National Campus Life Network

This post was written for Saint Paul Students for Life by fradriansharp. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

The uOttawa Medical Students for Life have an upcoming event.  Next week they will welcome Denise Mountenay, Founder and President of Canada Silent No More, a registered non-profit society offering hope and healing to people affected by abortion and preganancy loss. She is a national best selling author, and an international speaker, having given presentations around the world including at the UN.   Some details:

Abortion: Two Patients-One Wounded, One Killed

Presenter: Denise Mountenay, Founder and President of “Canada Silent No More”, best-selling author and international speaker.

Where: University of Ottawa (Health Science Campus), Roger Guindan Hall (RGN), 451 Smyth Road

2 DAYS only:

Monday February 27th @ 7 p.m. in Room 2029
Tuesday February 28th @ 1 p.m. in Room 2023 (Amphitheatre B)(Lunch will be provided)

Journey with Denise Mountenay as she shares her experience of pregnancy loss and abortion. Hear why women chose abortion, and how it can affect them for Life. Denise Mountenay has been sharing her experience of teen pregnancy, legal abortion and the aftermath in schools, conferences, prisons radio, Television and internationally. The CBC- The National aired a documentary on her work and mission.

She also attends meetings at the United Nations in New York and Geneva and has a powerful testimony.  She wants people to know the whole truth about abortion and how it is damaging women physically and psychologically.

Please note that, in order to accomodate numbers, Denise will give the same presentation on both days, so you have two opportunities to hear her message.

Click on the event flyer over to the right. .  (Noting that there is the additional time as listed above which isn’t contained on the flyer).

Spread the word!  All welcome.

Read the comments at the Saint Paul Students for Life website.

This post was written for McMaster Lifeline by Julia. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

What do you think about abortion?

Abortion is such a hotly debated topic. It’s been described as an extremely controversial issue, causing some to refrain from talking about it at all, and others to take firm stances on either extreme. It’s not a simple or clear-cut, black and white issue, but rather complex, volatile, and extremely sensitive. The topic always comes up under moral issues, or in ethics classes, and it seems as if people will always take opposite positions on abortion, even when they think rationally, honestly, and with good will.

You may have had heated discussions about it before. More seriously, you may know people who have had an abortion, who have contemplated abortion, or have had an abortion yourself.

Why is abortion so seemingly controversial?

What makes abortion a moral issue?

Why are people afraid to talk about it, while others remain so intolerantly for or against it?

Abortion remains a critical issue for discussion because it is an issue that affects the whole of society, and on a university campus, open and honest dialogue is promoted on such issues.

To facilitate open and honest discussion, a professional debate is being hosted at McMaster for the entire campus on “Abortion: Human Right or Human Violation?” with opposing arguments put forth by professionals in their field.

Representing the position that abortion is a human violation, and wrong in every instance, is Stephanie Gray, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.  Stephanie has debated numerous abortion advocates, pro-choicers, and abortion doctors at universities across Canada, and is committed to making the killing of unborn human beings unthinkable.

Representing the position that abortion is a human right, and the importance of providing female patients with the right to informed choices, is a McMaster Professor of the Health, Society and Aging department,  a medical historian and medical anthropologist with interest in the historic importance of patient self- determination over their right to make choices that affect their personal circumstances.

Why come to the debate?

You have questions about abortion…

You have had an encounter with abortion before and are seeking answers…

You’ve been faced with the issue of abortion before (in conversation, class, or crisis), and want to learn more about how to defend your position…

You’re undecided on whether abortion is a woman’s choice, or whether it’s wrong to abort the unborn…

You want to know the scientific facts of when human life begins…

You have never seriously thought about this issue before and want to come to an informed judgment …

You don’t think it’s possible to come to an informed judgment, or “objective answer” about abortion, and need reasons to show you otherwise…

Perhaps you’ve only ever heard emotional responses to the topic of abortion and have never heard the arguments made for the pro-life or pro-choice case…

You like to be engaged in intellectually stimulating discussion on important issues, and participate in honest thought and dialogue about matters of ethics and the human person…

You are interested in moral issues, ethics, free speech, debates, human dignity and rights…

For all these reasons and more, participating in the debate “Abortion: Human Right or Human Violation?” will provide answers, provoke discussion, raise questions, and prompt you to engage in honest thought and dialogue about matters of ethics and the human person.

University is incredibly formative in the judgments we carry throughout our lives, thus it’s important to take the initiative to ask questions and seek answers to issues affecting the whole of society. The formal debate promises to be an evening of respectful, intelligent discussion, where both speakers have 20 minutes to present their case, 7 minutes each for cross-examination, 10 minutes for a rebuttal, and 5 minutes for a closing statement. It is moderated by a neutral host, who will oversee the flow of the entire debate and facilitate a question and answer period to follow.  Of course, you should continue this discussion well after the debate is over, through this blog, and Lifeline events, in order to make an informed judgments for yourself about the rightness or wrongness of abortion.

