We might just all be KKK members
Some student leaders have compared supporting anti-abortion student clubs to supporting white supremacists. Really?
Last month, the Ontario branch of the Canadian Federation of Students voted to sanction the denial of student space to anti-abortion (pro-life, anti-choice, or whatever) groups. The motion reads that “member (unions) that refuse to allow anti-choice organizations access to their resources and space be supported.”
Though this particular motion grew out of a controversy sparked by the Lakehead University Students’ Union denial of student space to a pro-life group, such controversies have sprung up across the country, and the banning of anti-abortion groups is not exclusive to CFS schools.
I will not go into this history today (though I may at some future point) except to say that this is nothing short of an attack on the university as a place for the free exchange of ideas. Even Heather Kere, a Ryerson Students’ Union executive who hasn’t exactly distinguished herself as a moderate, tried to amend the CFS motion so that it would only apply to anti-abortion groups that harassed students. An even-handed and grounded amendment that was promptly rejected.
And why did they reject it? Well, Shelley Melanson, CFS national women’s representative, told the Eyeopener, “You wouldn’t take public money to put in an organization that moves to take away people’s rights; you wouldn’t fund the KKK.”
Similarly, Sandy Hudson, CFS-Ontario women’s rep, also thinks anti-abortion groups are comparable to fascists. As the University of Western Ontario Gazette reported: “When asked whether Ryerson students should be exposed to both sides of the abortion issue, Hudson said allowing an anti-choice group would be like allowing a white supremacist group on campus.”
There you have it: if you do not agree with the CFS position on abortion you are no better than a member of the Klu Klux Klan or a white supremacist.
Apart from the sheer intellectual laziness of dismissing opponents as hate-mongering, totalitarian buffoons, the CFS just might be revealing its own intolerant tendencies. Let’s see who else might qualify as a white supremacist because of their position on abortion? Well Catholics come to mind. So do Hindus. And religious Jews and Muslims. (Full disclosure: I am a lapsed Catholic.)
Certainly Melanson and Hudson, speaking on behalf of the CFS, do not mean to equate religious groups, including minority religious groups, with the KKK and white supremacists (or maybe they do; I’m not a mind reader). But it is hard not to come to the conclusion that Melanson and Hudson envision kooks like James Keestra, Ernst Zundel, and David Andrews at the next meeting of the Interfaith Coalition.
What about the population in general? According to a 2006 Environics poll, 31 per cent of Canadians believe that the law should protect life “at conception.” Are nearly one-third of Canadians comparable to KKK members too?
Another third of Canadians believe the law should intervene at “some time during pregnancy,” meaning that after a certain gestation period abortion should be prohibited. This is also the position of many doctors. The Canadian Medical Association defines abortion as “the active termination of a pregnancy before fetal viability” (emphasis mine). The CMA does, however, recognize that late term abortions may be performed “under exceptional circumstances.”
Unless you’ve been living in some nether world for the past 20 years, you’ll know that Canada is the only country in the Western world to offer no legal regulation on abortive practices whatsoever. This, of course, includes those Scandinavian countries that the Canadian left has developed such a fetish for.
While the Supreme Court ruled the pre-existing law that criminalized abortion unconstitutional except under very narrow circumstances, it did not rule that no law could be permitted. In fact, the Court commented that a regulatory law might just be a good idea. Writing for the majority in the 1988 Morgentaler case, Justice Bertha Wilson wrote, “The value to be placed on the fetus as potential life is directly related to the stage of its development during gestation . . . The precise point in the development of the fetus at which the state’s interest in its protection becomes ‘compelling’ should be left to the informed judgment of the legislature.” Such a law was passed by the Mulroney government, but died on the Senate floor.
So do the CFS’s principal spokespeople on women’s issues only equate those who want absolute restriction on abortion with white supremacists? Or does the characterization extend to those who would regulate it? Would banning student groups that promote the position that the law should step in to prevent second and third trimester abortions also be sanctioned by the CFS? Clarification on just who is and who isn’t no better than a white supremacist is in order, I think.
The question of “how late is too late?” is a divisive and uncomfortable one among abortion rights activists. As National Post columnist Jonathan Kay put it late last month in reference to a symposium at the University of Toronto to mark the 20th anniversary of the Morgentaler ruling:
“Within their own minds, [abortion activists] do wrestle with these important moral questions — as any intelligent person must. But when in public, they censor themselves. Locked in what they feel to be a tribal culture war against pro-lifers, the pro-choice camp allows itself no nuance. This is essentially the reason Canada has no abortion law: Any stirring of legislative action arouses such tribal war fury among pro-choicers as to send politicians scurrying.”
