Eighteen men and boys grinned and posed behind a gravestone in a small Ontario town on Nov. 2.

The words engraved on the tombstone say, “In memory of all victims of abortion.”

The Belleville, Ont., chapter of the Knights of Columbus erected the black gravestone almost a week earlier in St. James Roman Catholic Cemetery in southwest Belleville.

Images of the Catholic fraternity’s monument posted on Facebook on Nov. 2 and Nov. 8 spread on the social media site, polarizing people across Canada.

The three images without captions gained almost 1,800 comments and more than 3,410 reactions. Sixty-six per cent of people reacted to the images with a “Haha” or “Love” while about 20 per cent responded with an “Angry” reaction.

“We’re not engaging in any sort of debate about it,” David Cameron, grand knight of the Belleville chapter, said in a phone interview.

“This is our belief and we don’t feel we’ve done anything wrong … it speaks for itself.”

Other messages inscribed on the tombstone include “unborn lives matter,” “life is sacred” and a quote from bible verse Jeremiah 1:5.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I consecrated you,” reads the grave.

Before hanging up the phone and dodging any other calls, Cameron said there are 137 gravestones such as this in North America, all erected by the Knights of Columbus.

The city’s three Catholic Parishes — St. Michael the Archangel, St. Joseph, and Queen of the Most Holy Rosary — operate the burial grounds. Richard Beare, the cemetery’s secretary and treasurer confirmed there is no body beneath the plot of land.

“The cemetery board supports the Knights of Columbus and what they do,” he said in a phone interview.

There’s no word on how much the grave cost.

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Local activists set up the a pro-choice protest called the “Gathering In Defense of Reproductive Health” on Nov. 16 in response to the Knights of Columbus.

Elissa Robertson, co-ordinator of Warrior Women of Quinte, a women’s advocacy group in the area, spoke at the demonstration.

She said the Knights were “attacking a women’s right to choose.”

“It was designed to shame people. I think it was absolutely uncalled for and that money they put into this anti-abortion monument could have done a lot of good somewhere else,” said Robertson, according to InQuinte.

“It ties into patriarchal values and this idea that women’s bodies are meant to be controlled by men. It’s a broader issue that ties into violence against women, it ties into health care, it ties into safety.”

Sean McNeill of the Canada Employment and Immigration union, said although the Catholic group does good community work, with funds going toward local food banks, hospitals, police and churches, the message was inexcusable.

“If there’s a victim, there must be an abuser or an attacker,” he said to the crowd, as reported by Quinte News. “And who could that possibly be other than the woman?”

After the event, one organizer of the protest addressed demonstrators on Facebook, calling the tombstone “more than political.”

“It was deeply personal for many of our community members,” read the post.

“For many of us, having a group of men try to shame us for making decisions about our own bodies and attempt to manipulate a dialogue in hopes of exerting power & control over us tapped into our own grief stories and those of our loved ones.”