National Campus Life Network

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

Thank you to all those who came to the debate and who helped make it happen. For those of you who weren’t able to attend, watch it here:

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(For more footage of past uOSFL events, see our Videos page.)

See also a recap of the debate, a few photos and a list of debate decliners, courtesy of ProWomanProLife, as well as another take on the Canadian Physicians for Life Students blog.

Read the comments at the uOttawa 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.

Ottawa has two opportunities to hear the formidable Stephanie Gray take on abortion this week. In addition to the event below, she’ll be speaking on Thursday, Nov. 10 at St. Paul’s University in room 103 at 7 pm. The topic is Abortion and Intellectual Honesty. Come one, come all!

***New Location: Colonel By Hall, 161 Louis Pasteur, Room C03***
***Update: Jovan Morales of the Atheist Community of the University of Ottawa will be arguing the pro-choice position.***

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

By Rebecca Richmond

These comments were made in Toronto by pro-choice activists at a rally, underscoring the importance and the impact of campus pro-life activism.  Watch the clip here.  In their own words: “We can’t let our guard down”

To better appreciate what they’re saying, I have included a transcript (with my own comments and corrections in line).

“They are heating up their end of things.  They are mobilizing wherever they can to challenge pro-choice forces.  And they are trying to do it a lot on campus.”

Is there any better place to discuss and debate controversial issues and challenge the status quo than on university campuses?

“There’s been a lot of stuff at U of T.”

Go U of T Students for Life! Keep up the great work!

“Coming up on March 14th, there’s going to be a debate at the University of Toronto.  The anti-choice is organizing with a woman from this group called the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, I believe it’s called.”

Yes, there will be a debate and I’m looking forward to it!  Stephanie Gray will be presenting the pro-life position and she is the Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform .

“Basically it’s the GAP, the Genocide Awareness Project, what they call it.”

The Genocide Awareness Project is one of the educational tools that the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform uses.  However, the debate in question is not GAP but, as the title suggestions, a debate.  A debate is defined as a formal, regulated discussion of an issue with two opposing views presented.  This debate will, as such, present both sides of the issue of abortion: pro-life and pro-choice.

“Which is these big, monstr – you know, giant-sized signs that they display on campuses and that are so offensive and that are just so horrible.”

The signs are offensive and horrible, but that is because they accurately reflect the offensive and horrible reality of abortion.  To quote pro-choice feminist Naomi Wolf: “The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers’ practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics….[But] how can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy.”
-16 Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” The New Republic, 16 October 1996.

“So they’re going to have a debate on campus with a doctor I’ve never heard of, but I think, if people are interested (and we’ll send out an email about that), it’s on March 14th, I think pro-choice supporters should show up en masse and we should support anybody who’s on campus who’s standing up for choice. “

First off, the ‘doctor’ in question is Doctor Ainslie.  The speaker may not have heard of him but he’s certainly more than qualified.  Professor Ainslie is the chair of both the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Science and the Graduate Department of Philosophy.  In January he was named principal of University College.  One of his major fields of study is bioethics.

Second, I hope pro-choicers show up with open minds and with respect for the debate.

“Because they’re trying just basically to populate the campus with their activities and their things.”

We’re trying to save lives and change hearts and minds.  Having activities, events and an active presence on campus are means to accomplish our goals.

“For many of us, we thought we had sort of won this battle many years ago and clearly it’s not, it’s not something we can ever let our guard down.”

Clearly.

On Thursday October 21st, the Michael Coren Show discussed the arrests of pro-life students at Carleton University as well as the broader issue of discrimination against pro-life students on university campuses.

Appearing on the show was Theresa Gilbert, NCLN President, and Rebecca Richmond, NCLN Executive Director, as well as Ruth Lobo and James Shaw of Carleton Lifeline.  Jose Ruba, of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, and Alana Campbell of the University of Calgary Campus Pro-Life, joined us from the Calgary studio.

The show aired 6 p.m. on the 21st as well as 2 p.m. on Friday the 22nd.  The show can now be viewed online here.

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

On October 21, former uOSFL president Rebecca Richmond, and current Executive Director of National Campus Life Network, appeared on the Michael Coren Show. She appeared along with NCLN President Theresa Gilbert, and Carleton Lifeline’s Ruth Lobo and James Shaw. Jojo Ruba of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform and Alanna Campbell of the Calgary Pro-life club appeared via satellite.

The panel met to discuss the issues of university censorship of the pro-life message, which came to a head in the arrest of 6 pro-life students attempting to display the Genocide Awareness Project at Carleton University earlier this month. In the past three years, 8 university pro-life clubs have met with antagonism from their university administrations over club status or other club rights because of their unpopular and controversial viewpoints. These clubs include UVic, Lakehead, Brandon, and York. Jojo Ruba also highlighted the student protesting he has encountered attempting to deliver his lecture “Echoes of the Holocaust” at St. Mary’s and McGill.

uOSFL would like to thank the University of Ottawa for the fair and even-handed treatment they have given us, in that we have neither lost our club status nor our club funding. However, we have received antagonism from pro-choice groups on our campus, most notably the Women’s Resource Centre, which was very antagonistic of our annual baby-shower fundraiser, which supplies maternity and infant clothing and supplies to women in adverse circumstances trying to raise children, through our partnership with First Place Pregnancy Centre.

