Tori Sutton
Staff Reporter
An organization protesting abortion rolled into Stratford last Friday, setting up a graphic display in the city’s east end.

The anti-abortion organization Show The Truth made a stop in the city as part of a five-day tour of southwestern Ontario, protesting at the corner of Ontario Street and C.H. Meier Boulevard over the lunch hour.

Other stops on the group’s tour included Windsor, Chatham, Sarnia, Woodstock and St. Thomas.
Show The Truth spokesperson Rosemary Connell said her group had attracted much attention from both the public and the media throughout their tour, which was spurred in part by the recent  induction of Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada.

Insp. Dennis Jackson, of the Stratford Police Service, said the organization contacted local police to notify them of their protest, which was peaceful. As of Monday morning, he had no record of complaints received about the demonstration, though he said if any were received they could have been included in the original incident report.

An officer was patrolling the area during the protest and did not encounter any problems. Jackson said no laws were broken.
However, one mother of a child participating in a local children’s camp is upset her daughter was subjected to the gruesome images of aborted fetuses.

Deb Kingsley’s 10-year-old daughter was participating in the Zehr’s kids camp. The children passed the protesters while walking back to the store from a swimming outing at the Festival Inn.

“It was really, really disturbing and my daughter is having a tough time with it,” she said, in an interview earlier this week.

“For the most part, I think she’s a pretty well-balanced little girl. She watches TV, she’s seen violence but at least when it’s on TV, or on the computer or at the movies I have the opportunity to censor what she’s seeing.”

Abortion is a controversial topic and she stressed she had no problem with what the group was protesting, but took exception to the way they were presenting their case, which she said stripped her of the right, as a parent, to protect her daughter from images she wasn’t old enough to see or understand.

Recently, a new baby was welcomed into the family which Kingsley thinks has made it even harder for her daughter, who suffered from nightmares all weekend and brought up the incident several times.

On Monday, Kingsley contacted the local police about the incident. She said the officer she spoke with advised her to file an application to the office of the Justice of the Peace, who will then decide if she is within her rights to charge the organization. She plans on submitting the application.

As well, after learning that Connell – one of the organization’s founders who lives in Burnt River, near Peterborough – has children and is a school teacher, Kingsley contacted the local Children’s Aid Society to share her concern. She has also contacted her lawyer about the matter.

Considering recent media reports where other parents expressed similar concern with Friday’s protest, Kingsley is hoping to bring together a group of parents, grandparents and citizens to speak up about the incident.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to subject children to that kind of material – it’s not socially responsible. Where do we go, do we not have some sort of responsibility as a community to stand up and say enough is enough and this is wrong?”