Warning: You may find the images below, even though they are likely fake, disturbing.
Remember those images, allegedly of aborted fetuses, that wound up in people’s mailboxes with Important Election Information written on the envelope?
They’ve shown up on scores of posters held by anti-choice activists on Gerrard between Sherbourne and Jarvis, and on Jarvis between Gerrard and Carlton. The images on 3-by-4-foot placards are graphic representations of mangled fetuses, plainly geared towards terrorizing women on their way to the Scott Clinic, one of Toronto’s most longstanding facilities offering serves to women choosing to terminate their pregnancies.
The action is being undertaken by showthetruth.ca, and they’re using the same images that people have been receiving in the mail, with nothing else inside the envelope but a photo. At the front of the line of posters, a large poster reads, You’re about to see the truth about abortion.”
One of the activists said to me. “If you’re upset about the posters, you should be upset about abortion, because this is what it is.”
Not so fast.
“The truth about abortion?” says Scott Clinic manager Maria Corsillo. “Those pictures of aborted fetuses are bigger than you or I. A womb that size doesn’t exist. If you’re an organization dedicated to the truth, why make the fetus zillions of times larger than it is.”
Corsillo explains that women typically seek abortions after eight to nine weeks of gestation, in which case the embryonic sac would be about one centimetre in diameter.
“No one can advertise such patent falsehood and get away with it except Right to Life.”
She also said that the clinic has warned patients coming into the office about the demonstration, urging them to ignore it.
susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole
