Quebec Life Coalition

Where: Carleton University Tory 360, Ottawa

When: Monday October 18th, 7 pm

TOPIC: Comparing abortion to other human rights violations

ALL ARE WELCOME

I'm very happy to announce that the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform (CCBR) has revamped their website and packed it with great pro-life arguments. If anyone wants a concise summary of the best pro-life arguments to show students or adults who are unacquainted with pro-life issues, direct them to this site. Along with Campaign Life Coalition's recently redesigned site, Canadian (anglophone) pro-lifers have all the tools they need to make abortion unthinkable in our nation.

Here is the release sent by the CCBR:

McKenzie Hahn here, on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical
Reform, announcing our BRAND-NEW WEBSITE that we'd love to share with you!

The streamlined http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca features an all-new
classroom jam-packed with a series of four-to-six-minute clips
illuminating the sound science, philosophy, and reason undergirding the
pro-life view. These are complimented by written explanations of the
pro-life view (http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/truth.html).

We have devoted over an hour of training videos--divided into bite-sized
amounts--to thoroughly addressing all of the issues surrounding abortion,
including but not limited to:

- what are the unborn, and when does human life begin?
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/science.html)
- isn't abortion permissible in some circumstances like rape, teenage
   pregnancy, birth defects, or when pregnancy endangers a woman's life?
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/circumstances.html)
- don't we all have the right to bodily autonomy?
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/unborn.html)
- we want to help women - doesn't abortion do just that?
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/after.html)
- what is the history of abortion law in Canada?
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/history.html)
- is abortion really comparable to the Holocaust?
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/atrocities.html)

You will also find free downloadable resources, tools and recommended
reading should you or someone you know be facing an unplanned pregnancy or
dealing with a past abortion.

There's also a teaching section explaining why CCBR takes the approach it
does to achieve social change
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/picturespl.html).

Though we are a non-sectarian organization, some amazing people have
graciously endorsed CCBR and its projects, including Rev. Thomas J.
Euteneuer, the former president of Human Life International, and Fr. Frank
Pavone, the National Director of Priests for Life, as well as others that
we deeply respect and admire
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/endorsements_ccbr.html).

I'm happy to share that this is the best website we have launched and the
work with which we are most pleased; it may be our biggest contribution of
online resources to the pro-life movement thus far.

Would you consider partnering with us by making an online donation
(http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/about-donate.html)?

As you can see from our site, CCBR is making a positive difference--not
only changing minds but also saving lives.  But we can't do it alone.  We
need your help and financial partnership--whether $10, $100, or
$10,000--any amount will help us; it all adds together!

Please forward this e-mail to all your friends inviting them to check
out http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca, grab free content, and share in our
vision to make abortion unthinkable--in our lifetime!

Best regards,

McKenzie Hahn
Administrative Intern

P.S., Please feel free to e-mail me your feedback about our new site--what
you like and what you suggest for improvements.

P.P.S., Sorry if you received this notice more than once.  We're
circulating it to several lists and it's possible you're on more than one.

--
Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR)

Box 123
5 - 8720 Macleod Trail SE
Calgary, AB  T2H 0M4
403.668.0485 (office)

See it. Believe it. Change it.  www.unmaskingchoice.ca

There's a new Facebook group supporting free speech for undergrads at McGill University. The creators, though not necessarily pro-life, understand the chilling effect a proposed motion submitted for the next assembly of the McGill undergraduate student union will have on debate at the McGill campus. 

The motion, which if passed will basically disallow any group that is against abortion from gaining official club status, will be voted upon at the SSMU cafeteria at 3480 McTavish on Wed. February 10, between 5 and 9pm.

Here's the Facebook page, which includes a copy of the motion.

By the way, all this pro-life activity that these censorious Student union types at McGill seem to be having apopleptic fits about, has been going on at U of Toronto and at other Canadian universities lately without a hitch.

In other censorship news, it looks as if a few people clicked on the much-abused "inappropriate content" flag in Youtube and knocked the videos of the infamous "Echoes of the Holocaust" Jojo Ruba presentation at McGill off the air (only a handful of the original 19 videos remain online)...

(Click here for the background info...)

Fortunately, there are other video-publishing platforms out there, and we've put the videos back in the public domain, where they belong (minus a few, which we'll be adding asap). Here's the new Quebec Life Coalition Channel, and here's the first video of the series: 

Part 1 of 19 - Echoes of the Holocaust presentation hosted by Choose Life McGill disrupted by abortion advocates Oct. 6 2009 from Georges Buscemi on Vimeo.

Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform representative Jojo Ruba's Oct. 6 2009 presentation at McGill University, hosted by Choose Life McGill, was hijacked for over 2 hours tonight by pro-abortion protesters. As the presentation began, protesters shouted and sang children's songs. They then crowded around the vacant podium (Mr. Ruba having absconded) and continued singing for the better part of an hour, at which point police arrived. Two protesters were taken, but many were left behind. When the police left, they resumed and disrupted the presentation (which had fitfully resumed) until the two hour mark, at which point event organizers were informed by campus officials that time had run out and the room had to be closed for the night. Protesters then filed out, along with most of the audience. A police officer showed up again, answering some questions for the campus media.

A sad day for free speech, and a sad day for the unborn—but displays like last night's show that the truth that the unborn have an inalienable right to life is so manifest that the only way to oppose it is by physical force. And truth being stronger and more persistent than physical force, we'll surely see a time (maybe not in our lifetimes, but surely there will be a time) when that truth is recognized, cherished, celebrated.

Part of the good news is this: at the time of printing, this video has so far garnered over 15,000 views on YouTube. Hundreds of comments have also been posted, overwhelmingly favouring Choose Life and the pro-life position in general. Furthermore, the presenter, José Ruba of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, had this to say: “There is good news. At least three students who were not pro-life came and actually dialogued with me afterwards. And even one of the protesters came up to me and said he wished he had heard the rest of the presentation. And I know many pro-lifers in the crowd grew even more passionate about speaking for life after this.”

To see the video, go here.

The videos from the University of Victoria debate are now up. Stephanie Gray's lecture went much better than her collegue's Jojo Ruba's. Suprising to me that U. of Vic. would have a more liberal culture than McGill....(though, according to reports, there was still some childishness at the start of Ms. Gray's first round of debates). (h/t WinteryKnight)

This is great news for Choose Life McGill, whose October 6 presentation was disrupted by a gaggle of schoolchildren who thought they would do a little thought policing. Presenter Jojo Ruba's talk, "Echoes of the Holocaust", which took place on the McGill campus, was basically shut down after two hours of sing alongs, joke-making, and (ineffective) police-intervention.

The McGill authorities (as opposed to the ersatz and comical -- but potentially dangerous-- authority of the student council) have now spoken overwhelmingly in favour of the freedom for groups to assemble on campus and present their views, especially in closed venues such as was the case with Choose Life's event. What's more, McGill's president Heather Munroe-Blum rightly stated that the event caused a "dark cloud" to form over the university,  which she said is known world-wide for its academic excellence, and went so far as to urge Choose Life to "consider reconvening the event right away."

Wow, I truly hope Choose Life follows through on Ms. Munroe-Blum's advice.

Update: The debate was a rousing success: University of Victoria Debate Overflows Capacity.

Brushing aside the usual mewlings about the Canadian Centre of Bioethical Reform compromising the "emotional safety" of students and creating a "discriminatory and unsafe environment", University of Victoria bioethicist Eike-Henner Kluge, who will debate CCBR's Stephanie Gray on October 21 at the Unversity of Victoria, understands what a university actually is:

A university is a place where ideas are examined to see whether they are tenable,” said Kluge. To interfere with that examination process is to undermine the very concept of a university.

I wish these illiberal and petulant students understood that by stifling the truth and debate they are slowly sucking the life from their universities, killing society's capacity to think critically in the womb, so to speak...

Update: Binky on the McGill free-speech fiasco and university illiberality in general:

SHOCKING, BUT HARDLY a surprise, given 50 years of student & faculty radicalism on the modern un-diversity campus. So the modern jobs-training & ideology centre known as McGill is now one big Professor Alisnky sex & tolerance re-education centre, where all the happy little Isms run free and frolic in the fields…

UPDATE: The videos have been censored at YouTube. Here they are at another site.

Here, finally, are the videos. I'll be posting them as I upload them. Sorry for the delay.

I wanted to say this first, though:

The protesters on this video refuse to recognize the full humanity of the unborn, which is why they'll never understand what Choose Life president Natalie Fohl and other people who fight for human rights for all humans are doing. Where the protesters see oppression, we see emancipation (of the unborn from death when they just happen to be unwanted). Where they see hate, we see love for all humans, including the unborn. The presentation that's been hijacked last night might have shown those protesters the humanity of the unborn, and how tragic it is that the denial of their personhood has led to their wholesale slaughter, just as the denial of personhood of the other unfortunates of the 20th century has led to their liquidation. I'm sorry they can't see these obvious parallels between human rights struggles in the past and the struggle for the recognition of the unborn as persons--but displays like last night's show that the truth that the unborn have an inalienable right to life is so manifest that the only way to oppose it is by physical force. And truth being stronger and more persistent than physical force, we'll surely see a time (maybe not in our lifetimes, but surely there will be a time) when that truth is recognized, cherished, celebrated.