The abortion issue is clearly not settled in the minds of Canadians, but thankfully we have student leaders to sort it out for us, and representatives of the CFS to deem that the third of us, and perhaps the two-thirds of us, that disagree with them are analogous to procurers of hate propaganda.
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In any event, if you are a student, particularly one at an Ontario university, who disagrees with the CFS Ontario position on abortion, you should ask your local representative if that means you are no better than a white supremacist or a member of the Klu Klux Klan.
Better yet, contact the sources directly:
Shelly Melanson, email: pres@cusaonline.com phone: 613.520.2600 ext.1603
Sandy Hudson, email: vpequity@utsu.ca phone: 416-978-4911 ext. 237
I went to the CFS-Ontario conference with delegates from UofT Scarborough and we were the only other contingent who voted against this motion. The feelings of animosity for doing so (under our declaration of “We’re pro-choice and we’re voted against”) made me feel like there was something inherently wrong with me for having a different opinion from the mass majority. When people voted for the motion there was -applause-, while Bryn Knapp and I got childish catcalls. During the conference I felt massive pressure to cave in to the popular opinion of the room.
The lesson I got at the end of that day with CFS? It’s not enough to issue motions against hateful action (harassment by anti-abortion groups) but on the whole idea of different viewpoints in the first place (if you are against abortion you should be banned no matter how you act). In other words, if you’re not with CFS, you’re against CFS and with that comes with massive provincial and national campaigns.
I think Karen Ho brings a good point about the applauses. Whenever I went to the national general meetings the plenary chair constantly reminds people to not applaud on non-unanimous votes, and it seemed clear very early to me that there is a reason for that. We cannot start acting like the House of Commons.
For the record, however, I’ve been on the losing sides of votes enough times without feeling alienated from meetings. So I don’t think it’s possible to generalize the experience of one person to all “dissenters” (which doesn’t mean that one person being intimidated doesn’t matter… in fact, every single person being intimidated is a loss for democracy).
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I don’t feel like discussing the abortion debate on this forum, but I had very interesting conversations following this with people at my local students’ association. And if people from the University of Ottawa want to send me their feedback feel free to do so (pmarc085@uottawa.ca)
Let’s keep this in perspective. Abortion is one of the hottest issues of our time. Debates about it — whether within the Federation or elsewhere — are pretty much guaranteed to involve a great deal of passion and, sometimes, heat.
Just because you felt some heat at one meeting about one of the hottest issues of our time — and just because your viewpoint on this one issue was a minority position at that one meeting — does not mean that the member students’ unions of the Federation take a “with us or against us” approach to dissent.
In fact, the vast majority of Federation positions are agreed upon, through the organization’s democratic processes, with a great deal of thoughtful, constructive, civil, insightful — and ultimately unifying — debate.
Of course, nobody can complain about those many extremely positive moments. I guess, then, that those many positive outcomes are not worthy material for the Macleans.ca “On Campus” diary-writers.
Here’s my own experience with the CFS. My sense of the organization has always been that it suffers from a very common problem among lefties. That is, the participants in the CFS are very used to being marginalized from other debates and in other venues. They have a persecution complex. So because they are so sure of their own role as the marginalized party, it never occurs to them that within their own power structures, where they wield established influence, they might actually marginalize other people in turn. When confronted with the suggestion that this is happening, the usual reaction is an exceptionist approach, where the tactics employed by the CFS (that would never fly in other contexts) are excused with reference to the end goals. Not that I make this criticism as a long-time “lefty” myself. I love the cause, but quite often I’m just dumbstruck by the double standards that pervade the movement.
Is this solely a tactic employed from the top down? Not hardly. Rick’s assertion that this influence often comes from ordinary representatives at a CFS conference is largely true. But that doesn’t make it right. It’s the responsibility of figures with positions of responsibility within the CFS to make it work properly and to contain these instincts. Really Rick, did you actually just justify CFS policies by reference to the fact that they are popular within the CFS? The very Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we live under was enacted to guard Canadians against the “tyranny of the majority.” The mere fact that certain CFS policies and practices are popular in no way makes them just.
The goals of the CFS are laudable. But participant members are frequently irresponsible because they are so used to conceiving of themselves as outsiders that they don’t know how to handle responsibility. And the powers that be are so sure of their own righteousness that they can’t see how the very practices they condemn in the world around them are mirrored within their own organization.
I speak as a representative at four CFS conferences, if anyone is interested. And no, I won’t say which ones.
And Rick, I appreciate your passion. But tell you what? You refrain from taking cheap shots at the media for offering viewpoints you disagree with, and I’ll refrain from pointing out how hard it is to find anyone willing to defend the CFS who isn’t on their payroll, previously on their payroll, or in a staff position at a union gained (partly) as a result of their CFS cred.
