Last Updated: Tuesday - 01/04/2011

Pro-life petition garners 5,000 names

EDMONTON — With only a few days to go before the March 12 provincial election, Marshall Deslauriers and Joana Prysko have only 5,000 signatures on a petition to press the government to stop using taxpayers' money to pay for abortions.

Although they were originally aiming for 50,000 by March 9, the Annunciation Parish members are not disappointed. The drive turned out to be an eye-opening adventure, which they had not anticipated.

"It has been an adventure travelling through the night leaving petition kits in the doors and mailboxes of Christian churches," the pair recently wrote to the WCR.

"To have most of these petitions returned to us with signatures is near miraculous."

The signatures on the petition come from people living in 81 Alberta towns and villages.

"We think this petition drive has been a resounding success in spite of the limited number of signatures we have to date," Deslauriers and Prysko wrote.

"From Bonnyville to Jasper to Lethbridge, Fort McMurray, Olds, Thorhild, Lake Isle, St. Vincent, Camrose and Devon and Duffield this petition became a crusade to stop abortion funding."

Deslauriers and Prysko claim to have received many notes of encouragement throughout the campaign.

The only "unsettling" note they received came from Calgary Bishop Fred Henry, who on Feb. 2 wrote to tell them they could not run their petition in the Calgary Diocese.

The diocese has a policy against taking up petitions in churches, Henry wrote. Virtually every week some individual or group approaches the diocese to allow a petition in its churches.

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