Protest violence against unborn children: ‘We need to love not just in words’

Lane Walker will be in court March 18, facing a charge stemming from his decision to carry out a “protest/vigil at Every Woman’s Abortion Clinic” (Everywoman’s Health Centre), on Commercial Drive at Broadway.

He has protested the killing of children four times since the fall, three times at Everywoman’s (October 1, December 28, January 6) and once on Oak Street in from of BC Women’s Hospital (December 28).

An interview following the January 6 event explains his motivation:

“When we are told that we need to love not just in words, but in deeds, I think that challenge around how our words and how our actions line up is really important,” Walker told LifeSiteNews in a recent interview.

“And some of the ways it gets talked about, if you really believe that this is the killing of an unborn child, then maybe we should be acting like it,” he continued.

Neither federal nor provincial laws offer any protection for unborn children.

Walker has issued a release under the header ‘Stop Sanctioning the Killing of Children: A Liturgical, Non-Violent response to the Access to Abortion Services Act.”

He wrote:

In remembrance and celebration of life and honouring non-violence. A protest against abortion and all taking of innocent human life.

In open defiance of the Access to Abortion Services Act and a public call to resist and renounce the killing of children for personal or political gain. The vigil will be directed at the Access to Abortion Services Act, which functionally make it a crime to protest a crime, which abortion is, a crime! . . .

When governments operate outside the law and become corrupt, what are law abiding citizens required to do? The Abortion Services Act is a present-day example of a government policy and legislation, operating outside legitimate law. In situations such as these, citizens have a moral obligation, even a sacred duty to disobey those laws, civilly and non-violently.

Walker inserted a timely quote from Martin Luther King (January 19 was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States):

Now about injunctions. We have an injunction and we’re going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is to be true to what you said on paper.

If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they haven’t committed themselves to that over there.

But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.

And so just as I say we aren’t going to let any dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren’t going to let any injunction turn us around.

Along with MLK, Walker points to figures such as Gandhi and Daniel Berrigan as exemplars. Although most might see him as a pro-life activist, he and his family have long been committed to a broader agenda than is evidenced in most of the pro-life movement.

LifeSiteNews, a pro-life/conservative/Catholic media group, wrote very positively about Walker in a January 9 article: “Pro-life hero arrested in Vancouver for opposing ‘bubble zone’ laws protecting abortion centers.” (Walker responded briefly on his Facebook page: “Hero is an overstatement.”)

LifeSiteNews was clear about Walker’s Christian motivations and what they entail:

Walker challenged pro-lifers to step outside their comfort zones and publicly defend the unborn in an effort to spread the pro-life message of life and hope.

“I can definitely say that that tension and that division between public life and personal life is very difficult because many people really appreciate my sense of, you know, we really need to have a meaningful relationship with Jesus,” he explained.

“It needs to be a real thing that happens, not just a doctrine where you believe, not just an apologetics that we argue and defend,” Walker continued.

“It should be and needs to be an actual experience of who Jesus is in our lives,” he declared.

Walker is more rigorous, and broader, in his determination to protect life than most pro-lifers, or Christians.

Walker, his wife and children have lived in community for some 30 years in the centre of the Downtown Eastside. Their community formed Jackson Avenue Housing Co-op, and is still going strong.

The breadth of Walker’s vision becomes more clear in the rest of his release:

December 28 is a day in-remembrance of the killing of innocent children by King Herod. This event is known liturgically as ‘the Feast of the Holy Innocents.’

Herod, that infamous, corrupt politician who used backroom meetings, public consultations, counterintelligence, political double speak and finally brutal police crack down, to prevent the birth of Jesus (his political rival).

Herod’s political repression was an attempt to maintain, manipulate and control the volatile and unstable region of Israel.

We have recently seen increased global use of violence and the ideological justification for violent political responses in the Russian-Ukrainian and the Israel-Palestine conflicts. The all too easily justified violence has resulted in military actions that produced massive ‘casualties to civilians and innocents.’ In these present-day conflicts, we see an all too common acceptance of killing innocent people, ‘collateral damage’ for political gain.

In Canada we have seen in recent years increased poverty, homeless camps, repression of civil protests in Ottawa and, in a few short years, our country has become a leader in the killing of our elderly, sick and vulnerable. Where does the violence stop if not with our most vulnerable?

Here in Vancouver at Everywoman’s Health Centre, our local Abortuary, this commercial service primarily targets and sells the easiest sell, the most vulnerable and easiest to ignore: the killing of 13 week and younger, unborn children.

