As a former graduate of the University of Calgary I am mortified in view of the action being taken against the pro-life group on campus.
In 1985, my graduation year, I could not have imagined the oppressive intimidation tactics that would be used today on a group that simply aims to defend the inalienable right to life. Is this the same university that has touted for many years the axiom of free speech?
I can recall being offended and disgusted when the campus newspaper, the Gauntlet, published a full page spread on the merits of Sado-Masochism back in the ’80s. The complaints lodged against this tasteless piece of journalism managed only to generate the familiar credo on the nuances of free expression. The newspaper affirmed the article was well written and refused to acknowledge any objectionable content. The president at the time replied to my letter of grievance with the conventional answer of “not personally being in agreement,” but adamantly defending the Gauntlet’s right to print it.
So what happened? How did the U of C move from its tenet of free expression to tyrannical oppression threatening pro-life students with arrests, fines and expulsion if they did not comply with the order to shield the reality pictures of aborted babies? The students say they were brought before a forum of eight senior police personnel, the university’s general counsel and the head of campus security to impose the illiberal dictate.
The justification given by the U of C is that the display may incite violence and their only intention is to protect the campus. Would it not be more in accordance with your own philosophy, U of C, to vehemently defend freedom of expression and threaten anyone who might be violent against the pro-life display with arrests, fines and expulsion? Evidently not! Suspiciously, it appears that freedom of speech is afforded only to those who tow the lines of a distinct liberal religion now exposed as hardly liberal at all, but fearsomely fascist.
Although freedom of speech is the primary valid argument in this case, the genocide awareness project that the students present is by far the more compelling one. It is intriguing to me that people would have such an objection to the reality pictures of abortions. It is time for some introspection as to why the media can depict the most hideous scenes of violence and the most degrading pornography without so much as a flinch from the public yet these pictures ignite such furor! Why is it that the culture decries puppy mills yet approves abortion mills? We need transparency in our culture.
As a medical professional working in a histopathology lab at a local hospital I had to look at the actual remains of the abortions that were done in the hospital. No one shielded my eyes from it. I was told it was my job to dissect them without even a shred of consideration of the horrific nature of the task. All human tissue must, by law, be processed and placed on a microscope slide for examination.
It was presented to me on my first day on the job simply as a tiresome daily routine that had to be done first thing in the morning and no one even asked if it bothered me to do it. Frankly, I had not thought much about the issue before laying my eyes on the pitiful little victims of lawful abortion. Little hands, feet, eyes, organs, even intact faces were to be found all blended up in a soup of bloodied debris. My reaction can only be described as being jolted from sleep by a taser gun, psychologically speaking. The shroud of deception was abruptly lifted and suddenly I saw myself and my human community unmasked as the callous, utilitarian people we have become. Instead of turning a blind eye, I opted to confront the truth, implore change and attempt to inspire respect for human life and instill civility back into our culture. Sadly, this is not a rapid process.
It is painfully apparent that we have lost sight of our own personhood, our own humanity. A distorted concept of personhood generates distorted behaviors that can be clearly defined as inhuman.
The undistorted, natural tendency of men and women is to welcome and to love profoundly, the new life they generated by love. In this sense, we are dangerously detached from our own essence. Sexuality, deviated and detached from its proper context of love and marital commitment intensifies the exterminating forces against children conceived. The article I complained about way back in the ’80s is one example in point of this distortion. The authentic meaning of love is betrayed and replaced with a synthetic, self-seeking superficiality that is not open to welcoming the child conceived by the sexual union.
Essentially, the common practice of abortion is a societal condition of self-aggression. When one is able to finally acknowledge the scathing truth of those graphic images and ask what kind of culture willingly does this to itself, one has to admit it is a culture on the brink of its own annihilation
So GAP group, congratulations for your audacity and your willingness to be persecuted for your belief that every human life possesses inalienable rights and for exposing the naked truth about this cultural practice. Genocide is a term more suitable to the reality than such misleading terms as “choice” or “reproductive health.” Science has long proven the humanity of an unborn child. We have no excuse except to admit our barbarous behavior and choose to change or continue on doing worse yet. But how difficult would it be, at the very least, to give birth to unwanted children and give them up to loving homes? Is it so criminal to require this of Canadian citizens? In a country with plummeting birth rates and subsequent population implosion would it not be prudent, if not for love, to at least allow these children to exist?