“The two sides on this issue are more intransigently opposed to each other than any other issue – rightly so, for if pro-lifers are right, then abortion is murder, and if pro-choicers are right, then pro-lifers are fanatic, intolerant, and repressive about nothing. We must intolerantly kill both intolerance and killing.” – Peter Kreeft, professor of Philosophy at Boston College

Finally, consider this:

If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for elective abortion is necessary.

However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for elective abortion is adequate.

See you at the debate: Thursday March 22^nd, 2012, 7-9pm, MDCL 1102.

Read the comments at the McMaster Lifeline website.

This post was written for Saint Paul Students for Life by fradriansharp. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

On Friday join us for the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet outside the abortion mill on Bank Street.  We leave from the front of the Deschatelets Residence (beside St Paul University) at 1pm.

On Saturday (25 February) is the monthly Pro-life Mass at 10.00am.  The venue this month is St. Elizabeth Church, 1303 Leaside Avenue.  Mass is followed by a reception hosted by the Queenship of Mary Sisters.

Please join us!

Read the comments at the Saint Paul Students for Life website.

This post was written for Saint Paul Students for Life by fradriansharp. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

On Friday join us for the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet outside the abortion mill on Bank Street.  We leave from the front of the Deschatelets Residence (beside St Paul University) at 1pm.

On Saturday (25 February) is the monthly Pro-life Mass at 10.00am.  The venue this month is St. Elizabeth Church, 1303 Leaside Avenue.  Mass is followed by a reception hosted by the Queenship of Mary Sisters.

Please join us!

Read the comments at the Saint Paul Students for Life website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

by Kelden Formosa

The tall, angry young man had just screamed “semantic witch” at the young woman at the lectern several rows before him. It seems he didn’t like what she had to say – her argument that abortion kills a human being did not appeal to his pro-choice sensibilities, apparently. You would think that Stephanie Gray, the pro-life debater and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform, might have stumbled, but instead she continued on with her point, taking it all in stride, as the man walked out of the university hall.

The young man was a pro-choice audience member at the abortion debate organized by the University of Ottawa Students for Life and the U of O Med Students for Life this past year. It’s been a few months since the big debate – one which divided our campus and provoked real controversy – but looking back on it now, I think it provides us with some important insights on the future of the continuing public debate on abortion in Canada.

As one of those involved in the organization of the debate (full disclosure), I was quite happy to welcome even the most militant pro-choice activists, including the young man mentioned prior. It is the challenge of pro-life activists to change the hearts and minds of those who disagree with us. Debates, conferences, advertising, writing – pro-life Canadians have done it all, in the hopes that one day human life might be protected from conception unto natural death.

We’ve done it in the face of intense pressure to resign ourselves to the abortion status quo. Our opponents can’t even believe pro-lifers are still around and have even greater difficulty believing that young people and university students could ever be pro-life. For them, the debate ended in 1988, when the Supreme Court allowed for abortion in Canada without any restriction, throughout all nine months of pregnancy. The appalling statistics about abortion in Canada and around the world have barely registered in the consciousness of today’s pro-choice activists: that one in four unborn children will be aborted, including 90% of children prenatally diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, and a higher proportion of female children than male ones, seems quite unimportant to them and most of the mainstream media.

But, like it or not, the debate continues. It continues in families and amongst friends, in classrooms and in churches, and most poignantly, in the hearts and minds of vulnerable women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. And this continuation of the debate is the saving grace for the pro-life movement. Because it means that we’re still not comfortable with abortion – that ending the life of an unborn child still strikes us as morally troubling. For pro-lifers, this is cause for hope.

For pro-choicers, this apparently is cause for fear. Before our abortion debate even happened, dozens of major pro-choice activists rejected our club’s invitation to debate. We offered them the opportunity to confront a leading Canadian “anti-choicer” in an open forum, with a neutral moderator. Yet they said no: Dr. Kathryn Treehuba, a U of O professor and abortion provider; Dr. Fraser Fellow, a UWO professor and abortion provider; Joyce Arthur, of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada; Sandra Rogers, a U of O professor; Wayne Sumner, a U of T professor; Heather Holland, of Planned Parenthood Ottawa; representatives from Canadians for Choice, Action Canada for Population and Development and the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health – all of them refused to debate abortion.

So our club decided to hold them accountable. We put up controversial posters highlighting their refusal and wrote a letter to the editor of the student newspaper, making the debate invitation open to all comers. Eventually Jovan Morales, of the Atheist Community of the University of Ottawa, stepped up to the plate to represent the pro-choice side. It seemed for a moment that we would have a civil, if less than ideal, dialogue on abortion.

But it was not to be. Radical pro-choice activists, many of whom are associated with the Women’s Resource Centre of the Student Federation, decided to come out to our debate in force. This would have been great – if they were really there to engage in a reasoned debate. Instead, they brought their posters and their slogans and their raucous attitudes and little else. Holding signs that declared, “An egg is not a chicken” and “My Body/My Choice,” these activists heckled Ms. Gray, the pro-life speaker, menaced elderly debate attendees and shouted “bulls***” and “what the f***” in response to many of the points made by Ms. Gray. Particularly atrocious was the sign declaring, “I hope the foetus you ‘save’ is gay.” For the record, I wouldn’t mind at all.