We encourage people to watch the video of the Michael Coren Show and to think about the ramifications of this type of thinking not in terms of the pro-life message, but in terms of freedom of speech and censorship.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

By Rebecca Richmond, Executive Director

Despite being arrested on October 4th for attempting to put up a pro-life display, the students of Carleton University’s pro-life campus group are continuing to be active as a club.  Working to engage their campus in dialogue on the issue of abortion, they will be hosting a controversial presentation called “Echoes of the Holocaust” tonight.

This presentation, given by Jose Ruba of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, draws attention to the similarities between past atrocities and injustices, such as the Holocaust, and abortion.  It was shouted down last year at McGill University as well as St. Mary’s University.

Ruth Lobo, one of the students arrested, made the following invitation in an article by Patrick Craine of Lifesitenews.com,

“We’re inviting anyone who’s heard about the controversy over our arrest and who wants to know why we are so willing to speak up for the unborn, to hear the presentation…We know that we won’t be able to reach as many people from a closed room—which is why we’ve been fighting so hard to get the debate out in the open—but we want people to hear our side of the story.”

The talk will be held tonight, Monday October 18th, at 7 p.m. at Carleton University,  Tory building, room 360,

This post was written for University of Toronto Students for Life by Blaise Alleyne. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Because it’s easier to defend the status quo when we don’t have to see it.

Read the comments at the University of Toronto Students for Life website.

This post was written for University of Toronto Students for Life by Blaise Alleyne. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

I’ve decided to add captions to some of the photos taken by the CCBR during Monday’s arrests. Here’s the first:

Read the comments at the University of Toronto Students for Life website.

This post was written for University of Toronto Students for Life by Blaise Alleyne. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

More details have emerged from the arrests at Carleton University this morning, especially with the release of this video from the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform.

Notice, the Carleton official doesn’t want “this display in this location.” What policies guide their restrictions on which displays can go where? As Ruth Lobo, the president of the Carleton pro-life pointed out, the Carleton Student Rights and Responsibilities Policy states that “peaceful assemblies, demonstrations and lawful picketing are allowed within established laws.” Yet, the University told the students to “protest” indoors (is that what they tell union staff when they strike?) or be charged with trespassing on their own campus.

I took a guess that Porter Hall was a little less of an effective location for a protest than where they were heading. Craig Stewart, one of the students, left a comment on our first post about this incident describing Porter Hall as “an isolated old gymnasium off the beaten path.” Ruth Lobo says in the National Post that its “like a tomb to which no one ever goes.” Take a look at where Porter Hall is, according to Google Maps, in relation to the Carleton campus.
Update: Seth left a comment to correct the Google map:

Just for the sake of accuracy, Porter Hall is actually located on level 2 of the University Center building. To be fair, that is the central building right in the middle of campus and it’s packed with students passing through and eating everyday. That being said, nobody really knows where Porter Hall is. It’s a bit of a cave and down a couple of halls from the highly populated areas. Either way, the pin on the map is incorrect. The UniCentre building is just South-West of Campus Avenue from the green arrow. That is the central area of the Carleton Campus.

I guess Google doesn’t know where Porter Hall is either.

Which other campus groups get arrested for not protesting in Porter Hall?

The legal issues are a bit tricky. Does the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to universities? They assert they are private institutions, yet the majority of their funding often comes from the government, and there isn’t really a clear legal precedent. Notwithstanding the Charter (get it?), the University has a responsibility to adhere to its own governing documents, which outlined a right to peaceful protest under “established laws.” Certain time, manner and place restrictions are reasonable, but cannot be applied arbitrarily, and also ought to be reasonable. Telling the pro-life club that they can only protest on the edge of campus, indoors, seems pretty unreasonable, and I’d be surprised if other groups got the same treatment. There’s also Ontario human rights legislation which could come into play if things were to really get nasty. (Though, note that the students were charged with trespassing under provincial law, not criminal trespassing under the criminal code, so, I’ve been told it’s more like a traffic violation in the sense that you don’t have a criminal record, but just fines.)

Though the legal issues are murky, the broader message is not. Carleton University will attempt to squash expression it doesn’t like, they’ll call the cops on peaceful students if they don’t stay indoors with their protests, and they won’t hesitate to discriminate based on the message.

In short, if you express an unpopular opinion at Carleton, you might be cuffed and hauled off in a van.

Read the comments at the University of Toronto 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.

uOSFL would like to express support for and solidarity with the university students arrested on Carleton University’s campus today in connection with their display of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP). The students were denied a public space to air the peaceful protest, and were instead offered a closed room in a remote section of campus.

This is an issue of censorship of an unpopular message by the Carleton University administration, and a shameful violation of the rules laid out in Carleton’s own student handbook.

The students were charged with trespassing.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.