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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

UofC pro-life club goes to court today

March 16, 2009 by Andrea Mrozek 1 Comment

 U of C students charged with trespassing on their own campus go to court this morning.  Today at 8:30am, Calgary lawyer Stephen Jenuth will be entering a “not guilty” plea on behalf of the six members of Campus Pro-Life (CPL) who have been charged with trespass….

Students plan to set up the display on campus again next week, March 25 and 26, continuing with their established practise of engaging their fellow peers in debate each semester.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: not guilty, 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

This is the day…

November 26, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek 1 Comment

…to see whether pro-life students at University of Calgary get arrested for doing the Genocide Awareness Project on campus. Imagine the visual in the media if students were to get arrested for protesting. Not that I wish that on those poor students, but it could be a powerful statement, whether or not you are pro-life. University campuses are typically hotbeds of protest, and when students get arrested for doing just that–it might wake a few Canadians up.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: GAP display, University of Calgary

Grammar mistakes are theirs

November 25, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek 6 Comments

The Carleton University Student Association (CUSA) drops fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis because the disease is not diverse enough. No really. From the CFRA web site:

This is the wording of the Motion (grammatical mistakes are their’s)
“Motion to Drop Shinerama Fundraising Campaign from Orientation Week.
Whereas Orientation week strives to be inclusive as possible;
Whereas all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve the their diverse communities;
And Whereas Cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men.
Be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign
Be it further resolved that that the CUSA representatives on the incoming Orientation Supervisory Board work to select a new broad reaching charity for orientation week.”

The only person to vote against this motion was Nick Bergamini, interviewed this morning on CFRA. He said, and I agree, that this is reminiscent of how they banned the pro-life club back in 2006. Meanwhile, Queen’s University is deploying students to monitor private conversations on campus, and University of Calgary is prepared to expel some pro-life students who are planning a demonstration on campus.

So–let me get this straight–we have a bunch of students, who run the student unions, who can’t write, who are willing to ban fundraising for a disease on the basis that it affects white men, which, as it turns out is factually inaccurate. Words fail.

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Brigitte found the answer to the age-old question: What do they teach them in school? To worry about whether an illness is “diverse” enough, that’s what. Two generations of modern educators brought us to this. And people still save and make all sorts of financial sacrifices to send their kids to college. I wonder why.

And another thing: In one part of the world, girls get attacked for going to school (where I’m pretty sure they’re not learning about the proper PCness of various illnesses) whereas here they can’t be bothered to learn how to write simple sentences in their own language. Golly, what a mess.

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UPDATE, Wednesday afternoon: They are apparently about to repeal their decision.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Carleton University, facism, Queen's university, University of Calgary

University of Calgary students tell it like it is

April 2, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek 1 Comment

The University of Calgary pro-life club president Matthew Wilson and treasurer Leah Hallman made this statement to media after their own university censored their display on campus. Wish I had their courage when I was a student. (I didn’t.)

We are here today because abortion is here. If abortion was already recognized as what it is, the killing of an unborn human being, there would be no need for ‘notices to vacate,’ or suppression of constitutional freedoms or scare and bully tactics used by the university on its own students. In their ‘notice to vacate,’ which was handed to members of the Campus Pro-Life yesterday at 3:30pm, the University clearly stated that it did not want pro-life activities to be done on campus. In stating that ‘students registered at the University of Calgary may remain on campus for their classes and other regular activities not connected to Campus Pro-Life’ the university proved that it is not a matter of graphic signs, security risks, or any other rhetoric that they have employed in the past.

The issue simply boils down to the fact that they do not want our message on campus, period. It is worth pointing out that even in Russia, where human freedoms are still beginning to make their way back into everyday life, [pro-lifers] experienced no problems in erecting the same display that the University of Calgary has found so unacceptable.

We are not radicals or extremists, unless trying to promote dialogue on an important, controversial issue can be misconstrued as such. We are simply students who want to express our beliefs that human life has dignity from the very first moments of fertilization. Never in our history have we been violent, demeaning, or rude. Rather, we have always tried to use our convictions as students in a marketplace of ideas to promote the philosophical and scientific position that the unborn are worthy of life. We do not know how the university will react to our actions today. We hope that we will be allowed to display our exhibition as we have done for the last several years and that the University will recognize our right to be there, regardless of whether they like our message or not. We are not seeking trouble. We are seeking to be a voice for those who have none; yet, even our voices are being stifled by those who do not believe, in the words of Voltaire, though ‘I disagree with what you say…I will fight to the death for your right to say it.’

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: censorship, pro-life club, University of Calgary

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