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.

by Dante De Luca

This presentation is not really pro-life per se. However, it is an excellent reminder of what we’re fighting for and why it’s worth the fight, and plus it’s presented by a mathematician.

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/alexander_tsiaras_conception_to_birth_visualized.html

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.

by Dante De Luca

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

By Rebecca Richmond, NCLN Executive Director

March has been a busy month for pro-life students from coast-to-coast as they’ve hosted large events to educate their campus on life issues.  At the University of Guelph, the pro-life club, Guelph Life Choice, hosted a Life Fair with fetal development information.  Their displays attracted some counter-protesters but that didn’t prevent many interested students from stopping by to learn more, many of whom engaged in good discussions on the issue of abortion with the club members.

The event also attracted media attention from the campus paper and the campus radio station.  The campus paper interviewed the club as well as the organizer of the pro-choice counter-protest, who is also the Student Association Local Affairs Commissioner.  What I thought was interesting was that the pro-choice organizer  “helped in putting together the pro-choice display with the support of the CSA, the Wellness Centre and other community groups”, clearly showing the support the pro-choice movement has on campus.

The organizer was quite concerned with Life Choice’s material and images (aka. fetal development pictures) and was quoted as saying,

“I think my primary concern is that it could be really triggering for people….Then to have displays like this, that kind of drive home those messages [that] this is something you should feel guilty about, this is something you should feel ashamed of, that you’ve made the wrong decision. That’s kind of my primary concern, [that] the students who have had abortions, or who are pro-choice, feel isolated and made to feel guilty and ashamed of who they are and the experiences that they’ve had…”

(I would like to know if they also organize pro-choice displays during classes on embryology or human development, or any class that would include pictures or descriptions of fetal development….)

She is correct though, in so far as fetal development photos can be triggers for those who have undergone abortions.  But post-abortive women also are triggered by children, dates (like the due date for their unborn child), the sight of doctors, the sound of a vacuum, and the list goes on.  Angelina Steenstra, for example, in an interview on Roadkill Radio, described how she avoided the dentist for years because it triggered memories of her abortion.

But the issue is not the trigger but the trauma of the abortion that they underwent.  Those triggers can be painful but that does not mean we can hide the issue so as to avoid offending someone.  In fact, those moments are opportunities for women (and men) to stop and deal with the pain of her (their) abortions.  Life Choice, like all other clubs, is not interested in condemning but in educating, which includes offering help to post-abortive men and women as they grapple with their pain.

The event attracted the attention of the campus radio station which then did a full hour show on the issue of abortion, interviewing Hanna Barlow, President of Guelph Life Choice, myself, and pro-choice representatives.  (The show can be heard here.)

(Pictures of the event to come.)

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

by Marissa Poisson

I don’t watch The View, but I stumbled across a clip from Monday’s show. It raises interesting questions about technology’s role in the pro-life movement and how women’s feelings about their abortions may change after some years have passed.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

By Sara Hall, Maritime Campus Coordinator

Below is the new video created by Lia Mills, a popular young woman in the pro-life community. In this video campaign she explains how some choices are wrong and some are a matter of personal preference. She goes on to show the humanity of the unborn by revealing the illogic of common pro-choice arguments. Lia completes her video by asking the question “Is it possible to be a human but not a person.” She is currently working on a video to answer that very question.

by Sara Hall, Maritime Campus Coordinator

The Irish pro-life organization called “Youth Defense” released a radio ad that was banned by the government because it was “too political”.  They have now released the powerful and challenging video on youtube to spread the message about abortion and life in the womb. Note that instead of allowing themselves to be censored by the government they simply found a new channel to spread the message of life that will now reach a greater population than a single radio show in Ireland.

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

by Amanda Hennessey

At the beginning of the summer I had to renew my First Aid and CPR training. Those who have taken these courses know that when someone needs first aid you have to take into different factors. For instance, if someone is choking and cannot make any noise (full blockage) you should administer abdominal thrusts (formally known as the Heimlich maneuver). This is when you scope your hands, in a J-motion, into the person’s abdomen in order to dislodge the object. The factors which change how you should do this are: if the person is very short or a child (get on your knees), if the person is taller than you (get them to go down on their knees), or the person is obese or pregnant. In this last instance what you are supposed to do is do chest compressions, but what if the person has an open wound on their chest and it is impossible to do chest compressions? The instructor gently put it that, “without the mom there can be no baby” or rather that the child cannot survive if the mother does not survive. We would just have to do the best we could. The pregnant situation came up a few other times in CPR as well as in using the defibrillator. Ever time without fail someone would ask questions about the unborn child: if the treatment would hurt the baby, where should we compress so as not to hurt the child, etc… The instructor had an alternative places where we could do compressions or place the pads of the deliberator, but she would also reiterate the phrase, “no mom, no baby.”

I completely agree with what the instructor had to say; it is true that in situations like these we should do our best. I am also happy that those in my class were so concerned about these hypothetical babies. What did get me thinking is: would their points of view change if they knew that this hypothetical mother got into her accident on her way to an abortion clinic?

What makes some babies worth worrying for and others not? Is it just that some are wanted versus others that are not? Or that we are not sure that they are wanted? Or that we are afraid to get sued if we save the mom and kill the baby…?

My CPR class made me frustrated in this regard because to me in seems so illogical that many can care about saving these hypothetical babies and yet in reality these same people support the “freedom of choice” enabling mothers to terminate their children.

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.

by Theresa Stephenson

A couple, friends of my family, are expecting their first child. With excitement, I have been shown ultrasound photos and told about the baby kicking and moving. At one of their first ultrasound appointments, the technician explained that the baby was sleeping. What a human characteristic! How incredible, that while still in the protection of the mother’s womb, a tiny life is able to move, to kick, to sleep, to dream, to listen. Yet despite all of these amazing, miraculous things that an unborn baby is able to do, Canadian law does not outline any restrictions for abortion. Abortion is legal during all nine months of pregnancy for any and every reason.

But, tell me, what is the difference between a sleeping child who lies inside his or her mother and one who lies in his or her mother’s cradling arms? Tell me, what is the difference between a baby who listens to sounds and murmurs of his or her parents’ voices while cocooned inside the womb and one who hears the sweet lullaby of his or her mother while lying in a crib? The difference is that one baby is “inside” and the other is “out”.

However, I would like to make the bold claim that in either case that human life is indeed a person. We have posted arguments that personhood should not be based on 1) size 2) level of development 3) environment and 4) degree dependency . Rights and liberties must be granted for all human beings regardless of the factors outlined above and any infringement of these rights is a heinous injustice.

We at uOttawa Students for Life fight against these violations and work to bring an end to abortion.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.