Canadian University Restricting Graphic Posters that Compare Abortion to Genocide

[paulsby]

http://volokh.com/2010/04/21/restrictions-on-anti-abortion-posters-comparing-abortion-to-genocide/#comments
(copy of poster at link)
The University of Calgary is threatening to expel a group of students who refused to move a graphic anti-abortion display on campus....

In november 2008, the group refused university administrators’ requests to make the posters — which compared abortion to the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda — less visible, and also ignored a letter threatening legal action.

Six students were charged with trespassing on campus, but those charges were later stayed.

The group put up the display again on April 8, and was asked by campus security to turn the graphic images inward, away from passersby. The students snubbed that request and refused to leave campus, according to the university’s letter.

Their “failure to comply with the direction of a campus security officer or university official in legitimate pursuit of his/her duties” could result in sanctions ranging from fines or probation to suspension or expulsion....

[YOY]

1. In Catholic HS we had a teacher who put those fucking posters all over his classroom.

Eventually the school made him cover them up as several students complained that they were making them ill (well blood and gore does that to some folks...and is at least VERY distracting.)

He would pull down his maps over them and pull the maps up to "shock us" with the evils of abortion...of course many times we put porno spreads over his posters.

He'd be thinking he'd drill the anti-choice BS further in our heads with a shock tactic and 'HELLO! Look Billy! You can see her kidneys!!!'

[paulsby]

4. at least in the US, case law distinguishes GREATLY between HS and college

such a display would not be acceptable in a HS and could be banned

not at a (public) college

[YOY]

5. This was a Catholic HS...and homefry was 20+ years in.

And deeply batshit to boot.

[Kerrytravelers]

2. It is about time people start saying "enough" to this nonsense.

This isn't civil discourse. It is propaganda.

[paulsby]

3. are the abu graib pictures "propaganda"?

how about pictures of napalmed kids in vietnam?

i 100% support what these students are doing. however, i realize its canada, which far less freedom of speech than the US.

[Oregone]

6. They can be if you put a catchy slogan on them about an irrelevant topic

SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS NOW

SOON THEYLL COME FOR YOU AND YOUR GUNS!

[paulsby]

7. the point is that pictures say a lot

and i fully respect the right of the students to use the pictures in the furtherance of discourse on choice, just as napalmed kids were used in vietnam protests or abu graib pictures.

sunlight is the best disinfectant

whether it's sausage being made, war being fought, or abortion and its aftermath, i support it

[Chulanowa]

8. Except these things aren't used to further discourse, but rather to shut it down

"ABORTION EQUALS GENOCIDE LOOK AT THE BLOODY FETUS!" isn't discussion, Pauslby, it's actually a form of intimidation with the intent of silencing all debate. Either you agree with the "message" or you're a genocidal baby-killer.

Secondly, there doesn't really need to be "discourse" - What happens in the uterus is not hte business of a bunch of college knuckleheads, whether they be for or against.

[paulsby]

9. no, it's called free speech and vigorous debate

which many speech limiters don't like when it addresses their pet.

like you, apparently.

i can be pro-choice AND support these pictures, JUST like i can support abu graib pictures being shown, etc.

it doesn't "silence" debate

i am certain that students are not "silenced" by viewing these pictures.

were you silenced by abu graib pictures?

get real

supporters of censorship are so predictable

"it's not speech. it's INTIMIDATION"

are photos of botched executions "intimidation?"

they imply, IF YOU SUPPORT THE DP, YOU ARE A MURDERER after all?

it's the same tired debate from the censors

and note, those are BOTCHED executions, usually. these are not "botched" abortions

[ZeitgeistObserver]

11. We had that vigorous debate years ago.

The matter was decided, we have moved on, and no one wants a return to such a devisive issue. The students are just baiting the university in order to advance a narrow religious view. This is in Alberta, our most conservative rightwing province.

[paulsby]

15. so, dissent is wrong

the issue is decided, move on

lol

the enemies of freedom and free speech will use ANY tired argument

seriously?

[Chulanowa]

23. So, just a question

Would you support these student's rights to free speech if they were using pictures of the Rwanda genocide, showing the film "Birth of a nation", passing out Aryan Nation literature, and holding (non-violent) rallies in an effort to make the college whites-only? You seem to be missing the fact that not all forms of speech are protected. Slander, libel, incitement, and intimidation come to mind.

