Four of the remaining 22 pro-lifers in British Columbia jails have taken their protest a step further by exercising non-compliance behind jail walls. Alberta’s Western Report reports June 19 that this has earned them a spell in solitary.
Involved are four young women: Corinne Larsen, 22; Catherine Wills, 32; Melinda Anderson, 18; and Kathryn Davies, 23. They refused to report for work; they refused to obey an order; they refused solid food. They would not, their-word statement of May 30 said, “comply with an unjust system that sanctions, financially supports and protects” those who kill the unborn.
Two Toronto pro-lifers in U.S. jail
A June 17 Operation Rescue in Pittsburgh, Penn., led to the arrest of 53 people. Six of the rescuers – one of whom is a juvenile – were linked together with kryptonite locks.
The five adults are now in Erie County Jail. The forty-seven other rescuers, including William De Marois and Peter Hendricks of Toronto, are being held in the Mayview Insane Asylum. All rescuers are refusing to identify themselves other than as “John” or “Jane Doe.” The juvenile is the son of Donna Johanns of Buffalo, N.Y., a wheelchair-bound woman who took part in the most recent Toronto rescue at Scott’s abortuary. Her son, Earl James, is being held in a juvenile detention centre.
All the rescuers will appear in court on June 27, 1989.
Toronto injunction meets defiance
Henry Morgentaler is complaining that the court injunction against pro-lifers is not being observed, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported June 17. By that date police had laid a total of 20 charges for breach of the peace in addition to three charges at the beginning of May. “The paradise around the clinic is slowly going to hell,” Morgentaler told the Globe.
For Morgentaler “paradise” means an uninterrupted flow of money for killing, “hell” people praying, or quietly opposing his gruesome executions.