Miracles on Gerrard Street.

Rescuing babies has always been part of the pro-life movement. The author introduces us to the remarkable story of Toronto's AID To Women

"It's not that I hated the baby, but how could I feed it, clothe it?"

Sonja (not her real name) was a 20-year-old refugee from Kenya just newly arrived in Canada when she discovered she was pregnant. "I was so shocked. I fell down." She had no status, no health care, no income other than some savings, no place of her own (she was staying with a friend).

So when she saw a sign advertising "abortion information" above the second building on Gerrard Street, she lost no time calling.

When she realized she had contacted Aid to Women, a pro-life pregnancy crisis centre, she hung up. Then an information package arrived in the mail, which included pictures of aborted babies: "That made me feel bad." She called back to tell them not to send anything else.

Robert Hinchey answered the phone. "Robert asked me, what is the reason to have the baby aborted," Sonya recalls. And he asked, if her financial needs were met would she still have an abortion?

And Sonja said, no she wouldn't.

Four months ago she gave birth to a baby boy. She had refugee status by then, and so has social assistance and health care. She has an apartment which Robert helped her to find, she was given a crib and baby clothes and Aid to Women has, and will, help her out with cash when she runs short.

She named her baby Robert, and on this sunny August afternoon, as he is being passed around and admired in the Aid to Women living room, she is on her way to register for a computer programming course at a nearby college.

Her eyes fill with tears when she speaks of the baby's father, still in Kenya. He knows about the baby, in fact, he spoke to her on the phone and urged her not to abort. She doesn't know if he will ever see his son, but she hopes someday they will be reunited.

In the meantime, "I thank God I saw this number and called it," Sonja says, her face lighting up. "Aid to Women, it's the best place. It's like being home to me. It's a miracle and Robert is a miracle baby."

Tell us about the early days...

Sonja isn't the only one to mention miracles when speaking about Aid to Women. Dick Cochrane, who took over the centre in 1987, saw miracles aplenty in those early years.

A retired businessman, Cochrane first volunteered at Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) office in 1984 "sticking stamps on envelopes," he laughs. That was before he was CLC's part-time accountant.

"I kept praying for a long time that I would get something to do that was satisfying to God," recalls Cochrane, a devout Catholic, "I guess that was the answer to my prayer."

In 1987 he was asked by David Little, who had started a pro-life pregnancy crisis centre in New Brunswick, to manage a similar centre in Toronto.

After initially declining, Cochrane finally agreed, and in October of that year, he took on the task of running Aid to Women, which had been operating fitfully for about a year. He was joined in this endeavour by Rita Hill, a nurse from Trinidad. (She died in 1996.)

"I remember the first young girl I counselled. She was a nurse, from France, a very, very pretty girl. I tried and tried and tried. I remember going home sick to my stomach thinking, O God, I don't think I can take this kind of work."

But he didn't give up. "You build up your own approach," Cochrane, now 75, says. And integral to his approach is a genuine compassion for the mother. "I can imagine the pregnant woman, lonely, no one to help her, in the wee small hours of the morning, weeping," he says. "They've hit rock bottom. They've been used, they have no self esteem."

It doesn't help to make moral judgements, in fact, Cochrane considers that "arrogance. To say abortion is wrong is not enough. We all make mistakes." Rather, it's when the woman realizes that "this guy really cares about me...that's when the penny drops. If we're successful with the woman, then the birth of the baby is a natural consequence.

He and Hill had no idea how they were doing until they did a follow-up. They randomly chose 12 women from their records "where we thought we had failed." Eight of these women had decided against abortion.

"It changed my whole thinking," Cochrane relates. He realized that the success came "through God's grace only. I or any other counsellor was just an instrument."

Money troubles

Aid to Women was also plagued by a persistent "money crunch" in those years. When, in March 1998. David Little decided not to be personally involved with the Toronto centre, Cochrane elected to run it himself. "I didn't want to let it die...The work was good work."

He had the unequivocal support of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) president Jim Hughes, who was "marvellous. I'm eternally grateful to him. He always helped me out."

Nevertheless, the financial struggle was constant and often overwhelming. With the assistance of Michael Creron in 1988, Cochrane solicited donations from advertisers in The Interim, the national pro-life paper. He even promised a tax receipt, but while he had applied for a charitable tax number, for months no news was forthcoming.

"I was getting desperate. I decided to make a novena to the Immaculate Conception. And on the 8th of December, I got a call from the lawyer, telling me, 'You got your tax number.'"

Still the bills piled up. Cochrane even appealed to the landlord, whom he persuaded to donate a month's free rent. He also acted on a tip from pro-life journalist Frank Kennedy about a certain "rich lady" (who will remain anonymous). "I wrote her a letter, but received no response. I was desperate, so I decided to call her."