[paulsby]

30. in canada, few forms of speech are protected

so i wouldn't be surprised if the students lose

i ABSOLUTEY would support the rights of student to use incendiary speech and pictures, and have... and always will

because i believe in freedom

everything from the rwanda pictures, to the affirmative action bake sale, to shots of abu graib, to depictions of mohammed.

would these students be constitutionally protected for these actions at a public university in the US? imo, yes, and from what i have read of the legal analysis of others on this subject, that's the consensus.

should they be?

absolutely.

fwiw, i also support the rights of students to show lungs damaged from smoke (and damn, those are nasty and grisly), and slaughterhouse pictures.

[Oregone]

33. True. Talking is strictly not permitted in internment camps up North

Which of course, everyone lives in.

America looks so pretty through the barbed wire fences

[paulsby]

37. cue the logical fallacies

nobody is claiming canada is a gulag totalitarian state

otoh, nobody familiar with comparative law can come to any conclusion other than that they recognize less free speech rights.

canada's very parliament itself admitted that when making their laws more strict. they didn't WANT the expansive freedoms america has. the cost was perceived as too high

"Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has also criticized Section 13.1. He cited an example of the book Hitler's Willing Executioners, which alleges the complicity of German civilians in the Holocaust, and said that the thesis is arguably "likely to expose" German people to contempt, and therefore be a violation of Section 13.1.<1>

Borovoy also noted that under Section 13.1, "Intent is not a requirement, and truth and reasonable belief in the truth is no defence."<1> He has said that when he and other human rights activists advocated the creation of human rights commissions they "never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech" <3> and that censorship was not the role he had envisioned for the commissions.<4>

Borovay further added that:

"Although it's true that they have nailed some genuine hatemongers with it, it has nevertheless been used or threatened to be used against a wide variety of constituencies who don't bear the slightest resemblance to the kind of hatemongers that were originally envisioned: anti-American protesters, French-Canadian nationalists, a film sympathetic to South Africa's Nelson Mandela, a pro-Zionist book, a Jewish community leader, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, and even a couple years ago, a pro-Israeli speaker was briefed about the anti-hate law by a police detective before he went in to make a speech."<1>

Borovoy commented that none of these cases resulted in a lasting conviction or property seizure "But only lawyers could be consoled by that."<1>

Linguist and analytic philosopher<5> Noam Chomsky has said about the section, "I think it's outrageous, like the comparable European laws. It's also pure hypocrisy. If it were applied the media and journals would be shut down. They don't expose current enemies of the state to hatred or contempt?"<6>

White supremacists James Scott Richardson and Alex Kulbashian, who ran a racist website called "Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team," are currently challenging the constitutionality of section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.<7> Other white supremacists such as Marc Lemire and Paul Fromm have also criticised the constitutionality of the CHRC. Lemire (with the qualified support of PEN Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, among others) has won the right to cross-examine HRC investigators concerning their conduct during investigations, namely their posting of provocative racist comments on websites.<1> Jonathan Kay, of the National Post, opined that the HRC had "managed a seemingly impossible task: They've found a way to rehabilitate the image of neo-Nazis, transforming them from odious dirtbags into principled free-speech martyrs."<8>

Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists stated that Human rights commissions "were never meant to act as language nannies. The current system allows complainants to chill the speech of those they disagree with by entangling targets in a human rights bureaucracy that doesn't have to operate under the same strict rules of defence as a court."<9> Syed Soharwardy, the founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada who filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission against Ezra Levant for republication of Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, later dropped the complaint and changed his mind about the value of using Canada's human rights commissions to prosecute 'hate speech'.<10> Fred Henry, Catholic Bishop of Alberta, has argued that the HRCs are used to stifle debate on important issues.<11>

In a press conference on October 2, 2008, Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, stated that the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has been "infiltrated by Islamists" and that some of its commissioners are closely linked to the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Canadian Arab Federation, both of which, according to Fatah, have "contempt for Canadian values."<12>"


this paragraph sums it up nicely

"Harvey Goldberg stated that "Freedom of expression is the lifeblood of any free and open society and the commission embraces freedom of expression. I think if you remove all the rhetoric, at the base of the debate that's been going on ... is a centuries-old debate about the appropriate role of the state in limiting freedom of expression in certain precise areas." Regarding the debate about whether Section 13.1 of the human rights code, which makes it an offence to communicate by phone or Internet any message that is "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt," Goldberg stated that this is "actually the predominant view among most of the states of the world. The view in the United States is really a minority view." Fine also noted that "Just as Parliament has bestowed on the commission the mandate, in fact the obligation, to deal with Section 13 cases, Parliament can take that power away at any time."<26>"

that is correct. the US' view vis a vis free speech is really a minority view, and states like canada take a more restrictive approach as case after case shows.

recall, it;'s not even legal in many countries to deny the holocaust happened


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commission_free_speech_controversy

[ZeitgeistObserver]

24. Well see, there is no law on it. None.

So there is nothing to dissent about. These students are attempting to raise a non-issue because of their relgious and/or political beliefs. In other words they want a law where none exists. It's an attempt to ban freedom of choice.

