Group opposed to abortion loses bid for bus advertising

A group opposed to abortion has lost a Charter of Rights challenge to have its ads displayed on the outside of TransLink buses after a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled they could cause harm to women and children.

The South Coast B.C. Transportation Authority had rejected the ads, saying the graphic display of fetuses and the message “Abortion Kills Children” left the impression that most abortions were preformed after 16 weeks gestation.

The authority also argued the ad from The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform was inaccurate, because Canadian law says life starts with a live birth.

In a ruling posted online Wednesday, Justice Peter Leask said the authority did violate the centre’s freedom of expression rights by refusing the ads, but added the infringement was reasonable.

The judge says that the centre, which is based in Calgary and Brantford, Ont., was given a choice to submit a new advertisement to convey its moral opposition to abortion without using the images of fetuses to do so.

Leask says the ads had the potential to cause psychological harm to children and women because they compare women who have had abortions to “killers.”

“I believe my finding is bolstered by the content found on the website ‘endthekilling.ca,’ which was referenced in the advertisement. There, one can find many images that are much more graphic than the one in the advertisement in question, including images of dismembered fetuses.”

If the images of fetuses in the ads were not graphic, then the extreme content of the website made the transportation authority’s decision reasonable, the ruling says.

“Therefore, I find that the respondent’s decision to reject the petitioner’s advertisement was neither unreasonable nor was it disproportionate,” Leask concluded as he dismissed the application for judicial review.