An anti-abortion protest in downtown Kingston turned sour after a man threw white paint at some of the protesters’ signs.

On Tuesday, approximately 50 anti-abortion protesters, ranging from children to seniors, were spread across three Princess Street intersections, at Bagot, Wellington and King streets.

Many were equipped with large signs and flyers with images of aborted fetuses, the majority of which were labelled with a fetus’s age. One sign read: “Which child was conceived in rape?” with two ultrasound images below.

At 1:13 p.m., the man who threw white paint was arrested for mischief by Kingston Police.

More than 60 people called Kingston Police to complain about the protest. According to Const. Chris Gobeil, despite the graphic nature of the images, it’s within the legal rights of the protesters to demonstrate with the signs, as stipulated in the obscenity section of Canada’s criminal code.

“It was deemed not to be obscene,” Gobeil said. “We’re just disappointed (the protest) didn’t remain peaceful.”

The anti-abortion group is a mixture of people from Kingston and outside the city. The protest’s leader is Rosemary Connell, a co-ordinator for Show the Truth, who’s from out of town.

“We have the right to show dismembered, executed children,” Connell said, after the paint was thrown. “That’s the good thing about Canada. You can show the truth on the sidewalk.

“This is private property, and you can’t destroy someone else’s private property.”

Show the Truth is a non-denominational group “dedicated to showing the truth of abortion to the Canadian public.” Its main strategy is to show images of aborted children in the form of large signs.

Three protests were planned for Kingston, at 90-minute intervals. The Princess Street protest was the second.

When Sadie Elizabeth saw the aborted fetuses signs while she was out for work, she decided to make a sign of her own, one that read: “My body my choice!”

By the afternoon, Elizabeth had been standing by the Princess Street protesters for four hours.

“I saw a woman crying after she’d seen the images,” she said. “I wanted to remind people that we have the right to choose … and nobody should be stepping on that.”

After two hours in the sun, strangers began joining Elizabeth, buying bristol board from Dollarama to make their own signs. In the end, there were approximately 10 anti-anti-abortion protesters.

One of the people who joined Elizabeth was mother Niki Buchanan. With her one-year-old son, Dawson, sitting at her chest in a baby carrier. Buchanan held a sign that read: “Mother by choice, for choice.”

When Buchanan was walking home with her son, she said she saw Elizabeth by herself and getting heckled.

To Buchanan, the anti-abortion protesters were taking advantage of vulnerable crowds of people walking by, in particular children.

“Children that aren’t informed enough — maybe haven’t even developed the skills to be able to research and to get a second opinion — they’re seeing these signs and assuming it’s the truth,” Buchanan said.

“It’s a shame that people are abusing their right to freedom of speech and showing these images that aren’t necessarily accurate,” she continued, referring to the ages with which the fetuses were labelled.

Kingston Police have asked that people do not call to report the protests unless dangerous conditions arise.