[paulsby]

32. here's a hint, genius

it's called dissent

the law of the land is that abortion is legal (in both canada and the US)

they are dissenting from the current state of the law.

they are also trying to convince others, even if the law remains the same, not to choose an abortion , and using the power of pictures of aborted fetuses to make their point

dissent is patriotic remember?

that you could actually say (but i realize i am dealing with people who love censorship here) that they are "attempting to raise a non-issue" is the height of idiocy. here's a hint. LAWS CHANGE

at one point, slavery was the law of the land. was it a "non-issue" and people shouldn't have protested it?

seriously, the double standard here from censors and their facilitators is amazing

i 100% support choice. i 100% support the rights of those who dissent from the state of the law and attempt to use free speech to change people's minds, and the law.

currently, mj is illegal. so, is it a "non-issue". should nobody protest the ridiculous war on drugs?

[ZeitgeistObserver]

34. Here's a hint for you in return.

There is no law on it. Period.

The poster has not been banned.

Anti-abortion posters and protesters are seen here all the time.

They were asked to move the poster. That's all. They pull this every year, and no doubt the university is fed up with them by now.

[paulsby]

39. spin spin away

first they were charged with trespassing

those charges were dropped.

NOW, they are threatened with sanctions "ranging from fines or probation to suspension or expulsion...."

the university can be fed up all they want. free speech is supposed to piss people off. especially censorious nannystaters

[ZeitgeistObserver]

40. It would help if you read the item.

It's not a free speech issue.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RC]

19. "...far less freedom of speech than the US."? Really?

Do the Canadians know this?

[Oregone]

20. Yes, but they aren't allowed to talk about it

Honestly, I see more free speech in Canadian media and public. Why is that? Well, there is more room for it when there is less vitriolic shouting.

[MellowDem]

38. That's one opinion...

You can say more legally in the US than in Canada, that's for sure. And it doesn't lead to less free speech, if anything, it seems to encourage more discussion in many cases.

As for your complaints, I think you are getting at the US media, which has a lot more to do with media ownership and profit motivation than free speech laws.

As for the shouting, in this case it was just pictures.

Do you agree with the authorities in this particular case?

[Oregone]

42. "Do you agree with the authorities in this particular case"

Im not familiar enough with the case. What I disagree with is the characterization of Canada's speech laws & philosophy as "inferior"

[MellowDem]

45. Well, it is just their opinion...

it is one of the few things a lot of DUers find to be "better" in the US than in other industrialized countries. Of course, the differences in free speech laws between the US and Canada really aren't all that huge as to be too noticeable. Only in cases like this do the few differences come up.

I do find the US has a better approach to free speech laws in my opinion in cases like this, but it I understand where Canada is coming from. There are many in the US that agree with Canada's position, at least until an idea popular to them is censored.

[Oregone]

47. "at least until an idea popular to them is censored"

Ideas aren't censored in Canada. Violence invoking and vitriolic expressions of them may be (very similar)

The problem in the US is that people don't even want to talk about this issue; it exists in a symbolic and extreme sense (like gun rights to the open carriers). But, have you ever considered that its *possible* that you can reach to point of diminishing returns while pushing the envelope with "free expression"? Does it ever occur to you that pushing the envelope in this manner introduce rampant negative effects that mitigate any possible effects (like fueling domestic terrorism, for example)? This is not a black and white issue, and congratulations to Canada for recognizing this and keeping the dialog open on it. In America, every right is true in its most extreme form to many, and debate on those two questions I posed is considered sacrilegious (which will cause extreme "expression" and even death threats). No thanks. I prefer real debate and real freedom of speech, where you can *talk* without fear of extremist "expression" aimed at inciting violence against you

[MellowDem]

53. Well there is a debate in the US over this...

a very heated one at that. There have been a number of very controversial cases over free speech. There are limits to free speech in the US. The point where speech becomes dangerous or might fuel domestic terrorism etc. is obviously fuzzy and hard to discern in some cases. The US already has outlawed the most obvious dangerous kind of expressions. Of course, the counter argument is that if unpopular or offensive ideas aren't allowed to be expressed by those who hold them, then they may express it in other (violent) ways. I think the US very much thinks about and talks about this issue. It has always been a big issue.