Edit the above to read: “Note that I make this criticism…”
Suggestion: It’s always good to provide fact-based evidence to support broad generalizations and grand theorizing.
By the way, I hardly consider online diaries to be “the media.” Sure, it’s a good cover for attacking progressive organizations and movements — but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not journalism.
When you’re saying this isn’t journalism what do you mean? Do you mean that it isn’t journalism because it is an opinion? or because this opinion is in an online blog? Would you feel better if my posts were filed as “Columns” instead? Or does the slur “diary” only apply to points of view that you don’t agree with?
You might want to answer the question why few (if any) students who do not have a direct association with the CFS are willing to defend it.
I’m sorry, isn’t a blog basically an online diary? But sure, I suppose, any extra clarity would add some honesty to these diary entries: call them “opinion columns,” at the very least. Journalism, after all, is generally accepted as “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation” (from Merriam-Webster). You diary-writers/bloggers spend an awful lot of time interpreting (read: twisting) the facts and opining about those twisted facts.
By the way, the Federation’s membership grew enormously and rapidly over the last 10 years. You might want to ask those more recent members, which number in the thousands, why they supported membership in the Federation. Seems to me that you’re focussing heavily on the minority position — for your own political goals, perhaps?
WOW. It must be quite a thrill to have the “Maclean’s” brand attached to your rants!
Well working from that definition of journalism, I have no pretentions of being objective, which makes your point about how this isn’t journalism, well, pointless. Like opinion writers in nearly every media publication, I assess facts and then offer some analysis and OPINION. It is subjective by nature. Pointing out that I am not being objective is like calling the sky blue.
And yes it is nice to have a blog on Maclean’s.
“You might want to answer the question why few (if any) students who do not have a direct association with the CFS are willing to defend it.”
I’m not being a big CFS supporter, I just like to analyze things and play the devil’s advocate on this blog, honestly I like Jason’s analysis about the “persecution complex” and I feel some bloggers might experience it as well. And I’d like to say that a few people who have executive or staff positions within CFS are working to “constraint these instincts”. Maybe these people should get more support, and that would only be possible if everyone stopped looking at CFS like a monolith.
Anyway… how I would answer Carson’s point is that it’s circular. Whenever someone supports the CFS you associate them to the CFS (like in the case of last year’s SFUO executive who has no formal association with CFS), and then you say that nobody supports the CFS who isn’t associated to them. It might not be explicitly circular, but I feel the psychological basis of the argument is, based on the posts I’ve seen here.
Excellent article, Carson! Many feminist groups would have universities become “safe places” where students are protected from the rantings of conservative views. Apparently having to listen to opposing beliefs constitutes an emotional assault on the oppressed.
I say tear down this wall! Canadian universities must strive to be the exact opposite. They must become places where one’s delicate political sensibilities are offended on a daily basis.
What are we trying to achieve – education or indoctrination?
I think Rick touches on one of the big criticisms I have of this site (aside from my distrust of corporate media and the site’s possible anti-CFS bias, but those are other issues). I type macleans.ca/education into my browser expecting to go to a serious news site about student issues, and I see an animated thingy on top, a main column, and a couple sidebars. The main column is marked “On Campus Top Stories” and contains a mixture of news articles, opinion pieces and personal blog posts with nothing to distinguish between them. When was the last time you picked up a newspaper or watched a newscast where they had a bunch of editorials and opinion pieces under “Top Stories”? Pretty much every other news site I frequent clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and doesn’t cram them both under the same column. The system on this site causes people to easily get confused about whether it is a news piece, an opinion piece, or an opinion piece being presented as a news piece.
We can easily see that problem on the comments to this article, with some people questioning whether this is unbiased, and the writer defending himself by claiming it is an opinion piece. It may be, but it is presented right next to serious news pieces under the headline “On Campus Top Stories”. Unless the plan is to attack progressive organizations like the CFS in articles that look like serious news then use the cover of “It’s an opinion piece” whenever someone accuses you of bias, whoever runs this site should probably change the format up a bit.
Maybe it would be better and more clear for the readers of this site if there were two columns, one marked “On Campus Top Stories” and the other marked something like “Campus Commentary” either side by side or with the news column on top. Also, while you’re at it, maybe you should clearly mark articles as news or opinion on the animated thingy as well. This way it is clear that what is a news piece and what is an opinion piece.
Precisely, Brian.
There’s a world of difference between opinion blogs, journalistic news, and discussion boards.
They should be clearly differentiated.
And, in regards to the opinion blogs, Maclean’s might consider balancing the enormously obvious anti-CFS bias.
