Charlottetown mayor says no bylaw to stop graphic anti abortion images

Charlottetown Mayor Clifford J. Lee

CHARLOTTETOWN — Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee says there’s nothing the city can do to stop the display of graphic images from anti-abortion protesters.

That’s despite a recent online petition calling for the city to enact a bylaw that would prohibit the distribution and display of graphic images of dead fetuses.

Lee says he understands people’s concerns about the images, but the city’s lawyers have told him a bylaw would violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Last week, the anti-abortion group Show the Truth was in P.E.I. protesting a conference at UPEI called Abortion The Unfinished Revolution.

Show the Truth supporters passed out pamphlets showing images of supposedly aborted fetuses and held large signs with similar images along some Charlottetown streets.

Lee says as long as the protests are peaceful and not pornographic the city can’t restrict them.