A closer look at on-campus anti-abortion groups
Content warning for abortion.
All too often when I’m on campus, I find myself strategically crossing the street or taking alternate routes to avoid anti-abortion protests. I check Twitter and Facebook to stay updated on which street corners to plan my walk around. I know I’m not the only one who actively avoids these groups. Though these protests are not a new phenomenon, recent developments in governance and policy may change the way these groups function on campus.
According to a 2018 report by the Canadian Press, university campuses all over Canada have increasingly become focal points in the anti-abortion debate. Across the country, there has been a rise in anti-abortion groups. These groups often set up their own crisis pregnancy centres near campuses and target students through on-campus protests and demonstrations, information campaigns, and advertising. Anti-abortion groups focus on university campuses because of the age demographic associated with university students. The groups also know that those who are midway through a degree are more likely to end a pregnancy.
As these anti-abortion groups have increased in prevalence, so too has the debate over their place on campuses. Anti-abortion groups across the country have usually been denied official club status and funding because of their views. Some argue, however, that anti-abortion groups have a right to advertise to students and should be protected under universities’ free speech rules. Since January 1 of this year, the Ford government’s new “commitment to the people of Ontario to protect free speech on campuses” came into effect. While the University of Toronto has not changed its free speech policy in two decades and will not be changing it in light of Ford’s new mandate, on-campus anti-abortion groups across Ontario may be protected depending on their specific university’s rules.
Despite claims to “free speech,” the tactics used by these anti-abortion protestors are predatory, to say the least. Walking past an anti-abortion protest on campus is demoralizing. I instinctively look down so as to avoid making eye contact with the protestors or their extremely graphic signs that depict what they claim to be the result of an abortion. These tactics of intimidation and graphic signage do nothing to support pregnant people in crisis—they stigmatize abortions and scare pregnant people away from a perfectly viable choice.
Further, many of these anti-abortion groups have been criticized for spreading misinformation. According to a report by the Canadian Press, the crisis pregnancy centres that are set up by anti-abortion groups often employ under– or un–trained counsellors who are guided by “traditional religious sexual morality and biblical ethics.” As well, though these groups claim to offer “non-judgemental counselling,” they tend to overemphasize the negative effects that abortions have. Though these groups claim neutrality and support for pregnant students, the mischaracterization of their services leads to potentially uncomfortable or even dangerous situations for pregnant students seeking help.
At Ryerson University in 2018, the Ryerson Pregnancy Care Group (RPCG) was granted official club status by Ryerson’s Student Union (RSU). They soon began promoting their services with posters that said “Unexpected pregnancy? We can help.” The RSU granted the RPCG official club status because they “identified as pro-choice,” which adhered to the RSU’s policies. Individual students, however, found that the RPCG was not pro-choice or judgement-free. In response to these claims, the RPCG stated that they were decidedly neutral on the topic as they did not want to discourage students from using their services. Despite their neutrality, the RPCG do not provide contraceptives, abortions, or referrals to abortion services. The RPCG’s implicit pro-life leanings, which are not made clear in their advertising, exemplify the spread of misinformation and mischaracterization of services.
At UofT, the group University of Toronto Students for Life (UTSFL) explicitly labels themselves as “U of T’s pro-life group.” In addition to their anti-abortion activism, UTSFL also opposes euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, and “other acts which fail to protect and affirm the dignity of human life.” In an email to me, the UTSFL stated that “our goal is to change hearts and minds of everyone at the University of Toronto on abortion in order to save children’s lives and spare women the trauma of abortion.” UTSFL is the group that is responsible for most of the protests on campus, including the large and controversial protest that happened during this year’s UTSU Street Fest in September. According to the UTSFL website, they are “committed to proclaiming and defending the dignity of all human life from fertilization to natural death.”
I want to be clear: I support students’ rights to assembly and freedom of expression. It would be massively hypocritical for me, a student journalist, to be anti–freedom of expression. However, anti-abortion groups, such as the UTSFL and other groups on the rise at Canadian universities, spread misinformation, falsify claims about abortion, and stigmatize a perfectly normal and healthy way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. These groups create an atmosphere of fear and judgement on campus. UofT and other universities, as well as their student unions, need to take a stance against misinformation and hate speech which anti-abortion groups claim is protected under the moniker of “free speech.” Groups like the UTSFL do not educate on the issues of unwanted pregnancy and abortions—they scare people away from abortion and destroy safe spaces for vulnerable students who need them the most.
With Ford’s implementation of the “Student Choice Initiative,” which will allow students to opt out of student union fees starting in the next Fall/Winter session, student unions may not have the resources to stop anti-abortion groups from protesting on campus. They might not have the resources to provide alternatives to pregnant students in crisis.
While universities are a space for education and the exchange of views, it should not come at the expensive of objectivity and the safety of vulnerable students.
The only legitimate kind of safety is ‘physical safety.’ If anti-abortion activists do not make kinetic contact with one’s person, and merely display signs that some deem ‘uncomfortable,’ then there are no grounds for denying them the right to speak freely. In the words of George Bernard Shaw, there is ‘no right to not be offended,’ and the precept of sharing ideas for public reasoning always outweighs the subjective feelings, emotions and empathy for any group of people. To claim that ‘safety’ has been threatened by a picture or sign is nothing more than the perversion of Foucaldian discourse theory to construct a fictional, straw man threat to fight against. Grow some cojones.