You can't threaten or incite violence in the US with speech. It just comes down to what you define as threatening or violence inciting. Maybe your perception of this being a black and white issue in the US is not true? I think the US has a good balance on this, and Canada has perhaps moved a tad too far towards the regulating end with its definition of what is threatening. I don't think that offensive speech is necessarily violence inciting or threatening, though it could be provocative.

I will say this. Some will refer to free speech in an absolute sort of way when it comes to their own opinions, but are suddenly quite the opposite when it comes to other's. But those aren't the majority of Americans.

[Oregone]

65. "and Canada has perhaps moved a tad too far towards the regulating end"

The real difference here is that Americans are more passive and less actually incites violence.

Yes. Its true.

Bad music incites violence in Canadians.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX5JBsKih0c


Ann Coulter makes Canadians turn off hockey and scream




And Bush...well....that could potentially make Canadians riot if not handled properly...




But the music....

Just.Don't.Play.Oasis.

Thats the worse.

So thats the bottom line. In both countries its about regulating speech that will incite violence. But in America, passive people wont so much as flip a bird if some religous nut is protesting about gays at their sons funeral.



In Canada....fluffy seals piss them off

[MellowDem]

67. Well, that certainly turns some steryotypes on their head...

;-)

As for bad music that makes me feel like throttling someone.... Nickelback :banghead:

[Oregone]

68. I can't disagree with you there

Im totally not a Nickelback fan either

[Manifestor_of_Light]

69. Yes you cannot incite immediate violence in the US.

That's from the case where "you cannot shout "FIRE!" in a crowded theater".


Schenck versus U.S.

The source of the "clear and present danger" rule.

Now the test for lawless speech is the "imminent and lawless action" rule from Brandenburg v. Ohio. (1969)

[Kerrytravelers]

58. I don't equate a woman's private medical decision with torturing people.

Your later comments in this thread are actually strong arguments in favor of the students and I could be persuaded to rethink my first position. However, coming at me right out of the gate comparing pictures of so-called abortions that can not be authenticated with pictures of torture that can be authenticated is not a strong position.

And, if I read correctly, the university never started by trying to shut them down completely, just to tone it down and create an atmosphere of civil discourse. The students clearly don't want that.





ETA: I wanted to clarify that I don't necessarily think that you equate the two, either. I understand you were making a point. It is a point I don't happen to find strong, but I did want to clarify my earlier, unedited post.

[Taitertots]

14. I don't think it is time to say "enough" to free expression

We shouldn't start trying to stop people from being stupid or acting like assholes. They think the exact same thing about us. We just have to keep explaining why we are right.

Offensive is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think we need to block offensive ideas. How long before your opinions become "offensive"?

[paulsby]

16. exactly. sure these photos are offensive.

so were the abu graib photos

so was the napalmed kid in vietnam etc.

debate is often offensive

[Taitertots]

18. Life is often offensive

We can't pretend things that are troubling don't exist, it will always make them worse.

Just like abu graib, KFC slaughter houses, the cove, or Vietnam.

[paulsby]

26. bingo. these are college kids

they don't need the heavy hand of govt. protecting them from uncomfortable truths

[Kerrytravelers]

60. I'm not for blocking opinions. But quite frankly, I've never seen proof of these so-called abortion

pictures are authentic. That has always been a sticking point with me.

And they weren't told to stop altogether, just to tone it down. The university was making the space for civil discourse, but the students refuse to work with the university.

[rocktivity]

10. As opposed to pre-existing conditions?

:eyes:
rocktivity

[SidDithers]

12. Different country, different laws. Not better or worse, just different...nt

Sid

[paulsby]

17. rubbish

their laws in re speech are worse

just like our laws (or practices) regarding torture are worse

[Oregone]

21. Sure makes their society terrible too

Heh. I see a whole lot more free discourse of ideas in Canada. Maybe its just that such speech isn't being drowned out by the Coulters and Malkins screaming about traitors

[paulsby]

25. nice fantasy

i never said their society was terrible

i said their speech laws are inferior

hth

[Oregone]

27. "inferior"

:rofl:


Hats off to you and Freddy Phelps

[paulsby]

29. i love the double standard from ideologues like you

there are metric assloads of posts here saying our criminal justice system, health care system, etc. etc. etc. is inferior to any # of countries, as well as europe, etc

that's fine

but god forbid somebody say somebody else is inferior to us in any aspect

your bigotry is showing

[Oregone]

31. Excuse me for using a real example to show the pitfalls of your "enlightened" system

It sure as fuck works wonders, eh?