Walker’s community has seen itself as part of the Seamless Garment Network, now known as Consistent Life Network, which states:

We are a network of organizations and individuals committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today’s world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, the death penalty and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a “consistent ethic of life.”

One endorser of Consistent Life Network posted on Walker’s Facebook page January 13. John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe began:

Lane Walker. Lane Walker. Lane Walker.

When you see a story about Lane Walker, pay attention. He’s a Canadian pro-life activist, with an intelligent and coherent view of life. He’s a street activist, Dorothy Day flavor, living and working in a grungy section of Vancouver for years and years.

He was arrested recently, at an abortion clinic. He’s a serious guy, struggling to protect the poor and broken – including unborn children – which means that he doesn’t fit in anyone’s box. Further, he is serious about trying to lead a holy life.

His work emerges from his thoughts about Jesus Christ, who lived among sinners and suffered and died and rose among silly scattered scrambled folks. Which means that when he tries to explain why he loves the poor in Vancouver and also wants to protect unborn children, he wants to talk about prayer

While he would still support many of Consistent Life Network’s aims, Walker believes some participants in that movement are inconsistent (especially regarding abortion). He continues on what seems a rather lonely path, not adhering to a conservative pro-life position, nor to a liberal social justice approach.

That may be due to his focus on holiness, which he believes must guide Christians. “Holiness is both a personal and a public requirement,” he told me. He believes that Christian expressions unduly influenced by pietism and social justice concerns are “both malformed.”

Walker is also committed to a liturgical approach, having chosen December 28 (Holy Innocents’ Day) and January 6 (Epiphany) for his protests.

Walker is no stranger to public protests, nor to being arrested, though he was most active in the 1990s. A ‘partial action history,’ details dozens of protests and many arrests, from 1989 (“protests the opening of Vancouver’s first free-standing abortion clinic”) to the fall of 2000.

A good number of local Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, were jailed in the early 1990s following abortion protests, sometimes for many months. Walker himself has spent time in jail – “a year or a year and a half total, but that is spread out as various sentences, two months, three months four months, six months. . . .”

Not all Walker’s protests were related to abortion; for example:

• August 1995: protest at the Chinese Embassy and the White House in Washington D C. Threatened with arrest for kneeling and praying in front of the White House gates. (Three 10 x 10 origami peace cranes symbolizing PEACE – LIFE – JUSTICE were set-up and then the cranes were carried to the White House to show the connection between China’s one-child abortion policy and America’s massive military spending.)
• August 1995; protested the glorification of military hardware as family entertainment at the Abbotsford Airshow. Threatened with arrest.
• November 1997; protest APEC at Canada Place. Arrested – released and the charges dropped. (The concern raised was the secrecy regarding military sales and the lack of accountability of APEC members, who could make international economic deals that would have grave consequences to the general public and the environment, with little or no consultation from the general public. )

Why so long between his earlier protests and the recent ones? “The short answer is Jesus led me – through speaking to me personally and the general teaching about take up the cross and follow!”

Walker will face a charge of mischief when he appears in court March 18. Originally he had been charged with a violation of the Access to Abortion Services Act. He sees his interaction with the police and the reduced charge as part of a societal “apathy or indifference to the act of killing innocent unborn children.”

In his January 6 release he said (using the third person), “Mr. Walker engaged the police and the public in civil conversations,” adding:

After two hours of conversation with the police, Mr. Walker assured the officers that he was specifically there to express his open defiance of the immoral legislation; at 2 pm, he was charged with violation of the Access to Abortion services Act and Mr. Walkers charges were later reduced to a simple mischief charge.

Instead of dealing with the truth of the situation and stated intentions of Mr. Walker, to oppose abortion and defy the legislation, the police try and treat the issue as a minor civil disturbance, which would be the equivalence of charging the civil rights marchers with unlawful assembly or disorderly conduct for marching without a permit.

He wrote recently that he wants to be a “peacemaker (Matthew 5:9)” in his interactions with the police, recognizing that . . .

. . . they have a truly difficult job because high conflict situations can be very stressful to be in, and I was moved in a level of compassion towards them because police, all across Canada, are experiencing a lot of the all too common social agitation, aggravation and anger, especially given the constant protesting and even threats of violence on a wide range of social issues.

He adds, “My own . . . endeavours to to be part of Jesus’ company of ‘blessed’ definitely begin in recognition of my own deep needs for repentance and forgiveness,” and hopes “for His sake my actions do not betray His love and His kingdom of righteousness / justice.”