Yesterday morning my wife and I drove up the 401 listening to CBC’s “The Current” radio program. One of the segments involved a discussion of the recent arrests of five anti-abortion protestors at Carleton University in Ottawa. The arrests were made because the protestors displayed signs from the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) that depicted graphic images of abortion. The university would not let the protestors demonstrate in a more publicly trafficked area, instead they offered a place off the beaten path where few people would see them. The protestors felt that this was discriminatory, based on the content of their message, and decided not to follow the university’s request. Instead, they demonstrated in a main quad. The police were called in to remove the protestors, who were eventually arrested.
“The Current” had Ruth Lobo, one of those arrested, and Tara Patterson of the University of Victoria’s student union as guests to discuss the issue. The latter, due to her involvement with the Student Youth Reproductive Justice Network, has experience in fighting against anti-abortion student groups on campus. At first I was somewhat nervous that Lobo would poorly represent the anti-abortion movement, but was quickly relieved of my fears as she was articulate, philosophical, logical and an able debater. However, there was a fatal flaw in Patterson’s argument that I wish Lobo had picked out.
Patterson argued that to display abortion images on a university campus was an act of violence that ran the risk of inciting violence against women. However, seemingly unaware of the contradiction, Patterson also said that abortion itself was not a violent act. Lobo’s retort was an adequate answer: that the images were displayed without comment, allowing the evidence to stand for itself. What wasn’t pointed out, however, was that the images, while not in-and-of-themselves violent, direct attention to an act of violence, namely abortion. The logical consequence of Patterson’s argument, that displaying such images was a violent act, actually demonstrates that abortion is itself an act of violence. If abortion wasn’t an act of violence, then how could displaying images of abortion in turn be violent?
That said, I was impressed with Lobo and how she defended the actions of the protestors. She well-articulated the vision of GAP and the related Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform (CCBR), an “educational pro-life organization whose mission is to make abortion unthinkable. CCBR conveys the humanity of the unborn and the inhumane nature of abortion through visual displays, as well as trains people how to articulate a scientific and philosophical defense for the position against abortion” [http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/about.html]
If Lobo is the face of a new generation of anti-abortion activism, then this is indeed encouraging. The work of the CCBR is needed to be able to answer the challenges brought to the anti-abortion agenda in a fresh and contemporary way. It seems that they do this with philosophical vigour and will surely be effective. My hope is that their aim, to make abortion unthinkable, will be met in spades.
