News

By Patrick B. Craine

VICTORIA, British Columbia, May 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Youth Protecting Youth (YPY), the University of Victoria's pro life club, filed a petition Monday in the British Columbia Supreme Court, initiating legal proceedings against the University of Victoria Students’ Society (UVSS).

“We have watched pro life student groups throughout the province, and across the country, face the stifling and discriminatory decisions of Student Societies that deny them funding or club status,” said YPY president Anastasia Pearse, a UVic student and member of UVSS.

The lawsuit seeks various court orders declaring that UVSS has acted unlawfully in denying YPY club funding since September 2008, and recently upped the ante by refusing to ratify YPY as an official club for the Spring 2010 semester. In addition, the Clubs Policy has now been amended to specifically target pro life advocacy.

“Our aims are to promote choices that protect unborn human beings and their mothers from the harm of abortion,” Pearse added.  “We should be granted equal opportunity to share our message.”
 
The students involved with YPY are members of the university community, which, YPY maintains, is the very place where controversial topics should be discussed and various sides considered. They say that YPY's members recognize that it is their duty to stand up to protect the core value of ideological diversity and the fundamental values at stake in this case, including equality and freedom of expression.

According to the group, the controversy that has sprung up in the media around Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent announcement that Canada will not fund abortions as part of its G8 child and maternal health care initiative for developing countries, demonstrates that abortion is still a live issue for debate.
“To debate is to engage with opposing ideas and in order to fully engage, we must be free to express opposing views respectfully without censure,” Pearse emphasized.

Alissa Golob, head of Campaign Life Coalition Youth, told LifeSiteNews, “This situation appropriately exemplifies the pro-abortion mentality. I have power over you therefore I have the right to kill you. I have power over you therefore I have the right to silence you and withhold your own student fees from you.”

At UVic, the students “are being taught that the truth doesn’t matter,” she added.  “The end of education is supposed to be wisdom, but instead the end here is lies and intimidation.”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Embattled University of Victoria Pro-Life Club Stages Free Speech Protest
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030201.html

B.C. Civil Liberties Association Goes to Bat for Pro-Life Student Club
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10020807.html