But why were they so rude and disruptive? Why not just win the audience over with the logic and eloquence of the pro-choice message? I submit that their behaviour betrays the weakness of their own position. Perhaps it’s just the philosophy major in me, but “My Body/My Choice” is a far better slogan than logical argument. As Ms. Gray said: sure, I have freedom over my body – I can swing my arm, for example – but that freedom ends when it injures another person, e.g. swinging my arm to punch them in the face. When the right to choose ends the life of another person, we can and must restrict it. Similarly, it’s true that an egg is not a chicken, but a preborn child is not an egg – it is a fully human organism, genetically distinct and having within itself the means of its own continuance. Fallacies like the ones presented lie at the heart of pro-choice argumentation.

Now it is possible to be pro-choice and philosophically consistent: you simply have to believe that it is alright to kill innocent human beings simply for convenience’s sake. In my experience though, pro-choice people are just as kind and compassionate as pro-life ones. Few would adopt such a radical position. Instead, not being trained in critical reasoning and open to legitimate concerns of women facing unplanned pregnancy, many accept pro-choice fallacies to justify what is really the easy position on abortion. Pro-lifers recognize that women in need deserve real support and real options and the preborn deserve the most basic of rights – the right to life.

Strikingly, when Ms. Gray showed pictures of aborted children in her presentation, I detected a palpable sense of unease come over the pro-choice activists. Standing near their seats at back of the room, I heard them mutter “these aren’t real” and “it’s not true.” But sadly the images were – medically accurate filming of real, live abortion procedures. If they can’t bring themselves to accept the truth of what they support, then perhaps they aren’t as committed to pro-choice ideology as they would have you believe. And that, more than anything, is cause for hope.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

This post was written for Youth Protecting Youth at York by alex. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Some may say that abortion is a "dead" issue in Canada, long resolved by the 1989 decision.

A recent Poll conducted by CBC:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2012/01/question-of-the-day-504.html brings quite a contradictory message to this viewpoint, wherefore it seems a majority of Canadians do in fact want the debate reopened. This may indeed have to do a lot with the fact that there remains no real abortion regulations in Canada, aside from the inability to charge individuals for undergoing or performing the procedure.

So one has to ask themselves, whether taking the stance of pro-choice, or pro-life, " am I really happy or comfortable with this state of affairs?" Is terminating a pregnancy (or as indeed many consider even on the pro-choice side, a human life) something to be left up in the air, to be performed for any rhyme or reason?

This is indeed, a great part of why debates on this matter are so informative and crucial in our great nation and indeed throughout the world.

In life,

Alex

Read the comments at the Youth Protecting Youth at York website.

This post was written for Saint Paul Students for Life by fradriansharp. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

PROJECT RACHEL: Post-abortion healing and reconciliation.

Hurting as a result of an abortion? Healing is possible. Project Rachel is a sensitive, private and confidential experience; lets you speak with someone who understands and cares; invites all whose lives have been affected by abortion to a journey of healing and reconciliation with God, their church community and themselves; is for women or men who have been hurt by an abortion. Info: (416-629-8264); (info@stmarysrefuge.org). All calls/emails are private and confidential. Next retreat date: May 4-6, 2012.

Read the comments at the Saint Paul Students for Life website.

This post was written for Saint Paul Students for Life by fradriansharp. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

PROJECT RACHEL: Post-abortion healing and reconciliation.

Hurting as a result of an abortion? Healing is possible. Project Rachel is a sensitive, private and confidential experience; lets you speak with someone who understands and cares; invites all whose lives have been affected by abortion to a journey of healing and reconciliation with God, their church community and themselves; is for women or men who have been hurt by an abortion. Info: (416-629-8264); (info@stmarysrefuge.org). All calls/emails are private and confidential. Next retreat date: May 4-6, 2012.

Read the comments at the Saint Paul Students for Life website.

This post was written for Brock Students For Life                               by Brock Students for Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Scott Klusendorf

Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute, will speak in defence of the pro-life position at Brock University on Tuesday, February 28, 2012. The talk is free of charge and all are invited to attend. The event will take place in Welsh Hall 324 from 7:00pm to 8:45pm.

For details on the location of Welsh Hall please consult the Brock University campus map (Welsh Hall is #3). Parking rates are $6 per entry in D Lot (across from Welsh Hall) or $2.50 per hour in P Lot (beside Walker Complex) and throughout the campus.

If you have any questions concerning the event please leave them in the comment section below. We look forward to seeing you there!

Read the comments at the Brock Students For Life                               website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Head on over to NCLN for a great post on Valentine’s Day by uOSFL alumnus Rebecca Richmond!

Love wants the highest good for the other person. As such, love is not self-serving, but is oriented towards the other. It is more than a onetime proclamation or commitment, but rather is revealed in our daily actions as we serve others.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.