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More from the University of Calgary

March 25, 2009 by Andrea Mrozek 1 Comment

The University of Calgary pro-life club set up the Genocide Awareness Project today, again. There must be a bit of freedom in already being criminally charged–what are the authorities going to do–charge them again? Probably. But doesn’t look like that bothers them too much. 

The University of Calgary’s campus security personnel have taken down the names and addresses of seven members of the Campus Pro-Life club at about 2:30 p.m. today, presumably for the purpose of charging students with “trespassing” on their own campus.

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Update: Here. The headline reads that “Free speech wins in pro-life protest” but so far as I know, the charges against the group have not been dropped and they are due back in court in the fall.

Joining the young Campus Pro-Life group is one lone elderly woman, who pulls out of a black portfolio bag a sign that reads “I Regret My Abortion.”While she walks around silently, her sign hoisted in the air, a couple of campus security officers swoop in. But rather than arresting anyone, a move that would have likely prompted much excitement among the gathered media throng and TV cameras, they only plunk down a couple of signs decrying the demonstration, and letting the public know that the miscreants have been charged with trespassing.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Genocide Awareness Project, University of Calgary

Thank you

November 28, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek 3 Comments

Thank you to these academics for weighing in on a matter not intimately connected with their work or interests–in defense of the freedom of expression of the University of Calgary pro-life club. I think it helps when longstanding, respectable professors make a statement like this.

The university would never order an activist animal rights group that might display pictures of animals bleeding, suffering or dead to turn its pictures inward. Nor would the university censor or threaten antiwar activists for posting pictures of those burnt alive in Hiroshima or Dresden by Allied bombs. The more likely response would be that such images show the end results of past personal and political decisions. The university would likely argue such depictions might make some uncomfortable, but that’s the point of a university: to question, analyze and debate about one’s own assumptions and morality, as well as that of others.

It’s not that the display is graphic, it’s not that it is controversial–we see that on campus all the time.

It’s because it’s about abortion, and we have an unreasonable fear about grappling with this injustice as it occurs around us, day in, day out. It’s not a feel-good moment to realize we are as a country and as a society perpetuating an injustice RIGHT NOW and that’s what this display shows so many. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary to offend people. That’s the way I see it, anyhow.

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Brigitte is struggling: I don’t like any of this. I don’t like GAP images. Yes, I forced myself to look at them (and many other horrifying things), and I challenge every pro-choicer to do the same. But I hate it when people shove those images in my face without some kind of warning. That doesn’t mean I’m against every single one of their public displays. I just want some warning, and a chance to look away – which is especially necessary in a public space where young children might suddenly be confronted with something for which they are not prepared, or for which their parents wish to prepare them differently – for instance, by not starting with bloody and extremely disturbing images. Not the case here: A university campus is not the same as just any city street. Still, I don’t like the displays.

That said, I also don’t like the double standard. If disturbing and bloody images are out, then there’s no room for PETA posters [warning: don’t click on this link if you’re eating lunch], to pick one easy example at random.

I don’t want anybody to shove bloody images into people’s faces without warning. But given that some people are allowed to do it for the cause they believe in, should it be OK to allow it for other people who do it for a cause that is, let’s just say, less popular with those who make the rules?

I honestly don’t know.

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Andrea adds: You know, Brigitte, I hear you. I was motivated to act on this whole issue of abortion by a presentation by Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform which was about an hour long and involved her talking at length about the history of social injustice, how certain reform movements were motivated by visuals as in the case of Emmett Till, who was murdered brutally and whose mother insisted on an open casket at his funeral. She simultaneously, as she spoke, showed the pictures, and that was the first time I saw a video of an abortion. So I maintain some concern that without the lengthy sit down discussion, the pictures are merely inflammatory and distancing, furthermore, that because we see so many terribly graphic images these days, that a new set will have little to no impact. Who doesn’t see blood and gore every night on your average crime show? We don’t live in Emmett Till’s age anymore. 

BUT–These photos jar people into noticing that every day we kill people, and that’s what they are, and we call it something else, be it reproductive rights or choice or what have you. We actually view abortion as compassionate, quite far away from viewing it as a social injustice. Abortion is something that breaks women and communities down, is both the result of distress and causes more… We are so far away from viewing abortion this way, that I’m pretty much in favour of every pro-life effort.

For people with kids–who are faced with these photos–the only thing I can think of is to use it as a teachable moment, which you are going to encounter at just about every corner these days (think of American Apparel, HandM ads, think TV any night of the week).

I resent the Abortion Distortion–graphic ads re. animal abuse are AOK. If we extended even half the concern this society feels about animals (and I’m not saying that is wrong, at all) to people, well…

Stephanie Gray certainly does get a lot of “converts” should you want to call them that, and I count myself among them. Give that woman an auditorium every night of the week, I say. If people would put down their fair-trade lattés and come, is the question.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Barry Cooper, CAmpus pro-life club, GAP, Genocide Awareness Project, Mark Milke, Tom Flanagan, University of Calgary

Day two at the University of Calgary

November 27, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek 1 Comment

Some coverage of the UofC campus pro-life display, here. That’s a link to CTV, with video too. As usual, the comments are very interesting. Here’s my personal fav–“Andrew” argues he shouldn’t be distracted from his education by, well, learning:

Even giving pro life the argument that a fetus is a person, a woman still has a full right to decide what goes on inside her body.

