Press Release
For Immediate Release
TORONTO, July 10th, 2006 - The Right to Life Association of Toronto (www.rtl-toronto.org) is featuring the Silent No More Awareness Campaign through a series of outdoor advertisements that will run from the week of July 10th to August 6th. One large billboard and fifteen street level ads will be on display around downtown Toronto. The image on the billboards shows a large group of women who have had abortions and lived to regret them, including Dr. Alveda C. King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King.
The Campaign began in 2002 when co-founders Janet Morana and Georgette Forney decided that women suffering from abortion needed to be reached and given a message that they are not alone and that help is available.
Studies have shown that post-traumatic reactions are found among women who abort, and especially among teens and low-income women. A major study published this year in the Journal of Child Psychology, the largest of its kind, found that “those having an abortion had elevated rates of subsequent mental health problems including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviours and substance use disorders.” Researchers noted that the association persisted even after adjusting for confounding factors.
“You cannot argue with the lived experience of these women. For them, abortion is a physically painful, humiliating experience that has denied them motherhood and left them coping with long-term grief reactions, and they are not supposed to talk about that?” asks Natalie Hudson, the Executive Director of the Right to Life Association of Toronto. “Society tends to shut down discussion about the after-math of abortion. People will talk about the ills of smoking or breast cancer, but no one dares mention the “a-word” despite the numerous studies that have documented high levels of post traumatic stress disorder and other behavioural problems related to it.”
In Canada today there are over 2.5 million women have experienced abortion and the silence is deafening. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign is sharing the truth about abortion’s negative impact on women. The emotional and physical pain of abortion will no longer be shrouded in secrecy and silence, but exposed and healed.
For more information about the Campaign contact Canadian Representative Angelina Steenstra or the Executive Director of Toronto Right to Life, Natalie Hudson at 416-483-7869.
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