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STRATHMORE, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) — An Alberta pro-life organization has condemned a city council’s decision to restrict the distribution of images of all unborn mammals.
The pro-life group, the Wilberforce Project (TWP), recently denounced a bylaw passed July 26 by the town of Strathmore, Alberta, mandating that any images of unborn mammals must be enclosed in an envelope with a warning label.
“This bylaw, which deals with important constitutional questions, was passed with irresponsible haste and without any meaningful public consultation, so why are we surprised that the result is this wacky?” TWP Executive Director Stephanie Fennelly told the Western Standard.
“The town council passed the bylaw without conducting a legal review of the proposed bylaw,” she added.
According to the new bylaw, “any materials that contain the image of a fetus must be enclosed in a non-transparent envelope with a warning label and the return address of the sender. Violators will face fines of up $1000.00.”
TWP explained that while the bylaw was intended to prevent pro-life groups from distributing images showing the humanity of unborn babies, the bylaw further restricts images of any unborn mammal.
“In other words, in an attempt to censor pro-lifers, Strathmore Town Council has functionally banned distributing fliers of ultrasound images of baby elephants door to door,” TWP said in a petition against the bylaw.
Fennelly voiced concern that the bylaw reveals that the Strathmore town council “believes it can regulate what opinions the citizens of Strathmore can have.”
“Strathmore’s Town Council ought to spend more time learning how to draft a bylaw and less time regulating the beliefs of their citizens,” she declared.
The bylaw has likewise been condemned by local resident Jen Chiasson who told Strathmore Now she is worried that the bylaw “imposes on our Section 2 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which includes the freedom of the press and other media of communication, and the reason why I think this is because it is stepping outside the bound of what Canada Post itself, which is federally regulated, has defined to be mailable within Canada.”
She also voiced concern over the town defining images of fetuses as “graphic,” saying, “Graphic just to be a fetus, not even a mutated or dismembered fetus, but just to be a fetus is really unsettling for me in a family community.”
Strathmore is not the only Albertan city to restrict pro-life advocacy. In May, a Calgary bylaw mandated that flyers with graphic images of aborted babies, or “fetuses” as it says, “must be concealed in an opaque envelope, with a graphic content warning, and include the name and address of the sender, when delivered to homes.”
Following this, the pro-life advocacy group Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) told LifeSiteNews they plan to legally challenge the new bylaw.
According to CCRB, the bylaw not only censors abortion victim photography but bans “ultrasound images of naturally developing pre-born children, hiding from Calgarians both the beautiful reality of pre-born life.”
In response to the bylaw, TWP launched a petition to call upon the town of Strathmore to rescind the law “because this bylaw is over-broad in its wording and, even more worryingly, its stated purpose is offensive to freedom of speech.”
To add your voice to defend showing images of the humanity and beauty of the unborn, click here.
1 million names against abortion Join us in urging the Supreme Court to stop the killing