At least, that’s what the headline says. The opposition was directed against the March for Life in Ottawa and was organised by the Proletarian Feminist Front.

Here is their version of what happened:

Anti-capitalist Feminists Oppose Reactionary Misogynists
(May 14, 2015) Today, between 100-150 protesters took the streets of Ottawa to protest the National March for Life, a march of thousands of people led by reactionary misogynists calling for the criminalization of abortion. Initiated by the Proletarian Feminist Front, organizations of anti-capitalist feminists from Ottawa, Hull, and Montreal rallied to put an end to this patriarchal parade. The counter protest was led by women and gender-oppressed people; despite some men activists attempting to take control over chants or the route, they were quickly shut down.

Before the march even began, Ottawa Police were videotaping protester’s faces, prompting many people to cover up. After the second time the Ottawa Police blocked us with metal barricades, we decided to push through instead of marching to another intersection. So, we smashed through their barricade and past the police!

Once we reached the March for Life, the pigs had formed a line with bicycles in front of another metal barrier. As we charged the barrier to smash through, police began pepper spraying protesters, injuring and temporarily blinding dozens of people. Although we hadn’t expected such an escalation in police brutality in Ottawa, there fortunately were medics prepared to help the injured. The morale of the march was high enough that they were ready to push through another intersection, but another wall of metal and pigs stopped us. From there, we denounced the pigs as obvious defenders of the patriarchal ruling class interests, and continued marching through the city in celebration and in defiance of the Ottawa Police.

Today, we can happily shout that thanks to our collective strength, we forced those patriarchal misogynists off their planned route multiple times before crawling back up to Parliament Hill!

I was one of the patriarchal misogynists who found himself “crawling back up to Parliament Hill”.

But before that, I happened to be at the corner where the altercation between the police and pack of screeching harridans took place. Considering they were being physically assaulted by the protesters, I thought the police exercised remarkable restraint; I didn’t see any pepper spray, police brutality or medics. I took this sequence of photos from the start of the spat until the restoration of order.

The signs wielded by the ladies of the Proletarian Feminist Front are an apt reminder of the coherence of their thought: for example, “Life begins when you are ready to face it”; you can read the less savoury ones for yourself.