Rick, to be frank, it’s actually nice that Maclean’s writers are critical of CFS in such a forum. Accuse them of anti-CFS bias all you want, but at least when Maclean’s issues criticism they aren’t slapped with cease-and-desist letters like the ones that many student newspapers receive.
But also, it should be pretty clear by now what is the difference between opinion blogs, news journalism, and discussion boards. The latter of which isn’t really separated now anyway due to all the back and forth commenting that happens below articles.
Carson, if according to a 2006 Environics poll, 31 per cent of Canadians believe that the law should protect life “at conception”, what do you propose fertilization clinics should do with fertelized embreos? Afterall, 31% believe their life should be protected? You wouldn’t propose the biological mother should be implanted with all of them until they expire, do you? Maybe we should have a volunteer program, where pro-lifers volunteer to gestate?
The Maclean’s article asked “Are nearly one-third of Canadians comparable to KKK members too?”. Certainly, the CFS would have you believe 1/3 to 2/3′s of Canadians ARE comparable to the KKK, if they be honest.
Historically, this kind of attitude has always be the basis of elitism and totalitarian movements…that is, the sub-text ‘we know better’ and we won’t tolerate free speech. Free speech is a concern to such people ONLY when their views get a negative reaction. This self-serving blindness is clearly described in the closing paragraph of the Maclean’s article. The aim of ideologs is dehumanize the opposition…that is what we are seeing.
Speaking as one who witnessed SFU during is most radical days, when radical feminism was a minority force, and pro-abortion a minority voice, one didn’t see the kind of repression of opposing views one these issues that we see today. Yes, we did see some intimidation by the radical Marxists on some issues.
I’m speaking as one who was idealistically attracted to the radical cause. Fortunately, I was warned by an excellent professor of Greek antiquities about the dangers of such an attitude. And I’ve since learned that idealism has been one of the greatest causes of tragic human suffering and death in recent history, not religious wars.
It must be understood that the KKK was defeated not by repression,but by freedom of expression, not by repression. Without freedom of expression, people cannot learn the truth. The Pro Life students have much to teach the CFS.
I should clarify I was also commenting on this related Maclean’s article as well as the one above:
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/03/04/you-cant-say-that/
Margaret,
I did not use the figure from the Environics poll to argue that abortion should be criminalized, which you seem to think was my intent. I used the figure to illustrate how ridiculous equating pro-life activists with KKK members and white supremacists is. May I suggest rereading my post and trying again.
If the KKK ignores the rights of noncaucasions, and the prolifers ignore the rights of women, how can one say that they are not similar by questioning the rights and liberties of others. The numbers behind the KKK and prolife opinionated even when not similar, do not make the anology of KKK debate and prolife debate rediculous. The prolife debate does not have the right to intimate female students by questioning their ethics. Abortion is a personal decision between the doctor and the patient and not a university debate. Further, prolife clinics are all over Cananda, and if a woman wants to hear the antichoice opinions she can go to that clinic or even find it on the net.
Margaret,
That’s the point of the debate: is abortion solely about a woman’s right to control her own body or is she using that body to kill another person’s body (remember half of abortions kill FEMALE fetuses – check that, probably more than half if you consider all the sex-selection abortions).
If you are truly confident of your position, you wouldn’t be advocating censoring those who disagree with you. The cowardly actions of the CFS and its apologists show the tactics of bullies and not democrats. Remember, pro-life students have no choice to support these students and have no choice to join the CFS and have no choice to send their money to an organization that treats them like members of the KKK.
The only “choice” I read you defending is that of abortion, hence you should just be up front and call yourself pro-abortion.
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The person that said that should be put in jail.
[...] that causes onlookers to wonder how these people got into university in the first place, be it with comparing pro-life activists to the KKK, or telling students they are incapable of making their own choices regarding joining the military, [...]
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It is no argument to say that Muslims, Hindus and Catholics are anti-abortion, because Muslims also believe that a man has the right to have four wives, Hindus have killed women in Suttee or made women outcasts upon widowhood, and Catholics do not have a very good history on humanitarian grounds. So are we going to grant people’s beliefs solely because that is in their religion?
I think it’s a very fresh idea, to think that anti-abortionists are like White Supremacists.
I have questions about abortion, particularly to the right of women, not for pro-life. Pro-abortion could result into coercion, manipulation, fear/ poverty/ abandonment into having an abortion. How much of that is a woman’s choice or right is a question. However, many pro-lifers are God-inspired, Christians, and religion should not be a premise for inspiring law, but life, liberty, happiness, rights, no harm. This has been the case of ignoring obscenity laws, but upholding women’s rights against harm as to pornography: R. V. Butler
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