Yesterday Linda Gibbons, a Canadian who is a Christian and a staunch pro-lifer, was released from prison after five years. When I first read about her, I was kind of surprised at her circumstances. She has been in and out of prison for the last ten years due to her stance on abortion and her zealous activism. That surprised me. Although Canada does not have as much freedom of speech as the United States, I still didn’t expect someone to be in prison due to speaking out against abortion. Then I kept reading.
First of all, it is important to understand the
differences between Canada and the United States. Canada also guarantees freedom of speech but
not under the exact same terms. Section
2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of speech as
a “fundamental freedom,” but section 1 of the same document allows the
government to pass laws that limit freedom of expression so long as the limits
are reasonable and can be justified. As
you can see, that “exception” is extremely broad and allows the government a
manner of control over their freedom of speech, legitimized by their
charter. One example is that it is
illegal to speak out against homosexuality in Canada; it is classified as
illegal under the term “hate speech.”
Canada also differs from the United States when it
comes to abortion. There are no legal
restrictions on abortion, so it is considered a valid medical route. That being said, there are activists in
Canada that are fighting against it. Which
brings me back to Linda Gibbons.
When I first read about Linda Gibbons, it sounded as
though she was being imprisoned for being an activist. Naturally, I was very upset. However, there is more to the story. The way that she had been protesting abortion
is by protesting outside of abortion clinics.
There are some discrepancies on what all was going on, some reports
indicate that she was supposedly harassing people, others indicate that she was
peacefully protesting. Her arrests have
been on the basis of harassment, and most recently, violation of an injunction
which order her not to come within 150 meters of an abortion clinic.
The Canadian publication National Post did an interview with her and her responses sound a
lot like what Peter and John said to the Jewish elders in Acts 4 and 5. Others have suggested that her zeal would be
better directed in counseling.
I appreciate Linda Gibbons’s attitude toward the
life of the unborn. However, I want to
ask a serious question. How much good is
she doing? Some of the most encouraging
pro-life campaigns I’ve heard of come in the form of pregnancy centers that
give frightened and isolated pregnant women a viable alternative. Those have done a lot of good. How much good does protesting outside of
abortion clinics do? Let me ask it
another way. Why didn’t the apostles
march straight up to the Jewish leaders and protest against them and demand
that they repent? It wouldn’t have done
much good.
We ought never to back down from preaching the
truth. We should, however, think about
what our actions show and what the wisest approach to take is. While there is a respectable and legal way to
preach the truth, we ought to take it.
It is not until those options are depleted that we ought to act in
rebellion to the law. Let’s avoid acting
in such a way that would give someone an excuse to call us loud, self-righteous
bigots and do what God told us through Paul in the letter to the Ephesians:
Speak the truth in love. Always remember
Colossians 4:6: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so
that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
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