"'How much money do you need?' she asked. At the moment, on my desk were $2,500 in bills. 'That's a loaded question,' I said.

"'I'll come in tomorrow with a cheque for $5,000.'"

And she did. Moreover, she gave a further donation of the same amount some time later. Cochrane didn't hear from her after that. "I think her accountants were quite annoyed with her," he laughs.

Sometimes money arrived in the nick of time, out of nowhere. "One day, I got an envelope addressed to me, with five one-hundred dollar bills in it," he says.

The money was always used to good purpose. Aid to Women would go "as far as we had to go" to help an expectant mother. That remains true to this day. Aid to Women will pay rent, outstanding bills, find accomodation, buy diapers, formula, provide baby clothes, pay the hospital bill if a woman has no medical coverage. St. Joseph's Hospital in particular was extremely generous in this regard, Cochrane says, often waiving the fees altogether.

Rescues and the Way Inn

While Aid to Women struggled on, pro-lifers in Toronto in the late 80s became involved in rescue operations--a response to abortion developed in the United States in which pro-lifers non-violently block the entrance to a clinic so that women seeking abortions are unable to enter. In doing so, pro-lifers risk being arrested and jailed.

A number of rescues were held at Henry Morgentaler's illegal abortuary on Harbord Street. In 1989 Morgentaler secured an injunction which prohibited all prolife activity--including prayer--within 100 metres of his clinic. Those who violated the injunction faced the possibility of a jail sentence.

Reverend Ken Campbell, a Baptist minister from Milton, ON, had opened the Way Inn right beside Morgentaler's abortuary in 1984, to serve as a centre for pro-life activism. With the advent of the injunction, and its lease coming to an end, the Way Inn needed to relocate.

It was Joanne Dieleman, a volunteer at the Way Inn, who suggested sharing accomodation with Aid to Women. The two groups leased a space on Carlton Street in late 1989. This arrangement, along with support coming from Business for Life in the early nineties, eased the financial strain somewhat.

The 64-year-old Dieleman, a mother of eight children and a foster mother to countless more, became involved in pro-life work in 1984; her motivation for doing so was "my commitment to Christ. I feel very burdened in my heart for unborn children and for their mothers," says the member of the Canadian Reformed Church. "It wasn't something I really wanted to do. In end, I'm compelled."

While initially the Way Inn was a centre for "mostly demonstrating and picketing," it wasn't long before pro-lifers began sidewalk-counselling. Dieleman credits Steve Jalsevac, a director at CLC, for this development. Sidewalk-counselling had begun in the States, and Jalsevac "came to Harbord street and told us, you really have to start being aware of women going in and start talking to them." In fact, CLC began holding sidewalk-counselling training sessions at that time.

It made sense, Dieleman realized, to "go the extra mile...We came out of Campaign Life and were more aggressive that way.

Still, "we were really scared...I find counselling very difficult. You're imposing on someone's private life. It's much easier if they come to you.

"Once we got [the women] away from the abortuary, we took them to Aid to Women," Dieleman says. "Other groups were not willing to handle emergencies.

The last move

By 1992, the large scale rescues had tapered off. In May of that year, Morgentaler's Harbord Street aborturary was demolished by a bomb (a crime that remains unsolved to this day). He opened another abortuary on Bayview Avenue, and Aid to Women, along with the Way Inn, moved yet again, to the address where they remain to this day.

It's literally a life-saving location. It was Dieleman who noticed that the building right beside the "Cabbagetown Women's Centre," an abortuary run by Dr. Buruiana on Gerrard Street, was vacant. Women will enter Aid to Women by mistake, thinking they are going into the abortion clinic. Dieleman estimates that there have been as many as five in one day. Certainly, there seem to be two such occurences every week.

During its nine years at Gerrard Street, the work of Aid to Women has remained essentially the same, but time has wrought some changes.

Pro - life counsellors have to contend with legal harrassment. In 1994 the New Democrat government initiated a $500,000 lawsuit against 18 pro-life activists (two of whom were later dropped from the suit) and obtained an injunction which prohibited picketing or sidewalk-counselling within a specified distance at the three downtown abortuaries. (That is 60 feet from the entrance of the Scott and Buruiana clinics, and 30 feet from the entrance of the Colodny clinic).

Mike Harris's Conservative government, and present Attorney General David Young, have taken no action to overturn this injunction. From August 1994, Linda Gibbons, a grandmother whose heroism merits a story unto itself, has spent most of her time in jail. She moved to Western Canada this July to care for her aging parents and was unavailable for comment.

