Free Speech for Canadian Pro-Lifers

Editor's note. Please send your thoughts and comments to daveandrusko@hotmail.com

If there is an objective most desired by the anti-life crowd it is probably this: convincing the population that the abortion debate is "settled." If this poisonous lie is allowed to circulate throughout the body politic, good people who are skeptical--and eventually would spring into action--might conclude, "Okay, nothing I can do."

According to my Canadian friends, the media way up North is even more relentlessly pro-abortion than its American counterpart. I don't know the editorial position of the National Post on abortion or whether its reporters play it fair when they report on abortion. But an editorial that ran this week--"The abortion debate isn't over"--would be hard to beat for promotion of basic fairness and free speech.

The thrust of the editorial was to chastise bullying campus groups who were making life miserable for pro-life speakers and organizations. They were "trad[ing] on the conceit that the abortion debate was settled 20 years ago by the Canadian Supreme Court." Not so, the Post reminds its readers.  

In that Court decision, "Justice Bertha Wilson said plainly that protecting the fetus was 'a perfectly valid legislative objective,'" the Post wrote, "and advised that 'The precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state's interest in its protection becomes 'compelling' should be left to the informed judgment of the legislature.'"

The editorial cites examples of pro-life groups who have been shut down by pro-abortion student associations. For example, "A February debate on abortion at Toronto's York University was cancelled after the president of the Graduate Students Association spuriously likened such a debate to discussing 'whether or not you can beat your wife,'" the Post wrote.

This is, of course, first and foremost about free speech, not about which side of the abortion divide a group may be on. To quote the Post again, "If universities have one overriding mission, it is to encourage inquiry and debate. Student unions should not be permitted to use their powers to muzzle unfashionable opinions."

The editorial ends by congratulating York University for arranging for another debate--"using facilities that are beyond the purview of the student union. We hope other universities across Canada will follow York's lead."

It'd be hard to top the editorial's concluding paragraph: "In Canada today, there is one abortion for every three live births. Students want to talk about it. Let them."