York University student union calls for ban on anti-abortion groups

[kfrost06]

In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.

Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it "within a pro-choice realm," and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance.

"You have to recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body," Ms. Massa said. "We think that these pro-life, these anti-choice groups, they're sexist in nature ... The way that they speak about women who decide to have abortions is demoralizing. They call them murderers, all of them do ... Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women's rights."

The school's administration condemned the decision as contrary to its academic mission.

Robert J. Tiffin, York's vice-president of students, said he was "disappointed" the policy was being enacted when virtually all of the student body has left campus for the summer.

"Student governments need to be aware that these are fairly significant decisions that are being made, and it would be useful to engage the much broader community," he said. "It's important to have some of these discussions at a time when the vast majority of students are here to participate."

He said denying students access to the various aspects of the abortion debate was not in keeping with the school's mandate, and that the administration would try to compensate by providing its own venues and resources to legitimate debates.

"It's part of the texture of Canadian society, this debate," he said. "We're committed to ensuring there are the opportunities for these debates."

Margaret Fung, co-president of York's Students for Bioethical Awareness, the school's only anti-abortion group, was not consulted.

"It's just very strange that I was never contacted," she said. "I guess that means we can't use the student centre building. We never really received any funding. We don't even have an office."

Ms. Massa said the new policy would not apply to religious groups that may be opposed to abortion on doctrinal grounds. Rather, it was focused on groups, whether student or external, "whose sole purpose is to provide the anti-choice side."

"What is happening is anti-choice groups coming on to campus under the guise of debates or through student clubs, to promote anti-choice sentiments, and then student unions responding to it, and then receiving very organized backlash ... A lot of these groups are funded and organized under a larger organization," Ms. Massa said, citing the Genocide Awareness Project, a university-targeted poster campaign of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, a privately funded U.S. organization with a Canadian branch in Alberta.

The situation at York came to a crisis in March, when a speaker from that organization, on Ms. Fung's invitation, came to debate abortion with a member of the school's Free-thinkers, Skeptics and Atheists club.

The York Federation of Students (YFS) executive, fearing the effects of gruesome imagery and hostile argument, hastily voted to cancel the event, which prompted the administration to publicly declare its support for free speech and provide an alternate venue.

In a recent editorial about the conflict, the editor-in-chief of York's student paper called the federation's stance on free speech "dangerous," and wondered about its claim that the "vast majority" of students support its position. "When did these people take it upon themselves to decide what we think?" Zalina Alvi wrote.

Meanwhile, similar controversies are unfolding across Canada, with anti-abortion groups at Capilano College, the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Lakehead University and Carleton University stripped of official club status and funding, at least once by fiat of a single member of student council. Some clubs have regained status, while others appealed their cases to human rights commissions.

Efforts to formalize the York ban on anti-abortion groups began in earnest last weekend, when the YFS brought a successful motion to the annual meeting in Ottawa of the Canadian Federation of Students, a national umbrella group of student unions.

"Be it resolved that member locals [of the CFS] that refuse to allow anti-choice organizations access to their resources and space be supported. And further, be it resolved that a pro-choice organization kit be created that may include materials such as a fact sheet, buttons, contact information for local pro-choice organizations and research on anti-choice organizations and the conservative think-tanks that fund them," the motion reads.

A similar policy, specifically to ban "anti-choice" groups at York, is to be voted on this weekend at the first board meeting of next year's YFS executive, which is composed largely of student politicians who are entering their third year on the five-member executive.

"I'm confident that it'll pass," Ms. Massa said.

"I think it's outrageous that they do this when students are away for the summer and when they can't really do anything about it," said Michael Payton, a York student who argued the pro-choice side of the March debate. "This isn't the right of the student government to be deciding what students are allowed to hear."

He said it is "very much an open question how in-line they are with what students really think and feel."

"It would be one thing if the YFS were doing polls on this. At least then they would be able to justify the claim that most people would be on board. But even if most people were on board, if 90% of students were on board, I would still think it's wrong in principle," Mr. Payton said. "When the YFS says they believe in free speech, they believe in free speech for them, for the positions they hold, not for freedom of speech for positions they disagree with."

[kfrost06]

Liberalism must silence their opposition, free-thinkers club doesn not want people to think on their own, they want to force their views and only their views on others.

[SMCengineer]

Liberalism must silence their opposition, free-thinkers club doesn not want people to think on their own, they want to force their views and only their views on others.

Very ironic if you ask me. Luckily, that's Canada and not the US, but the way things are going I wouldn't be suprised if we start seeing this here.

On another note, I can't stand the term "pro-choice."

[kfrost06]

On another note, I can't stand the term "pro-choice."

Can you imagine an article written up using the terms pro-life and anti-life, no way would that happen but here it's written as pro-choice and anti-choice. Ironicly the "pro-choice" wants to censor(eliminate choice) the others freedoms.

[SMCengineer]

Can you imagine an article written up using the terms pro-life and anti-life, no way would that happen but here it's written as pro-choice and anti-choice. Ironicly the "pro-choice" wants to censor(eliminate choice) the others freedoms.

Haha, gotta love stupidity.

[g0dsend]

They talk about woman rights, but do they have Men Rights?

[wantmoremass]

Liberalism must silence their opposition, free-thinkers club doesn not want people to think on their own, they want to force their views and only their views on others.

I don't believe you can generalize by calling these people liberals. Liberals (at least in my understanding of the meaning of the word) believe in personal liberty and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties. Freedom of speech is undoubtebtly a political and civil liberty. I'm not sure what to call them. I consider myself a social liberal (who is fiscally conservative) but won't stand for squashing of the freedom of speech. Anti-abortionists have just as much right to protest the allowance of abortion as supporters protest any move to strike it.

[SMCengineer]

I don't believe you can generalize by calling these people liberals. Liberals (at least in my understanding of the meaning of the word) believe in personal liberty and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties. Freedom of speech is undoubtebtly a political and civil liberty. I'm not sure what to call them. I consider myself a social liberal (who is fiscally conservative) but won't stand for squashing of the freedom of speech. Anti-abortionists have just as much right to protest the allowance of abortion as supporters protest any move to strike it.

You're thinking of classical liberals, which are almost the polar opposite what liberal means today. The meaning of the term liberal has drastically changed since FDR's presidency.

[BigLittleTim]

Ironicly the "pro-choice" wants to censor(eliminate choice) the others freedoms.

I think you may have that backwards...

The pro-choice movement upholds your inalienable right to get pregnant and have a baby... or to terminate that pregnancy... if you so choose.

The pro-life movement upholds half those rights.

If a man could get pregnant the right to an abortion would be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. I would be loathe to tell a pregnant woman, who knows dangers and fears to which I will never be exposed, what to do with her body and life.

Everyone has the right to his or her own beliefs. The problem comes when one group sets up their own beliefs as the standard of the community. I relish living in a secular state. I don't want my country's laws written by the Pope, Evangelical Christians, Moslem clerics, or Jewish Rabbis.

If you're against abortion, don't have one.

-BigLittleTim

[39+1]

You cant legislate morality, and you cant manipulate free will