Canada is running amok with politically correct "tolerance." Certain opinions can't be expressed because they offend others. Thus a human rights commission that bypasses the usual legal system can rule on citizen's comments and mete out punishment. Criticisms and objections to Islam and homosexuality so far have been restricted. Now a campus group is ruling that pro-life views can't be expressed. People are free to express their views, as long as they don't express the wrong ones.
I guess one way to win the discussion is to rule the other point of view off limits.
In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.
Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it "within a pro-choice realm," and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance.
"You have to recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body," Ms. Massa said. "We think that these pro-life, these anti-choice groups, they're sexist in nature ... The way that they speak about women who decide to have abortions is demoralizing. They call them murderers, all of them do ... Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women's rights."
Welcome to the facisit nation known as Canada!
Posted by: Scott Klusendorf | May 29, 2008 at 10:53 AM
I can hardly believe this...shameful
Posted by: JamieC | May 29, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Do they really believe they're being neutral? This is frightening. Brace yourselves realists of the world, the USA is not far off from this form of fascism.
Posted by: Ryan M | May 29, 2008 at 11:28 AM
Pro-life groups are "sexist" are they?
Lotsa women in those groups. Maybe they're all closet transgender wannabees.
Posted by: Mike Westfall | May 29, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Apparently, the tongue and brain are not parts of a woman's body, since both are employed in the defense of the prolife position. For if Ms. Massa really believed in choice, she would consider the tongue and brain to be as important as the uterus. Thus, ironically, Ms. Massa sees women as nothing more than baby-making womb-machines with nothing worth hearing if it does not agree with her.
I don't recall a male chauvinist saying or implying anything that extreme! I betcha she likes to be answered with "No Massa" and "Yes Massa."
Posted by: Francis Beckwith | May 29, 2008 at 12:07 PM
"'You have to recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body,' Ms. Massa said. "
Welcome to modern civilization. We _do_ recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body-- that is, only after she exits her mother's womb.
Posted by: J | May 29, 2008 at 01:43 PM
It is worth pointing out that it is the student government that is making pushing for the ban. The administration, school newspaper, and others on campus openly condemn such clearly unjust policies. However, the student government is part of a larger organization of student governments, and from what I read of the article it seems that there is a similar movement throughout this larger organization (known as Canadian Federation of Students, with the York Federation of Students being the group at York University).
Posted by: will_a | May 29, 2008 at 01:52 PM
Hi Francis, now that was a pure swish, the net didn't even wiggle!
Brad B
Posted by: Brad B | May 29, 2008 at 02:04 PM
Pay close attention. This is what America will be like soon. With the intimidation and silencing that goes on in college campuses, we're already halfway there.
Posted by: Mo | May 29, 2008 at 02:40 PM
"Sexist in nature"?
Half the babies who are aborted are little girls. Pro-life people like myself want to protect them from being scorched to death or ripped apart in the womb. If looking out for baby girls makes you sexist, then yeah, I'm incorrigible.
Posted by: Heath Griner | May 29, 2008 at 03:36 PM
Coming soon to a USA campus near you. Very sad, but the inevitable decline of Western civilization has now reached critical mass. "Ain't nuthin' gonna stop us now" this
ship is taking on lots of water and may go under any minute.
Posted by: alan poweras | May 29, 2008 at 04:06 PM
When this kind of open contradiction occurs I cannot but help thinking about Romans 1:28:
"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done."
People who spout this kind of rhetoric clearly have lost the ability to think in a true, clear manner. If this isn't having a "depraved mind" I don't know what is.
Posted by: Gabriel | May 29, 2008 at 04:12 PM
Yet another drop in the bucket that is becoming the world in which I do not want to live. I wonder if pro-choice advocates would mind if those who are "anti-choice" labled them as "pro-abortion", "pro-death" or "pro-infanticide"?
Posted by: Bob Beach | May 29, 2008 at 04:36 PM
Of course they mind!
That would be intolerant of you...
..and sexist too.
