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Ottawa resident Diane Germain agreed. The 68-year-old said she thought the campaign was “in poor taste” and that seeing the pamphlet in her mailbox made her “sick.”

“I just felt that it was distasteful,” Germain said, “and I don’t think they should have had his picture right there, where the (fetus) was at the front (of the flyer.) That was absolutely disgusting.”

But, according to Jonathon Van Maren, a spokesman for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, the shock value of seeing the graphic image is necessary to transmit the pro-life organization’s point.

“What we’ve discovered is that when abortion is in the abstract, we can’t really have an honest discussion about it,” he said. “It’s only when we highlight the inhumanity of what abortion does to the body of a pre-born child that we can have an honest discussion.”

Rather than engage recipients of the flyers in discussion at their door, though, Van Maren said the organization aimed to deliver as many of the flyers as possible, inviting those who want to make themselves heard to call the phone number on the pamphlet.

“As many people as want to open the discussion, every single person who calls the number on that postcard gets a phone call back,” he said. “And we carry on that discussion with them, regardless of whether they’re supportive or regardless of whether they’re very angry that they got this postcard.”

Van Maren said the organization has no political affiliation and has, in the past, launched campaigns against Stephen Harper’s unwillingness to re-open the abortion debate at Parliament and against the NDP for “trying to enforce the abortion status quo.”