[paulsby]

35. so, you are proposing a "results based analysis" vis a vis civil rights?

well then, we might as well eliminate the 4th and 5th amendments.

we have crime, after all. clearly, we need to rescind those rights.

our speech rights are more expansive than canada's. good for us, not for them. i prefer freedom. canada prefers "civility" and restricts freedom in their attempt to achieve it.

freedom aint pretty, it isn't easy, and it isn't safe.

it comes at a price.

i gladly pay that price.


i love canada, btw. visit at least 2-4 times a year.

don't like their speech laws

i prefer freedom

[Oregone]

41. Sometimes "freedom" at any cost can repress a free discourse of ideas

"i gladly pay that price"

Good for you. I wont. I prefer intelligent discourse and a free exchange of ideas, not psycopaths screaming back and forth at one another, pushing the envelope

[paulsby]

43. you can prefer whatever you want, but if you are in canada, you don't have free

exchange of ideas. govt. limits the ideas that can be exchanged, to a much greater extent

[Oregone]

44. Shame on Canada for not allowing religious nuts to protest soldiers' funerals

:rofl:

But seriously, if you think their law is "inferior" to your enlightened law (rather than merely a different philosophical approach), you are too far gone.

[paulsby]

46. i agree with everybody from the CCLA to the ACLU

as well as the canadian parliament and human rights commission

they have less free speech

[Oregone]

48. Which, IMO, strangely results in a more honest and more free exchange of ideas

"Whats that? I can't hear you! A crowd is burning a Kenyan effigy behind me"

[paulsby]

50. if you foolishly believe that, more power to you

i don't cede to govt. the power to censor what ideas are too sensitive for my precious ears.

[Oregone]

51. Nice try. The government doesn't censor *ideas*

Thats a myth. And you know it. Unless you consider protesting at a soldiers funeral with a "GOD HATES FAGS" sign an "idea". And if so, I couldn't give a shit.

[paulsby]

54. the canadian govt. most definitely does

the most famous case is the zundel case.

need i cite the details

many ideas are verboten to express in canada

you accept a govt. that censors ideas that are icky and make people feel bad

we don't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commission_free_speech_controversies
Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has also criticized Section 13.1. He cited an example of the book Hitler's Willing Executioners, which alleges the complicity of German civilians in the Holocaust, and said that the thesis is arguably "likely to expose" German people to contempt, and therefore be a violation of Section 13.1.<1>

Borovoy also noted that under Section 13.1, "Intent is not a requirement, and truth and reasonable belief in the truth is no defence."<1> He has said that when he and other human rights activists advocated the creation of human rights commissions they "never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech" <3> and that censorship was not the role he had envisioned for the commissions.<4>

Borovay further added that:

"Although it's true that they have nailed some genuine hatemongers with it, it has nevertheless been used or threatened to be used against a wide variety of constituencies who don't bear the slightest resemblance to the kind of hatemongers that were originally envisioned: anti-American protesters, French-Canadian nationalists, a film sympathetic to South Africa's Nelson Mandela, a pro-Zionist book, a Jewish community leader, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, and even a couple years ago, a pro-Israeli speaker was briefed about the anti-hate law by a police detective before he went in to make a speech."<1>

Borovoy commented that none of these cases resulted in a lasting conviction or property seizure "But only lawyers could be consoled by that."<1>

Linguist and analytic philosopher<5> Noam Chomsky has said about the section, "I think it's outrageous, like the comparable European laws. It's also pure hypocrisy. If it were applied the media and journals would be shut down. They don't expose current enemies of the state to hatred or contempt?"<6>

White supremacists James Scott Richardson and Alex Kulbashian, who ran a racist website called "Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team," are currently challenging the constitutionality of section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.<7> Other white supremacists such as Marc Lemire and Paul Fromm have also criticised the constitutionality of the CHRC. Lemire (with the qualified support of PEN Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, among others) has won the right to cross-examine HRC investigators concerning their conduct during investigations, namely their posting of provocative racist comments on websites.<1> Jonathan Kay, of the National Post, opined that the HRC had "managed a seemingly impossible task: They've found a way to rehabilitate the image of neo-Nazis, transforming them from odious dirtbags into principled free-speech martyrs."<8>

Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists stated that Human rights commissions "were never meant to act as language nannies. The current system allows complainants to chill the speech of those they disagree with by entangling targets in a human rights bureaucracy that doesn't have to operate under the same strict rules of defence as a court."<9> Syed Soharwardy, the founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada who filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission against Ezra Levant for republication of Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, later dropped the complaint and changed his mind about the value of using Canada's human rights commissions to prosecute 'hate speech'.<10> Fred Henry, Catholic Bishop of Alberta, has argued that the HRCs are used to stifle debate on important issues.<11>

In a press conference on October 2, 2008, Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, stated that the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has been "infiltrated by Islamists" and that some of its commissioners are closely linked to the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Canadian Arab Federation, both of which, according to Fatah, have "contempt for Canadian values."<12>

[ZeitgeistObserver]

55. Canada is a very different country than the US.

Different country, different values.

We don't have the KKK or Nazi's or Tea Partys or Sarah Palins or Fred Phelps, and no one carries a gun openly or concealed.

We like it that way.

[paulsby]

56. that;'s great, but tangential

and fwiw, plenty of people carry guns. i have friends in canada and they carry guns on their farm

but that;'s another issue, and if you were referring to CCW you are of course correct

my point was that canada has much more restrictions in regards to free speech than we do

they are less free vis a vis speech.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

57. No, the fact it's a different country is the ENTIRE point.

Canadians have free speech, we just don't have hate speech. We prefer civilized discourse.

I guess you'll just have to live with it.

[paulsby]

61. those are mutually exclusive

you can't have free speech while ceding to govt. the power to censor those who offend others.

furthermore, canada may be a different country, but it USED TO have freer speech

as the CCLA et al have commented on, this censorious thang is something new.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

62. What I don't understand is your concern.

You don't live here, and none of it affects you.

Canadians like it just fine, and in Canada that's all that counts.

[paulsby]

63. many canadians DON'T like it just fine

and that much is clear, and including from the cites i referenced in other posts.

just like many people in the USA, don't like our free speech and want more censorship (although those in DU won't call it censorship of course)

as for why am i "concerned?"

because i consider canada one of the "good ones" and thus i hold her to a higher standard than i would a non-democracy etc.

fwiw, i DO spend a fair amount of time in canada. so, it theoretically could affect me, although to me knowledge, i've never done anything that could run me afoul of such laws

[ZeitgeistObserver]

64. Yes, I'm afraid we do like it.

And in any case, it's not your concern.

[divvy]

22. Right wing neo-nazi types do consider it genocide

In fact, that is the basis of their opposition to it. Evidentdly, more white fetuses are aborted each year than any other racial group. It is a part of the "whites are becomming a minority" phobia.

[onpatrol98]

28. Changed my mind

Years ago in college I was decidedly pro-choice until confronted with a tiny fetus in a jar in a science lab. I could not get that image out of my head. Almost twenty years later, the image is still there. It chokes me up now. I could see tiny fingers and toes. I was overwhelmed by the fact that someone would actually put a child in a jar and provide it for a science class. I wondered about where the mother was...and whether she knew her child was in the jar.

The things we see, really do affect us deeply. It's easy to dispassionate about a subject when there's no mental image to tie it too. I understand why the Peta uses strong images about slaughterhouses, etc.

That jar had a major impact on me and my friends. I would love to shake it out of my head to be honest.

I support the right of those students to put up those posters and the right of pro-choice students to put up posters as well. In fact, perhaps that's the most appropriate response. For a counter poster to be put up. That view can be expressed as well.

I want students to get involved in their world and in voicing their opinion. Even though I know I won't always share their point of view.

[Scout]

36. such stupid comparisons

murdered jews: not inside someone else's uterus

murdered blacks: not inside someone else's uterus

aborted fetus: inside someone else's uterus

there ARE NO comparisons for abortion and pregnancy, so people need to just shut the fuck up about it.

against abortion? don't have one.

[MellowDem]

66. They consider the aborted fetus...

to be a murdered person, which is why they make the comparison. It's not a good comparison, I agree, but they do consider it mass murder, which is where the analogy comes from. I think they're trying to evoke an emotional reaction.

[The Straight Story]

49. Who here are afraid of those images? Are they real? (nt)

[proteus_lives]

52. Dude, put on your flame-suit.

DU does not give a fuck about free speech when something that is universally despised is being punished.

[xultar]

59. What? No one yelling CENSORSHIP?

[sixstrings75]

70. Please don't invade us!!!

Please don't invade Canada to 'liberate' us dumb Canadians from our tyrannical ways...

Thanks