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By Steve Weatherbe
 | | UVic pro-life activist Monica Murphy. |
A University of Victoria pro-life club has lost a
three-month battle to retain funding from the student society, over its use
of posters some termed intimidating.
The same club, Youth Protecting Youth (YPY), lost not
only its funding but its club status in 1999, only to recover them by
appealing to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Club president Monica Murphy says the club won’t
be doing that this time, because it must first exhaust all appeals on
campus. But the only place left to appeal the decisions of the student
clubs council and the student society’s board of directors is a
general meeting of all the students.
“We don’t think we have much chance of
winning,” says Murphy, a Catholic bachelor of education student from
Powell River, who has earned two BA degrees.
Ironically, says Murphy, though the main complaint was
that her group’s messaging was intimidating, “YPY members
could certainly claim to have been intimidated by the pro-choice
club. They say we’ve contributed to an atmosphere of ambient violence
against women. What we’ve experienced is more overt
oppression.”
Murphy dates the campaign against her club to its
spring poster campaign using materials from the Feminists for Life website.
One showed a black baby, and asked: “Is this the
enemy?” Another, showing a man in a wheelchair, argued against the
abortion of fetuses with congenital defects. A third showed 19th century
women’s rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony, who was also a pro-lifer.
The posters were immediately torn down by pro-choice
students. The student society, which had approved their posting, then
withdrew approval on the grounds the posters bore no information about the
YPY.
In September, the campus pro-choice club introduced a
surprise motion to de-fund YPY on the grounds that its message was
anti-choice, and also in contravention of the student union society’s
firmly pro-choice policies.
In October, YPY appealed to the student society’s
board, noting that clubs are not required to support student society policy
– and also that disciplinary motions require a week’s notice.
The board directed the clubs council to reconsider. But the second meeting
of the clubs council drew the same result, though the pro-choicers had
changed their argument.
“This was the first time we heard anything about
intimidation,” says Murphy. It appears YPY’s pro-choice foes
had read the bylaws, which call for de-funding for clubs that took action
with the “intention or effect” of intimidating students. But
the new arguments prevailed.
According to pro-choice club spokesperson Shantelle
Moreno, “They spread misinformation . . . and try to instill fear and
shame into women.” She alleged that several female students had told
her the posters had intimidated them, though none of these women appeared
at any hearings.
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It wasn’t necessary, since there were plenty of
supporters on the board. The student society’s director of finance,
Tracy Ho, likened opposition to abortion to racism. It is, she said,
“an attack on an entire gender.”
Murphy gamely insisted that YPY does not seek a law
restricting abortion, and therefore isn’t anti-choice at all, but
concentrated rather on fundraising for counselling services and on posters
urging women to choose to bear their children.
But members of the board opined that pro-life messaging
which declared that freedom of choice carried with it “the obligation
to choose wisely” was deceptive, and inherently anti-choice.
Murphy also argued UVic ought to champion free speech.
But one student director, women’s centre representative Anna Turje,
insisted: “This isn’t about free speech. It’s about
limiting the type of speech we fund.”
The vote went 13 to two against YPY. Now, says Murphy,
“since they told us it wasn’t about free speech, we are going
to test that by taking the posters back for approval. Let’s see if
they do indeed support freedom of speech.”
Murphy says YPY’s critics never presented any
evidence of intimidation. “Some people were offended, but many others
were not,” she says. “But the student society bylaws are so
broadly worded that the board can interpret them pretty much any way they
decide.”
As for the charge that YPY’s position is akin to
racism and an attack on all women, she says, “We don’t condemn
anyone who has an abortion. We try to help people deal with the
psychological impact of abortion.”
YPY has about 10 active members, and was receiving $150
per semester in student society funding.
December 2008
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