Gibbons is missed in Toronto; she has counselled in jail as well as out, and is renowned for her compassion and zeal, notes Robert Hinchey, who along with Joanne Dieleman and George Eygenraam, does counselling at Aid to Women.

Wanted: a reliable car

The soft-spoken Hinchey hails from Cape Breton. He started sidewalk counselling 1984 until he went back home in 1991. He resumed his involvement upon his return to Toronto in 1996.

Once a self-employed businessman, Hinchey now counsels fulltime, and while he clearly loves the work, he admits it can be stressful: "There's a lot at stake. The baby's life, the women, the harm that will befall them spiritually, emotionally, physically."

Hinchey recalls a couple who sought an abortion because the mother, an American, had no health coverage. He offered help when they came out of the abortuary, and in fact, they changed their mind. The husband returned to the aborturary to reverse the $800 credit card charge for a late-term abortion.

When the baby was born, St. Patrick Church's charismatic prayer group paid the hospital charges of $1,500. "When you do God's will, things work out," says Hinchey, a Catholic. Not long after, the couple came into a small inheritance, and they returned to made a donation to Aid to Women.

Hinchey has plenty of stories to tell, but his main concern right now is his 1984 Volvo, which is falling apart. It won't make it past the emissions test in November, not to mention the trouble with the clutch and the muffler. He's hoping someone can donate a car, ideally, a vehicle large enough to accomodate cribs, car seats, expectant mothers and various small children. (A tax receipt is available on request at the estimated value of the vehicle).

Necessary for any number of errands attendant on helping mothers, a car also proves useful when delivering boxes for the Hallowe'en fundraising campaign, just around the corner.

When the Toronto Catholic school board voted a few years ago not to support Unicef boxes, citing that organization's ties to anti-life agencies, including Planned Parenthood, Interim columnist Frank Kennedy proposed that it support boxes for Aid to Women instead. Last year, 40 of the 180 Catholic schools participated, and children going door-to-door on Hallowe'en raised $9,000 for Aid to Women. That money is used directly to help the mothers.

Also wanted: people

The other pressing need is for volunteers willing to provide a "peaceful, prayerful witness" outside the abortuaries, says Hinchey. Their presence is "perhaps the only love those babies may know." And it makes a difference; Hinchey tells of a woman who noticed the sign held by weekly picketer Emidio Galea as she walked towards the abortuary. It caused her to change her mind.

On this Friday afternoon when Sonja and baby Robert drop by, Dieleman and Hinchey are joined by Sharon Hills, a tall gracious woman of 48, who began picketing regularly in 1988. "The negative things some people say, it started to bother me. People say get a life." Now Hills assists Hinchey with his counselling, and prays.

She holds a well-worn booklet, prayers put together by Msgr. Philip Thomas Reilly of New York, founder of "The helpers of God's precious infants." He leads a group every Saturday outside abortion mills in that city. "Prayer is an integral part of the pro-life movement, Hills, a convert to Catholicism, points out.

She, Joanne and Robert ponder the dearth of volunteers. People are tired, they agree; the struggle has been long, hard, seemingly endless. Moreover, some of the faithful, quiet heroes have gone to their eternal reward. Among those sorely missed are Tom Brown, Bill McArthur, and Leo Beecher.

Others stalwart prolifers, such as Mike Lynch, Mary and Helen Burnie, Stella Corbett, Hetty Boot, to mention a few, have been forced by illness or family commitments to curtail their involvement.

1,000 babies saved

Despite all these difficulties, in the 14 years Aid to Women has been in existence, Dieleman estimates that at least 1,000 children have been saved. "It boggles the mind," Hills says, "to think those children wouldn't be." But, she adds, "it would be worth it even if only one child has been saved."

Not to mention the mothers. "I've seen too much of the agony that goes with abortion," Dieleman says, "Eventually, I believe, the abortion issue will be turned around because of that -- because women will testify to the fact that abortion is not the solution."

How do the counsellors cope with this life and death struggle day in and day out? The answer seems to be deep faith. It is through the grace of God that the women and babies are saved, Hinchey points out. "You do what you can.

Dieleman agrees. "You have to eventually just let go, you can't carry it on your shoulders," she says. Her last thought at night usually is, "I'm going to sleep God, the world is yours."

And the the failures and travail seem to melt away when she holds a baby in her arms. "I always say we've got the best job in the pro-life movement," Dieleman laughs, "We get to hold the babies."

Those wishing to donatc to, or volunteeer at Aid to Women, may call 416-921-6016 or write Aid to Women, 300 Gerrard Street East, Toronto, ON, M5A 2G7.

Lianne Laurence is a freelance writer based in Toronto.