Pro Life Media Campaigns Underway in BC, Ontario
By LifeCanada staff

Pro-life media campaigns will be running in British Columbia and Ontario over the next three months, with television and radio commercials ensuring the message of respect for life reaches a widespread audience.
    
BC Pro Life has been airing women-centered, life-affirming advertisements on television stations across the province for the past 8 years. The Focus on Life Media Campaign goals include educating the general public on the reality of abortion and its effect on women and the culture, offering abortion-minded women an alternative to abortion, and offering women who have suffered the pain of an abortion hope for healing through post abortion services.
           
In Ontario, pro-life ads will reach more than two million households across the province during this years' continuing Reaching Minds Through Media Campaign. The first part of the campaign targets Peterborough viewers through Chex TV, beginning Feb. 26 through May 27. The ads target the demographic of women aged 18 - 44 years. The campaign will run 1,235 30-second ads over the thirteen week campaign--the messages are run at a heavy level to enable a pre-and-post survey to be conducted by Baselice Associates.
           
Independent polls conducted before and after ad campaigns reveal the impact television ads have on public opinion. Market research on the results of the Winter 2006 campaign in B.C. showed 62 percent of those polled strongly disagreed with abortion on demand following the campaign, compared to 47 percent who strongly disagreed before the campaign began.
           
Media communication is one of the most effective tools pro-life organizations have found in educating the public about the realities of abortion, but the cost of the efforts are significant. Fundraising is essential to make the campaigns possible.
    
One of the largest and consistently successful pro life fundraisers undertaken by Pro Life BC is the Focus on Life Gala Dinner. The first dinner was held in 1999 and over 1600 guests attended and $125,000 was raised! Over the years, the number of guests has gone down to approximately 800 people but the annual event still raises on average $125,000.  “We offer fine dining in a luxury Hotel in downtown Vancouver,” Yvonne Douma with Pro-Life BC wrote in a statement on the campaign. “We ask our guests to partner with us as we reach out to women and society with a message of hope, help and healing. ”
    
Other fundraising initiatives undertaken by the group includes the monthly giving program (which generates funds of over $80,000 a year) and the major gift program.
    
“The major gift program is increasing every year,” Yvonne said. “We feel that in order to do the work of protecting and defending the most vulnerable in our society we are going to need money and we think big. And the exciting thing is – WE ASK and THEY GIVE!!”

With files from Pro Life B.C.