It’s an uphill battle for pro-life student groups across the country looking for club status and funding and it’s one they shouldn’t have to go through, according to the executive director of the National Campus Life Network.
“Unfortunately, there have been a number of situations where clubs across Canada have faced certain restrictions on their activities,” said executive director Rebecca Richmond. “We’ve seen that at . . . a number of campuses.”
Several of these situations have resulted in positive outcomes for the pro-life student groups, although there’s ongoing conflict with the University of Victoria group, she said.
Months after the original proposal, the University of New Brunswick student council finally granted club status and funding to the university’s Students for Life club on Jan. 8.
“The whole situation has been incredibly frustrating,” Students for Life president Amanda Magee said in a Dec. 19 press release.
Although the outcome was positive for the pro-life group, Richmond said it’s “something the club shouldn’t have to experience in the first place.”
Councillors at the university were in disagreement during a Dec. 4 meeting, held two months after the original proposal was submitted by Students for Life.
Some felt to support the club would be “contentious” and “inviting debate,” according to the council minutes. The final decision to support the club was in line with president Jordan Thompson’s beliefs.
“The student union is not the moral police . . . it is not our prerogative to judge them on our certain beliefs,” he told council, according to the minutes.
The final decision is a good one, according to Richmond.
“We were really pleased to see that the councillors . . . finally seemed to understand that their role is not to censor students on campus,” she said, adding that the hoops Students for Life had to jump through certainly aren’t unique.
Carleton University’s own pro-life group, Carleton Lifeline, has had strained relations with the student union practically since Lifeline’s inception. Lifeline’s use of graphic images of aborted fetuses in their displays on campus has resulted in considerable student backlash.
On Nov. 3, Lifeline’s displays in the Unicentre atrium were covered up by a group of students.
“I think it’s just really important, first of all, that they know that people aren’t happy with it on their campus, and that it’s offensive to so many not just women, but people,” Alena Peters, who helped cover the images, said at the time.
“People are always going to find the pro-life message offensive in some form,” Richmond said. “That’s what we’ve seen in other projects that have been done. I’m not sure it’s possible to make everyone happy, but that’s not what a university is for. It’s for education, discussion, debate.”
