Source: VDLC
London’s very own Viewer Discretion Legislation Coalition has continued to reach mass embracement, sparking interest and hope in support of protecting the public from graphic anti-abortion propaganda.
VDLC was founded by Katie Dean and Natalie Wakim in October of last year after receiving unsolicited flyers and warnings of graphic imagery on the sidewalk from friends and neighbours. After deciding to create a change that will prohibit the use of graphic images in public spaces.
“The Viewer Discretion Legislation Coalition is a group of like-minded individuals that all want to see some change with regards to how anti-abortion graphic images are being used, and are being delivered to private homes. We’re hoping to eventually make changes for the street signs as well, but our big focus here right now is the pamphlets and how they are being distributed to private homes. It started in London in the fall of 2020, when the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform had their interns in our city.” shares co-founder Dean.
In less than a year since the group started, VDLC has obtained 1800 members in their Facebook group for updates on where protestors with graphic images are located, and allows for their Rapid Response Team to arrive to the location with counter protest signs and assistance for the public to travel without viewing the public graphic imagery.
Source: VDLC
With donations, volunteers, and rallies, Dean is overwhelmed with the outstanding support from Londoners. “People were very upset seeing the signs on street corners, children were being traumatized, people who suffered pregnancy loss, it was really hard on them. It made it a lot worse with these pamphlets being delivered to homes, you know you go home to your safe space and you open your mailbox and the images are there so it was really traumatizing for a lot of people and it triggered a lot of trauma”.
VDLC has since expanded outside of its roots in London to streets of Brampton, Milton, and Ottawa for Ontario with great support from city councillors. As for plans for expanding outside of the province, Dean is excited to announce a VDLC chapter is forming in Calgary, Alberta. “We are starting to work with a woman out in Calgary who is just as passionate about this cause as we are. We are going to start expanding out there, and she is going to be reaching out to the members of provincial parliament in Alberta to ask for like-minded people to their legislature. That would be huge if we had it in two provinces in Canada a Bill asking for this kind of change.”
On March 8, NDP MPP Terence Kernaghan presented a Private Member’s Bill to Queen’s Park titled as the Viewer Discretion Act (images of fetuses), also known as Bill #259.
Bill #259 for Ontario is aimed to create a provincial law that is not to take away a group’s freedom of expression, but rather to ask that groups use envelopes to deliver their pamphlets with graphic imagery to respect privacy and viewer consent.
Kernaghan is part of the London MPPs that have co-authored Bill #259 “Being forced to view these gorey, terrible images can reawaken a lot of trauma for people who have suffered pregnancy loss or other events. Quite frankly, that just seems unacceptable. Why would we hurt people when they chose not to look at that sort of thing?”
An emphasis on people not knowing what to do when seeing these graphic images in their mailboxes and on their streets was a driving factor of the real importance VDLC and Bill #259 is for the well being of the public.
“People have been quite appreciative of this legislation being tabled, and I must commend the Viewer Discretion Legislation Coalition headed by Katie Dean, she’s been phenomenal. She’s brought the word out across the province has been spreading the message about Bill #259 and has been instrumental with petitions, with letter writing campaigns, emailing MPPs, and letting them know that people deserve to have their consent respected” voices Kernaghan.
To support Bill #259 and VDLC, a link to the provincial petition is available here. A GoFundMe has also been set up for donations to go towards advertisement costs to raise awareness.
A London rally in support of Bill #259 will be held on September 18 at Commissioners and Wellington outside of Victoria Hospital, an area that frequents graphic images displayed by protestors.
Dean emphasizes that the issue at hand is not about pro-choice or anti-abortion, but simply consent to seeing graphic imagery that persists “This is a human decency issue, this isn’t about your stance on abortion. This is more about having common decency. There’s lots of ways to express your opinion and talk to people about your stance. Shaming women and traumatizing children is not the way to do it”.
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