'Pro-choice' shouldn't mean pro-censorship

National Post - Canada ^ | Tuesday, April 17, 2007 | Jonathan Kay

[GMMAC]

'Pro-choice' shouldn't mean pro-censorship

Jonathan Kay, National Post
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2007

It is a disgrace that Canada is the only civilized nation in the world without an abortion law. As far as our criminal code is concerned, there is no difference between aborting a weeks-old embryo and a viable, full-term fetus. This must change: Even most of those Canadians who self-identify as "pro-choice" recognize the moral distinction between a microscopic ball of cells and a fetus that's weeks away from breathing fresh air with its own lungs.

How does this legal black hole persist? In part, it's because pro-choice fundamentalists -- the minority of Canadians who believe that nothing should impede a woman from having an abortion at any time, for any reason--have successfully shut down the debate: If a Conservative politician so much as muses about abortion-law reform at election time, the Liberals and their media supporters will seize on it as evidence of a "secret agenda" to send society back to the era of backroom abortionists. The resulting near-total conservative self-censorship has reinforced the unspoken left-wing conceit that opposition to abortion is somehow inherently illegitimate, even hateful.

And sometimes, it is not so unspoken. Consider, for instance, a small but telling teapot tempest that erupted at McMaster University when a campus group recently tried to educate students about the effects of abortion.

The mission of McMaster LifeLine is to "rais[e] awareness about the support and protection of human life from conception until natural death, and to provid[e] pro-life resources to the public." On March 29, LifeLine hosted a public event in the atrium of the university's Student Centre advertised as "Silent No More: Women Tell Their Stories of Healing & Open Mic with McMaster LifeLine." The group answered student questions about their mission, and presented six members of the "Silent No More Awareness Campaign" (five women, and one man), who told emotional stories about the pain, guilt and regret they endured in the wake of abortion.

I wasn't at the event. But by all accounts, it was entirely calm and civilized. One observer reported "There were no photographs of anything, no handing out of leaflets when I was there, no personal approach to the people present. I can attest that many students were sitting calmly and eating lunch, listening to the speakers."

Still, the mere presence of anti-abortion activists was apparently too much for the eggshell-sensitive executive of CUPE 3906, the union representing McMaster's teaching assistants. Just prior to the event, it mass-e-mailed a "safety notice" to its members warning that the speakers might use "aggressive tactics" and "hostile imagery," and thereby make union members "feel personally unsafe."

"Should any member feel their workplace is unsafe on these days and feel they cannot come on to campus to fulfill their duties, the local will support their right to refuse work they feel is unsafe to the utmost of its abilities," the e-mail reads. "It is the employer's responsibility to ensure a safe workplace free of harassment."

Fortunately, nothing came of CUPE 3906's hysterics: It was clear to all concerned that what the union really objected to was the viewpoint being presented, not any imagined threat to the safety of CUPE members. The e-mail was a thinly veiled attempt to wield the threat of a grass-roots work stoppage as a tool of censorship. It was also an exercise in hypocrisy: Given that the livelihoods of the members of CUPE 3906 are based on the unfettered pursuit of knowledge enshrined in Canadian academic culture, one might ask what rankand- file TAs think of their executive's effort to shut down legitimate debate on a controversial issue.

(On the other hand, should we be surprised to see a union striking a fashionable political pose that happens to be at variance with the interests of its membership? The Canadian Labour Congress sticks up for Cuba, where workers are treated like slaves. And recall last year, when CUPE Ontario passed a resolution urging an economic boycott of Israel, which arguably has the strongest labour unions in the world.)

The McMaster episode, tiny as it may be in the grand scheme of Canadian political life, is telling: The militant left isn't content with our country's current laissez-faire abortion policy. They also want to muzzle any debate about the issue. This is the price we pay for political timidity: If moderate politicians don't have the courage to engage the abortion issue in Parliament, is it any wonder that pro-abortion extremists think they can shut down their opponents on university campuses, too?

Jkay@nationalpost.com

© National Post 2007

[GMMAC]

Speaking of national disgrace, all Canadians effectively subsidize & enable CUPE's social fascist thuggery by permitting unions to routinely abuse their tax exempt status by engaging in anti-majority political activism & to swell their ranks via compulsory membership laws - especially in the public sector - which plainly make a mockery of the 'freedom of association' supposedly guaranteed under Canada's vaunted Charter.

[GMMAC]

PING!

[massgopguy]

“Full Term Fetus”? I understand that it’s Latin for baby, but how old do you have to be before the Left recognizes you as a human being?

[Eagle of Liberty]

“Full Term Fetus”? I understand that it’s Latin for baby, but how old do you have to be before the Left recognizes you as a human being?

They recognize you as a human being when you reach the age to attend government schools. Then you are no longer a parent's responsibility. You belong to the state.

[GMMAC]

"... how old do you have to be before the Left recognizes you as a human being?"

Seemingly, at whatever age it takes to be cynically used as a political pawn - e.g. an always inadequately publicly subsidized ‘meal ticket’ and/or a required component of one of the increasingly bizarre social configurations which leftists now define as a “family unit”.