There is no doubt about it: Bill Whatcott is a controversial figure, both inside and outside the pro-life movement.Bill's modus operandi is to create leaflets containing obscene pictures pertaining to those sins he wishes to denounce-- usually either sodomy or abortion-- and then stick them in people's mailboxes.
Needless to say, finding pictures of aborted babies and anal warts will freak people out and raise a lot of ruckus.
And a lot of people, even pro-lifers, disapprove of that method.
Including me.
Notwithstanding the fact I think his tactics are bad, I do believe that he has earned his place in pro-life history.
I think Bill's heart is in the right place and I like the guy. And it is undeniable that the man has guts. Although that's not the only thing he does. He operates Free North America website and tries to promote his issues there.
I think he has a compelling story. Here it is:
I believe it was Jesus Christ who brought me into the pro-life movement. As a child I was filled with hate and rejected life for both born and unborn people. At age 14 I was sent to Juvenile Detention Centre for trying to kill a police officer in Strathroy Ont. At age 18 I talked a friend into helping me randomly murder people at London's Eatons Centre. The only reason we never carried out our plan was because I bumped into a drug dealer on my way to buy an illegal handgun and on an impulse decided to purchase 50 hits of LSD to permanently blow my own and my friend's mind instead. The terrifying LSD overdose and my suicide attempt at an overpass after being discharged from London's Victoria Hospital while still psychotic from the LSD led me on a search for God. I found him around July 1986 while sniffing glue in a graveyard in Windsor. After repenting of my sin and asking Jesus Christ into my life while in the graveyard I found my way to Hamilton and entered the Teen Challenge Program, a Christian drug and alcohol treatment centre.
Prior to my stay at Teen Challenge I defined my self as "pro-choice" and as a socialist. My upbringing in foster homes and government institutions, including public school inevitably imparted the left wing and secular world view upon me. In Teen Challenge I remember listening to a discussion between a resident and a staff member who worked there. The staff was asked why abortion was wrong and he replied "because it is murder." Instantly I went from pro-choice to pro-life upon hearing that explanation. I never knew before that day a baby who is a complete human being made in God's image was growing in his/her mom's body.
Unfortunately I quickly backslid for a time after leaving Teen Challenge and got into drug dealing, sexual perversion and then armed robbery on a London Transit bus and hostage taking. These antics, along with fighting and weapons offenses while in prison eventually lead me to to Millbook Maximum Security Prison in Peterborough Ontario on my 20th birthday. This was a tough prison and I was scared. To survive I made a knife out of my tooth brush and soon became bizarre in my behaviour. I set a fire in the prison's license plate factory and wrote a death threat to a guard and signed it in my own blood. After giving the guard my death threat I was soon taken away in restraints to segregation, my cell was searched and my weapons were found. For the next six months I was kept in solitary confinement. While down there I read the Bible every day, prayed, screamed, smashed walls, flooded my cell and attacked two inmates I was able to get at when out of my segregation cell. During those months of solitary I also debated the right to life for unborn children with a pro-abortion Catholic inmate a few cells down from mine. Indeed while my life circumstances seemed dire, the truth is even in that segregation cell my apologetic for the unborn was passionate and reasonably articulate.
By December 1989 I left the prison and drug scene for good. I was 21 years old and had no place to live, but Jesus Christ was very close to me and looked after me in ways I never imagined. I became active in the Pentecostal church and soon met folks involved in Operation Rescue.Somewhere around February 1989 I picketed Morgantaler's Harbour Street Abortuary and went to Parliament Hill with another picket and wept thinking about all the babies being slaughtered in Canada. By age 22 I entered the Practical Nursing program and the persecution I endured by pro-abortion students and teachers along with seeing a woman under anesthesia cry she murdered her baby after undergoing an abortion further cemented my pro-life values. In 1994 I became a Sidewalk Counselor for Toronto's Aid to Women and in September of the same year was arrested for picketing and praying in front of Scott's abortuary and sentenced to six months in jail. Over the next 5 years I was arrested and jailed more than a dozen times for showing signs of children murdered by abortion. In the Don Jail I became known by name and by my pro-life stand amongst the guards. Some guards were very abusive and hostile while others agreed with me. For a period of 18 months I also sat on the Interim Pro-life Newspaper editorial board.
In October 1999 I moved to Saskatchewan and continued my pro-life/ pro-family ministry there. I ran for Mayor in Regina in 2000 promising to shut down Planned Parenthood and the Regina Hospital's abortion facilities. I also opposed tax funded homosexual art and quickly incurred the wrath of the homosexuals during my electoral campaign. In 2001 I was able to form a group of Canadians and Americans who went to Mexico during an fierce attempt to legalize abortion there. Our graphic signs were shown throughout the nation and one sign was burned in front of the Mexican legislature by pro-aborts. My activities in Regina, including an aggressive province wide graphic abortion sign campaign soon had me getting arrested and jailed in Saskatchewan. I made many enemies in the province. The homosexuals sent the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission after me and their kangaroo court saddled me with a $17500 fine and a lifetime ban on saying the word "sodomite" or criticizing homosexuality ever again. Planned Parenthood and the Saskatchewan Association for Licensed Practical Nurses also went after me and imposed a $15,000 fine and indefinite suspension on my nursing license. This punishment was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and eventually overturned marking a great victory for all pro-life professionals in Canada.
In 2002 I moved to Edmonton. My current activities have included running for mayor of Edmonton on a pro-life/ pro-family platform which incurred the wrath of Edmonton's homosexuals, media and pro-abortionists. I have also started the www.freenorthamerica.ca message board. We will see where God takes me from here......
Sincerely
Bill Whatcott
"Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool."
Isaiah 1:18
