By Steve Weatherbe

MARY WAGNER, a 37 year old woman from Nanaimo, has been set free after four months in an Ontario women’s prison.

She was acquitted of a mischief charge she received for talking to an employee outside a Toronto abortion clinic.

“I’m very happy,” Wagner told BCCN in a phone interview from Ontario. She plans to return to B.C. this month for her brother’s wedding, and is looking forward to seeing her new nephew and niece – both born since she was imprisoned at the Vanier Centre for Women in Milton, Ontario.

Wagner has done jail time before: six months in 1999 – 2000 for witnessing to customers at what she calls “a killing centre” in Vancouver.

“I pled guilty. I now regret that,” she said. “I was a bit simplistic, thinking that since I had done what the law prohibited, I should plead guilty. But now I believe that when the law itself is unjust, I am not guilty of anything.”

So four months ago – considering that all she had been doing was trying to talk to customers on their way in or out of an abortion clinic – she pleaded not guilty.

The judge agreed with her.

 “I was standing in a public place, the hallway of a public building, and the judge ruled . . . that it is not mischief to engage people in dialogue,” she said.

In fact, she only managed to speak with one person, probably an employee.

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“I asked her if this was the place where they were killing babies and throwing them in the garbage,” said Wagner, adding: “There is no right to private property when it is dedicated to killing babies.”

After charging her, police offered to set her free if she would sign a promise to stay away from the Choice in Health clinic – an offer the judge repeated. But she refused both.

“How could I promise to not defend my own brothers and sisters who are defenceless?” she asked.

In jail, she briefly met with fellow pro-life activist Linda Gibbons.

“We only met for a few moments – I think they were deliberately keeping us separated – but it was a moment of great joy,” she said.

Wagner reported that Gibbons, a grandmother who has served a year and a half on similar charges without a trial, “has become like a mom to many of the women.”

Wagner herself created a small circle of inmates, whom she taught to pray the rosary and other devotional prayers. “I hope they are keeping it up.”

Wagner, who spent three years with the Sisters of St. John in the U.S. and France before returning to North America, said she knows that if she pursues abortion witnessing as a vocation, she will spend more time in jail.

“Yes, I am discerning if I am going to return to it. For now, I am going to take some time to be with family.”

September 2010