Queen's Jubilee Medals

Now there's putting your politics into full view.  Queen Elizabeth might not have envisioned her Diamond Jubilee medals being awarded to such heroines, nominated by Canadian Conservative Members of Parliament who wished to acknowledge the humane activism of anti-abortion crusaders, but two such awards have now been given out to two worthy recipients.

One to Linda Gibbons of Toronto, a grandmother who has faced numerous charges for breaching court-ordered "bubble zones" where she was prohibited from harassing women arriving at abortion clinics for medical intervention in unwanted pregnancies.  Ms. Gibbons has spent an inordinate amount of time imprisoned for her flouting of the law, in her zeal to protect the unborn.

And another awarded to an equally zealous colleague of Ms. Gibbons, 38-year-old Mary Wagner, herself charged on a number of occasions with mischief and for violating court orders at abortion clinics. Originally choosing to become a nun, she decided instead to dedicate herself to the protection of the unborn. She had been nominated to receive the medal by Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott. 

Such proposed medal awards are supposed to be vetted by the office of the Governor General's Chancellery of Honours.  As the Queen's representative in Canada, the Governor General would vet the nomination and either agree or disagree that such an award is appropriate.  It is not clear that this diplomatic protocol had in fact been followed in these particular instances.

In honour of the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Year, each MP in Parliament was allotted 30 nominations for the award.  Ms. Wagner, in fact is being held in incarceration, awaiting trial after being arrested yet again at an abortion clinic in clear violation of her probation in earlier such charges.

She had entered the Bloor Street West Village Women's Clinic, approached patients in the waiting room while on probation for mischief charges, and prohibited from coming within 200 metres of the clinic or of contacting any of its staff.  Her friend and colleague has been charged for violating judicial orders meant to protect women at clinics from harassment; for which offence she has become a familiar figure.

Many view Ms. Gibbons as a martyred saint for the cause of saving unborn babies from death.  Others see her as a fanatic whose self-appointed role in life is to cause untold misery to women in need of an unwelcome pregnancy solution in removing a foetus in development.