Silent No More in Canada

An effort to get post-abortive women to tell their stories - and about the negative effects abortion has had upon them - has come to Canada after starting in the United States.

The Canadian arm of Silent No More has begun under the leadership of Denise Mountenay, the Alberta-based head of Together for Life Ministries and the author of Forgiven of Murder, a book that is now into its third printing and which describes her own experiences with abortion. Silent No More's focus is on breaking the virtual curtain of silence and secrecy that has surrounded the abortion issue more or less ever since the procedure attained widespread legality in North America.

The roots of the Canadian initiative were in a trip Mountenay took to Dallas, Tx. last June to take part with about 60 post-abortive American women - including Norma McCorvey of Roe v. Wade fame - in a Silent No More gathering. About 1,000 affidavits from women across the United States who had had abortions, and had come to regret them, were presented there.

The event was relevant for Mountenay because she herself had undergone an abortion at a Buffalo, N.Y. abortuary. She was also asked to be part of a panel of six women who participated in a press conference.

"They asked me if I would start up Silent No More in Canada," Mountenay recalled. "I already knew in my heart we needed to do this. I had been praying for years and years that other post-abortive women would 'come out of the closet,' so to speak."

Mountenay hoped that her efforts here would also allow post-abortive women to realize that they were not alone in their experiences and that help was available to them.

A dilemma facing Mountenay was what she would do with notarized affidavits from Canadian woman once she had collected them. Providentially, that complication was solved when she received a phone call from Peter Ryan of New Brunswick Right to Life. He was looking for such documents to counter a court challenge by Henry Morgentaler, who is seeking to obtain public funding for his abortuary in that province.

So far, several dozen women have submitted affidavits or are in the process of doing so. Mountenay anticipates many more will come forward.

"Most (women), I believe, are suffering in silence," she said. "I've talked to many, many women over the years. As these post-abortive women share their own testimonies about the negative impact abortion has had on their lives, they will be the catalysts who turn this hideous procedure upside down."

She recalled one woman who was unable to even utter the "a" word because of the pain associated with the experience. "I know there are hundreds of thousands of women out there fighting depression. The biggest consequences of abortion, based on women who have called me, are depression and infertility."

Mountenay has also been greatly concerned with the abortion-breast cancer link, and the apparent effort to discount or cover up the phenomenon.

To publicize the need for affidavits, Mountenay has placed ads in newspapers across Canada, soliciting testimonies from women who have undergone abortions. "What I'm trying to do is find women in every province who are post-abortive and who will become leaders in their provinces. We need funding for advertising brochures and outreach. We also need to work with crisis pregnancy centres, because they do post-abortion counselling."

Mountenay's efforts must be striking a raw nerve with the pro-abortion element in Canada, because it has put up a countering website that seeks to tell the stories of women who allege their abortions were positive experiences. The site is advertised as a partnership between "Left Lucy Communications" and the Pro-Choice Action Network.

Worse yet, Mountenay has been receiving "nasty" phone calls and e-mails from individuals apparently trying to derail her efforts. The intimidation tactics have been causing more than a few people to wonder just how "pro-choice" the Canadian pro-choice movement is.

Unfazed, Mountenay said she's confident that Silent No More can become "the stone that brings down the Goliath of abortion … It's going to grow. I know there are thousands out there."