Nutbars target Toronto

The world’s largest anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-homosexual, anti-feminist – but pro-life – group comes to Toronto next month, where it will be met by protesters galore.

Human Life International’s mandate is to “combat the Culture of Death,” a mission that includes abolishing abortion, restoring the patriarchy and curing homosexuals. And its leaders expect 2,000 people to attend their 18th annual world conference.

The Apr 7 to 11 convention is part of a recruitment campaign launched in the mid-90s to increase Canadian membership. And those recruitment efforts are even more important given that Revenue Canada revoked the group’s charitable organization status last month.

HLI receives the majority of its $4.7-million in revenues (a 1995 figure) from tax-deductible donations.

“The anti-choice minority in Toronto certainly seems to be increasing its activity,” says Joy Thompson, executive director of Planned Parenthood. Thompson claims that Canadian physicians, even those not known to perform abortions, are increasingly receiving threatening literature at their private residences from anti-choice groups.

There are reports that at least two dozen Ontario doctors have asked police to investigate a mass mailing entitled “Quack The Ripper” from the US-based anti-abortion group Life Dynamics Incorporated.

HLI is seen as part of that trend. A “Medical Professionals’ Day,” for which Canadian physicians can receive 8.25 credits with the College Of Family Physicians Of Canada to hear about “post-abortion syndrome,” and “abortifacient” contraceptives, is offered at the upcoming conference.

“Contraception is the precursor of abortion,” Human Life International’s web site reads. “Most contraceptive drugs and devices don’t work to prevent pregnancy – what they prevent is implantation of the newly formed human being in the uterus. Thus contraception acts as an abortifacient.”

Participants at the April conference can also attend a lecture titled “Abnormal Relations: Same-Sex Attraction And Marriage.”

And the infamous Father Paul Marx, who founded HLI in 1972, is one of the opening speakers. Marx endorses the writings of Paul Cameron, who was barred from the American Psychological Association in 1983 (perhaps in part for his recommendation that people with HIV should be branded on the face, forced to be celibate and, as a last resort, eliminated).

Homosexuals, feminists, Jews – all are part of a conspiratorial “culture of death,” according to HLI, which targets a gamut of “threats” to the pro-life movement. “[F]eminists, Freemasons, Communists, secular humanists, and the ubiquitous International Planned Parenthood Federation” are the “enemies of life and family,” Marx writes in his 1991 book, The Apostle Of Life.

“It is clear that whatever concerns HLI may have about a fetus, abortion is an issue that conveniently forms one piece of a propaganda arsenal used to build a broader movement of social reaction,” an article from the Public Policy Institute of the Planned Parenthood Federation Of America reads.

The article recounts a conversation overheard at an HLI meeting where several women were talking: “We’ve lost the abortion battle,” one woman said unhappily. “We’ve just got to go after the homosexuals now,” another replied.

Several groups are organizing protests. The Ontario Coalition Of Abortion Clinics and Anti-Racist Action are organizing buses from downtown to the International Plaza Hotel, where the conference will be held, for Apr 7. Four buses are already booked. Call (416) 969-8463.

A similarly sized, 1995 conference in Montreal was met by more than 3,000 protesters.