Humber College students encountered an unusual sight while getting off the bus last Tuesday.
In the distance between the bus stop and the college entrance, about a dozen anti-abortionists stood with graphic posters of aborted fetuses and distributed pamphlets to passersby.
Keturah Dumaine, the coordinator of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform anti-abortion group, smiled warmly while wearing an olive-green sweater and carrying a camera.
“We are advocating for human rights for all human beings from the moment that human life begins, which, according to science, is at the moment of fertilization,” Dumaine said.
The anti-abortion group defines itself on its website as an “educational human rights organization dedicated to speaking out on behalf of the youngest and most vulnerable members of the human family.”
Dumaine said the unborn are being “decapitated, dismembered and disembowelled” every day in Canada.
“Showing these pictures is the only way that these children can speak for themselves,” she said. “They have no voice, but we can see their broken bodies that have been destroyed through abortion.”
Behind Dumaine, three Humber students got into a loud verbal altercation with the volunteers of the group.
One student in the altercation, Isabelle Silva, said the anti-abortion group only cares about the fetus while it is inside the womb.
“They don’t care about $10 a day daycare or the kids in foster care or that the mother does not have the financial means or the emotional capacity to sustain the child properly,” Silva said.
She said being born in unfavourable circumstances will “traumatize a child.”
Julia Piane, another student in the altercation, said she felt disgusted by the posters she saw when she got out of the bus.
“They’re taking the life away from real, living, breathing women and putting it on something that’s growing inside them,” Piane said.
She said the issue at hand is about having bodily autonomy and freedom to make one’s own decisions.
Silva said her friends were not arguing for everyone to have an abortion but to be able to make their own choice about whether they want to go ahead with a pregnancy.
“The whole point is that I need to be able to make my own decisions,” Silva said.
“The group is targeting this population (at college) specifically because there are vulnerable kids straight out of high school here,” she said.
Near the volunteers of the Reform group, some students sat along the wall with small placards supporting abortion.
One placard read, “Abortion saves lives.”
A student held one of Eleanor Drobet's placard stating, "Abortion Saves Lives" near the college entrance on Tuesday. Photo credit: Anusha Siddiqui
The designer of the placards, a Funeral Services student Eleanor Drobet, said when she found out the anti-abortion group was going to be there, she decided to be there, too.
“We’re all just trying to get to class and they purposely stood here where they knew they would get a lot of foot traffic,” Drobet said.
She said she likes to be peaceful, so instead of yelling, she just brought her placards and some friends.
Drobet said she has heard some “bizarre” things from the Reform group.
“They are preaching that victims of sexual assault should keep their child because why would the victims make another victim by aborting the fetus,” Drobet said.
She said they’re trying to control women’s bodies.
“This isn’t just about the baby or the fetus or whatever they want to call it. It is about women’s bodies and the fact that they are trying to control our bodies,” she said.
Drobet said the Reform group had come last semester also, and she decided to be prepared this time.
Humber College sent an email on March 12 stating the group had the right to assemble on college property under the Charter of Rights and Freedom.
Dumaine said a child in the fetus is a separate human from the woman and not a part of the woman’s body.
“People bring up body autonomy because they care about women, which is amazing, and I agree with it. However, her rights end where her child’s rights begin,” Dumaine said.