Also these signs are disruptive to our education. In one of my classes I had a test and while preparing for it, I overheard one of my colleagues saying “I can’t stop thinking about abortions”. Although the comment had a humorous intent it still reflects the disruptive qualities of this “protest” so to speak. Some people are paying a lot of money to attend university and the last thing they need are disruptions about issues irrelevant to them.
 

The calibre of a university education, and those who want one, continues to climb and climb and climb. Shoot for the stars, Andrew.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: CAmpus pro-life club, Genocide Awareness Project, University of Calgary

Popular viewpoints don’t need protection…

November 16, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek 2 Comments

…Unpopular viewpoints do. You will never be called to stand up and defend the right to publish a new spice cookie recipe. (ooh!) Or tell someone how great they look in fuchsia.

How the University of Calgary gets off thinking they can punish students for doing, well, what students do–is beyond me.

The University of Calgary is threatening the campus pro-life group with suspension or expulsion unless they turn their GAP signs inward.

Abortion is fine by everyone in our society–so long as they never see it. For some, it is upon encountering the brutal reality of abortion visually that they realize how wrong it is.

That was my case. I was already pro-life yes, but not doing anything. A friend ignited a sense of injustice in me through her talk combined with an abortion video.

There’s lots of killing that goes on in this world, yes. Many wars are fought and they aren’t just. But injustice is particularly evident when we see a fetus being dismembered firsthand. If you can’t watch this, if you can’t look at the photo–then you can’t defend abortion.

The University of Calgary would prefer you don’t see what happens in abortion.

They say students have complained because they are offended.

Of course they are offended. I’m offended almost everytime I’m on campus. Student groups can show photos of any and all kinds: It’s only when it comes to abortion that they get kicked off campus, or told the photos are too large. Or too graphic. Or need to be turned inwards.

Speak out against the double standard. Next time could be your cause.

The UofC campus life group is going to go ahead with a GAP display on November 26 and 27.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Centre for Bioethical Reform, Freedom of speech, GAP, Genocide Awareness Project, Stephanie Gray

Missing the point at University of Toronto

April 9, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

The Varsity reports on a pro-life demonstration at University of Toronto, here.

Reading the article makes for interesting commentary on the reporter’s perceptions of abortion. Now the Genocide Awareness Project does not equate abortion and the Holocaust but rather says where personhood is denied, great atrocities occur. As in if we declare people of other skin colours are not people, then we are able to tolerate slavery. If we declare Jewish people are not people, we can tolerate the Holocaust. This nuance is apparently all lost on the reporter, however, so I am forced to wonder whether it will not be lost on most pro-choice students on campus.

I for one, believe the Holocaust is a stand alone event, and that word should not be used for any event other than the actual Holocaust in World War II. But I do not believe that the Genocide Awareness Project is saying that “abortion is a Holocaust,” rather to repeat, that the similarity lies in denying personhood to a particular group of people. In the Holocaust it was Jews, today, it is the unborn.

I’d appreciate nuanced feedback, in particular if you believe I am playing a game of semantics.

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Trish adds: There are several interesting little insights about the abortion debate to be gleaned from the Varsity article. First of all, note who the coalition of pro-choice campus groups were: they included “UTSU, ASSU, the Centre for Women and Trans People, the GSU, CUPE 3902, CFS-Ontario and the Steelworkers.” As usual, there’s the round-up of campus groups who collect their fees from those students who are just trying to go to school and then go spend that money on those causes selected by their professional student activist executives? Anyone who has gone to university knows just how representative those groups are. But CUPE and the Steelworkers? These are now campus groups?

In addition, prolife comments were collected from Rosemary Connell who is identified as an “anti-abortion activist (and non-student)” Comments regarding the students positive response to the pro-choice shouts of “20 years of reproductive freedom” were provided by Chantal Sundaram, “a CUPE 3902 staff rep”. Is she also a “non-student”? Gee, I wonder why the pro-lifer is identified as a “non-student” and a CUPE staff rep isn’t? Maybe she’s a part-time student?

Finally, check out the comments sections. Is that where we finally get to hear from actual students? (Presumably that is who is reading the Varsity.) If they are representative of the campus population (who knows?), the pro-choice side is not doing very well.

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Tanya adds: The Holocaust (capitalized, in reference to WWII) is a stand-alone event. However, a holocaust is “any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life.” [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holocaust] Genocide is “the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.” [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide]

I rather think that abortion is more of a holocaust than a genocide, with some reservations. Nothing says it better than a dictionary. 
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Andrea disagrees with the dictionary: There are no “small h holocausts.” It’s a term used specifically for the event in WWII and ought to be reserved for that. Prior to the Holocaust we did not use the word. But the question is whether or not we can compare something to the Holocaust, for me anyway. And there, I believe we can draw comparisons, where useful, as in for example, showing that both today and in various times in history, like in the Holocaust, we choose to deny some people personhood status.   

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Genocide Awareness Project

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