Posted by: Mike Westfall | May 29, 2008 at 05:20 PM
Ever read Salvo mag? This seasons issue is "Shattered Minds Brought to you by American Academia"
It addresses stuff like the junk in Canada happening HERE!
Posted by: Wanda Zippler | May 30, 2008 at 03:03 AM
Now being "pro-life" equates to being "sexist"! It's too bad the reporter failed to ask Ms. Massa to clarify that bit of postmodern nonsense. If I may offer a critique: Believing such a statement -- as the aforementioned Ms. Massa's -- equates to utter stupidity and foolishness.
The PC crowd continues to expose its own intellectual void with each verbal utterance.
Posted by: Curt M | May 30, 2008 at 11:55 AM
"Mr. Payton said. "When the YFS says they believe in free speech, they believe in free speech for them, for the positions they hold, not for freedom of speech for positions they disagree with."
I am a Canadian working at a University and I find this to be more an issue of free speech - and the YFS seems to be over-stepping their boundaries in this regards (maybe they need 'free speech' re-defined to them).
Now the YFS may not like the pro-lifer's viewpoint and some of their statements - but they are allowed this under 'freedom of speech' laws in Canada. And the YFS is trodding a thin red line on this one - one which they will never be able to tow - due to free speech.
For example, as much as I hate hate groups in Canada (ex: Neo Nazi's or whatev's) - they are allowed to exist under the freedom of speech and right to assemble. Now if these extremists are allowed the right to speak - I have no problem with some pro-lifer's speaking. And the law will bare this one out.
I also think the pro-lifer's are offering a choice about what direction to take. It is most certainly a fact that most mothers in the position of possibly having an abortion do not know all the issues surrounding the choice they are about to make. It is wise to be enlightened about the choice before making it.
Now I am pro-life on the issue, but I also would never stoop to the level of calling someone a 'murderer' and oher nasty names for the sake of trying to help them 'choose life'...it's a very shady tactic to use in the first place and develops deep resentments in the hearers. That's not the approach someone in this faith should ever take (we're called to love that mother - not berate her intelligence).
Posted by: societyvs | May 30, 2008 at 01:32 PM
"Now I am pro-life on the issue, but I also would never stoop to the level of calling someone a 'murderer' and oher nasty names for the sake of trying to help them 'choose life'"
If we grant that what is in the womb is a human being with all the fundamental rights that humans have, then killing them without just cause is murder.
Posted by: | May 30, 2008 at 11:50 PM
It almost seems to me that the only way that the ridiculous nature of the idea that a woman can do anything she wants with her body can only be driven home by allowing women to abuse drugs, commit suicide, drive over people with her car, shoot anyone she wants at any time she wants without a single legal consequence solely on the basis that she has the right to do anything she wants with her body.
That it would take this kind of extreme demonstration of libertarian freedom in order to drive home this point to some people, shows the depth off foolishness that people have sunk to.
I guess it is true that if you don't use it, you loose it. This seems to be particularly true when it comes to the mind.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | May 31, 2008 at 08:17 AM
Hey Louis, why should we use our minds, even if we have them? After all, in this post-modern world in which we live, we are enlightened enough to know that there is no objective truth to think about. Only what wee feel.
Oh, wait, we don't know that at all (we don't know anything!), but we feel that it is the case, therefore it is.
Posted by: Mike Westfall | May 31, 2008 at 04:34 PM
My degree is in biology, so I sometimes look at things from that perspective. Genes specify the genus,species,sex,etc., of an individual. Therefore, what a pregnant woman carries is human, not,for example, equine (unless,maybe, there has been an embryo transplant). The sex is determined by XX or XY. In California, a law has been passed that one's sex can be a matter of one's opinion, with little regard for genetics. Maybe I've been wrong for decades, and genetics means nothing. How, then, can a person be identified in court by gene matching?
Posted by: John | June 01, 2008 at 12:42 AM
People don't get it. The pro-life groups just want the same access to public debate.
Banning pro-lifers is outright discrimination.
Posted by: E. I. | June 11, 2008 at 08:59 PM