New law needed to force down abortion banners: councillor

For about two months, protesters have hung graphic anti-abortion banners from Lincoln Alexander Parkway overpasses. Now a Mountain councillor wants the city to create new bylaws tostop it.

Coun. Terry Whitehead is working with city legal staff to draft a pair of motions. One would establish a bylaw prohibiting banners from being hung from highway overpasses. The other will deal with the type of images that can be displayed on banners.

On Monday, a car crashed under where the banner hung on theLinc.

Councillors have gotten hundreds of calls about the banners, said the Ward 8 councillor. Theyre distracting and upsetting, and he wants them gone.

Its not taking a position, he said. I want to make that clear.

But when youre free-hanging banners over an expressway with high speeds, I think it is a risk, and I think our role as a council is to ensure we mitigate that risk as much as possible.

• Related:Graphic anti-abortion banner hangs over Monday morning car crash

Whitehead wants to work with the federal government on the issue. Hes even talking to a pro-choice organization that can lend some knowledge of how to get rid of the banners, adding that he has no position on the abortion issue.

Whitehead expects to formally give notice of his motions at a general issues committee meeting later this month.

He worries about kids seeing the images, he said.

I want to make sure were not desensitizing or impacting our children, and the nature of this campaign is certainly exposing them to very graphic images, he said.

Protesters from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform are not breaking any federal, provincial or municipal laws by hanging the banners, said Const. Debbie McGreal-Dinnig of Hamilton Police Services on Nov. 4.

They are exercising their freedom of speech, which is set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for all Canadians.

Stephanie Gray, co-founder of the group, told CBC Hamilton earlier this fall that the banners will continue.

Our philosophy is as long as children are being killed, the evidence will be brought to people's attention.

Coun. Scott Duvallsaid the city hoped to use its sign bylaw to stop the group, but demonstrators are attaching the banner to their bodies.