was formed on December 8, 1984, in anticipation of the Harbord Street abortion clinics reopening for business after the ”perverse” jury verdict of the day before. The verdict acquitted Morgentaler of two charges of conspiring to procure abortions. The centre includes a small but attractive restaurant on the first floor, and conference rooms for counseling and a screening room downstairs. Here Bernard Nathanson’s The Silent Scream can be seen. The centre will also offer a 24-hour toll-free telephone service to provide pregnant women with alternatives to abortion.

At the dedication ceremony Reverend Campbell introduced Marie Maxwell, eight months pregnant who is in her fourth pregnancy. The first three ended in abortions. She spoke of her recent conversion to Christianity and the lack of information and the pro-abortion slant of hospital counseling that helped convince her three times that she had no choice but to abort her earlier pregnancies. She said she had chosen to be a part of Life Canada.

The third speaker was Beverly Hadland, head of Abortion Outreach Centres, a pro-life organization that concentrates on post-abortion counseling. She addressed herself to “fathers in the audience,” mentioning a recent poll which stated 58 per cent of the male population supports abortion on demand. Abortion she stated was far more for the convenience of men than women. She noted that it is only since the advent of the Industrial Revolution that men leave homes and families to work, thus becoming detached from the family. She warned, It takes a man to be pro-life,” and “Fathers, don’t be strangers to your families.”

The Reverend Hudson Hilsden, Chairman of the Social Action Committee of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, representing 19 denominations, closed the ceremony with a prayer dedicating the new counseling centre of God.

When asked to comment on the opening of Choose Life Canada’s headquarters on   Father’s Day, Reverend Campbell replied:

It is because of the person who plays the most irresponsible part in this whole scene. A public opinion poll, published June 15 in a Toronto newspaper, showed that a minority of women favour abortion on demand but a majority of men do. There is a general attitude of male irresponsibility fostered by contemporary male-image lifestyles ads such as “me and the boys” beer advertising that promotes men taking off on their wives and families… The Old Testament concludes with Malachi saying that the hearts of the fathers must be turned to the children and the children to the fathers:

Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. If the mentality of the Morgentaler enterprise becomes accepted as a humane civilized response to a social dilemma then we have embraced, philosophically (in embryo) the philosophy that produced Auschwitz…(Morgentaler) who is attempting to seduce the nation into embracing the Auschwitz mentality as the appropriate response to a human dilemma. Today it is fathers saying “get rid of the unwanted child,” tomorrow it will be sons saying “get rid of the unwanted old moms, who are putting this welfare state into bankruptcy.” Then it will be the blacks and then the Jews and then it’s Auschwitz everywhere.

It is a human rights issue. The first person I brought here when we established our leasehold was Dr. Bernard Nathanson because of his strong pro-life statements as a man of science and medicine and he is an atheist. Abortion is a human rights issue, not a religious issue.

During his dedication speech, Reverend Campbell criticized a “prominent protestant church leader” for suggesting that the manner in which the current Catholic school-funding program in Ontario was implemented, was analogous to Hitler-like behavior. At the same time, this very same leader does not support measures to remove the true manifestation, of the Hitler in the community, the abortuary at 85 Harbord Street.

Reverend Campbell is also the founder of Renaissance International, Moderate Majority and Teens for Tomorrow. James Masters and his wife Susan will be in charge of “The Way Inn” offering a “loving alternative” to the abortuary next door.

CAS