• BC Christian News • MARCH ISSUE 2000 • VOL. 20 #3 • Formerly "Christian Info News" •

Pro-lifers test free speech
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By Peter T. Chattaway

THERE WERE no pictures of the Holocaust this time, nor were there any acts of vandalism. But the latest pro-life display on the UBC campus did use photos provided by the controversial Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), and it also attracted a crowd of pro-choice protesters bearing placards with such slogans as 'No Gestational Slavery' and 'Bigots Go Home.'

The exhibit, erected February 23 by the Lifeline club under the statue of the Goddess of Democracy, juxtaposed images of aborted fetuses with pictures of abused animals and Rwandan genocide victims. The exhibit also took place nine days after Lifeline members Stephanie Gray, Michelle Laroya and Athena Macapagal announced they were suing members of the Alma Mater Society (AMS), UBC's student government, for trashing a similar display in November.

Incidents such as these are raising significant questions about the state of freedom-of-expression rights on public university campuses in British Columbia. But they are also raising questions about the tactics some pro-life groups use to raise public awareness of abortion and its consequences (see sidebar).

UBC display destroyed

The UBC case goes back to September, when Lifeline invited representatives of the California-based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) to set up a GAP display on campus. The university refused to permit the display unless the CBR paid $10,000 per day to cover security costs, as well as a $5,000 deposit in case the exhibit provoked a violent response. The CBR claimed it could not afford these expenses, and the display was called off.

But Lifeline eventually staged a smaller version of the exhibit in November. It compared aborted fetuses to African-American lynching victims and the Jews who were killed in the Nazi Holocaust, and it was attacked by three pro-choice activists -- including one AMS councillor and two volunteers -- who tore down the signs, overturned tables, and scattered the club's literature.

Lifeline representative Stephanie Gray said her club avoided using photos of the Holocaust in February -- not because of any concerns over a repeat of last year's violent reaction, but for the sake of variety.

"It wasn't because of a fear of violence," she said. "We wanted to use some different posters and put some emphasis on the animal comparison, which we didn't have last time."

One protester stood outside both the pro-life and pro-choice camps at the February demonstration. Dan Grice, a second year arts student, carried a sign that said, on one side, "I may not believe what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it!" On the other side, it said, "Murder is not a sin."

Grice said his sign combined slogans from both sides of the issue -- "Abortion is murder" in the case of pro-lifers, "Choice is not a sin" in the case of pro-choicers -- in order to challenge the assumptions of both.

The day before the exhibit, Lifeline sought a court injunction to prevent interference with their most recent display. Their application was dismissed by B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Tysoe, partly because the people who damaged last year's display expressed regret over the incident.

Erin Kaiser, one of the three pro-choice activists who trashed the display in November, told the court, "I was absolutely outraged, absolutely upset, and I did absolutely the wrong thing," according to The Vancouver Sun.

But Kaiser continued to assert that GAP displays exploit the Holocaust and promote hatred against women, and she has filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Commission. "If they [the Commission] rule this to be hate literature, then any group that brings hate literature to campus really shouldn't have the right to be here," she told BC Christian News.

Kaiser said her action last fall was spontaneous, and not the result of any deliberate plan to disturb the GAP display. "I really believe that what I did in November was an act of emotion," she said, noting that she had an abortion a month before the incident, and that there are Holocaust survivors in her family. "I wouldn't do it again. It's not my style. And I don't really feel like I deserve to be trampled into court because I had an abortion, and I happened to be Jewish, and that made me understandably upset."

The Lifeline plaintiffs are being represented in court by Craig Jones, a Vancouver lawyer who was arrested in November 1997 for putting up pro-democracy signs outside his UBC residence during the APEC conference.

Jones, now president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), said groups which espouse controversial points of view should not be penalized with high security fees or prohibited from expressing their views, however provocative, simply because they might be attacked.

"Philosophically, and in general, I'm disturbed by the fact that potential victims of violence can have their rights removed for the sake of expedience," he said.

BCCLA executive director John Westwood said his group is "very strongly" pro-choice, "but we defend the right of anyone to take the opposite view and to try to convince people otherwise." With regard to Kaiser's human-rights complaint, he said, "I think it's pretty far-fetched to view the pictures that were displayed by GAP as being an offence under the Human Rights Act."

The Vancouver Sun also came out in support of the pro-life students' right to freedom of expression in an editorial two days after they filed suit: "[The Alma Mater] society's failure to condemn the assault on freedom of expression is disappointing. It suggests the members cannot agree on the importance of this fundamental freedom."

Members of the AMS executive had not returned BCCN's phone calls at press time.

UVic students stifle debate

Freedom of expression issues have come up on at least one other campus in recent months. At the University of Victoria, the pro-life group Youth Protecting Youth (YPY) lost its official club status in November after putting up a poster which gave the phone number of a crisis pregnancy centre and mentioned the fact that Canada has no abortion law.

The UVic Students Society (UVSS) argued the poster violated the society's official pro-choice policy, which has been in place since 1989; 55 percent of the more than 600 students who showed up for the UVSS semi-annual general meeting February 17 voted against reinstating the club.

UVSS chairman Morgan Stewart told the Victoria Times Colonist that pro-life students were free to believe whatever they want. "But when they formed a club they agreed to abide by all the policies of the student society, and we think it's clear they haven't done that," he said. "UVSS is very clearly a pro-choice organization and right now we're in the middle of a campaign to promote those women's choice rights."

However, YPY president Rosa Coelho said the UVSS was stifling debate on the issue. "I would never want to suppress the pro-choice club, not because I agree with what they say, but because it's an important issue and you really need people talking about it," she said. "You need healthy debate, and that's how people learn and are educated, when they can have those discussions."