U of C students risk arrest for anti-abortion displays

Some University of Calgary students say they will risk arrest and possibly even expulsion by holding an anti-abortion protest later this week.

The anti-abortion group University of Calgary Campus Pro-Life plans to put up giant posters outside MacEwan Student Centre on Wednesday and Thursday showing aborted fetuses. The posters compare abortion to the Holocaust, the Ku Klux Klan and the genocide in Rwanda.

Earlier this year, university administrators asked the group, which has about 30 members, to make the posters less visible, citing safety concerns. But when they refused to comply, the school issued a letter last month threatening legal action.

The letter says the university will consider the students to be trespassing and they will be subject to arrest, fines, suspension or expulsion. Attempts to come up with a "reasonable compromise" have been unsuccessful, according to the letter.

"The appropriate forum to resolve this issue is in the courts."

University lawyer Paul Beke said the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not apply to universities, and freedom of expression protection does not extend to trespassers.

"Protesters are on the university's private property and they have refused to follow the university's instructions. Because they won't co-operate, they had to give notice to the protesters that they will become illegal protesters. So they will be dealt with legally if they do trespass." 

University of Calgary Campus Pro-Life has held the Genocide Awareness Project displays five times since 2005, sometimes attracting counter-protests.

"The reason we won't back down is simply because of our conviction in the pro-life message, and freedom of speech," said Leah Hallman, president of the University of Calgary Campus Pro-Life. "But the reason why I personally am going ahead with it is because if I do not do this, what will happen to the unborn?"

Student Julia Kittelsen, who filed a complaint, says she considers the displays hate propaganda.

"I think it unfairly targets women who have had abortions. I think you have to consider that if a student group started targeting Jewish students, then it would be completely unacceptable, so why is their message acceptable?"