Pro-Abortion Intimidation and Hypocrisy in the University

Protesters angry with university restrictions on their demonstration

by Alex Dimson

Student organisers of the protest against Wednesday's anti-abortion display say they are upset about the restrictions placed on their protest by the university.

Hannah Roman, a Students for Choice executive, said Campus Security had made an earlier arrangement with her pro-choice student group that the protest must be outside a ten-foot radius from the controversial display of Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) images. "And when we got here this morning they told us we had to be 50 feet away from the display," she said Wednesday.

Are the Pro-Abortion student groups implying that the University Administration is hostile to their cause? Please keep reading.

But UBC Vice-President, Students Brian Sullivan said that Students for Choice had not made any arrangements with UBC to hold a protest so close to the display. "Students for Choice evidently decided that they wanted to have a certain kind of presence there, which the university administration was happy to have them have," he said. "But it was also important that it not obscure or disrupt the already agreed upon display so they were asked to move back."

So the Pro-abortion Club simply didn't go through the proper channels for their counter-demonstration. It appears that the administration isn't hostile to the Pro-Abortion cause as the Pro-Abortion club would lead you to believe.

Students for Choice had also originally planned to surround the GAP display with sheets to prevent students from seeing the display until they were nearby. The display, which compares abortion to genocide using graphic images, was organised by the Alma Mater Society's pro-life club Lifeline.

This dispenses with the idea that the University is a marketplace of all ideas, or that the "students for choice" club had any interest in allowing the public to make an informed choice through dialogue or free-speech.

Roman alleges that the university was intimidated by a letter sent to her, and copied to the VP, Students office, by Lifeline's lawyer Craig Jones, who is also the president of the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA). In the letter, Jones warns Students for Choice that Lifeline would likely seek legal recourse if the students went ahead with the "shrouding" of the display.

Don't you just HATE it when the other side begins to successfully use the same court that you have been using for the past century to push your agenda?

But Sullivan said that the letter played no role in UBC's decision. In the past UBC filed a legal injunction against the organisers of the original GAP display, to prevent it from coming to campus.

Hmmmm. Looks like

1. The Administration has been using its resources to stifle the debate, just like the "students for choice" except in a more "civilized" manner; and
2. The GAP folks have had to do a lot of work to get permission to set up their display (whereas the Pro-Abortion students feel entitled to behave in any manner they want and if they do not receive preferential treatment consider it an outrage).

"Obviously the university is not afraid to engage in some sort of legal stuff. We've been into that with GAP. Nothing in the relationship I've had with Lifeline or the AMS or anyone else has been influenced by an actual or threatened lawsuit," he said.

Roman said that she thinks Jones' letter was an "intimidation tactic." "What he intended to do was scare us so much that we wouldn't actually have our protest."

This from the girl who wanted permission to surround the Pro-life display and cover it up with large sheets so passer-bys could not see the display. Talk about pot calling the kettle black! Double-speak in action.

But Jones said that he sent the letter only to ensure that his clients had a right to express their views. "If it is okay for this majority to simply gather together and cover up the expression of the minority, then you simply are not going to have any minority expression at all."