By Brendan Prost
Mary-Claire Turner’s Opinions piece two weeks ago is a pertinent reminder that the conservatives who screech loudly about free speech usually have the least to say. Any fair-minded person agrees that the morality of abortion is, at the very least, clouded. There is absolutely room in the academic community to have a discussion about these issues, although the sociological necessity of the procedure’s legal accessibility should not be in dispute. But the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) and other anti-choice groups have no interest in free speech or reasoned debate.
Apparently without a trace of irony, Turner in her article chastises the university administration for encouraging students to “silence one’s opponents rather than prove them wrong with logical arguments.” Comments like these betray the ultimate hypocrisy of Turner and others like her. There is no persuasive rhetoric in GAP’s message. Their campaign is simply a tirade of emotionally manipulative and viscerally impactful symbols, designed specifically to shock and appall. They seek to appeal solely to knee-jerk human sentiments, and offer nothing of intellectual substance. There is no intended logic. There is no argument. The cheap and demeaning connotations of the images are obvious.
According to GAP, if you are in favour of a woman’s right to choose, then you are complicit in a gory massacre. If the organization had any legitimate interest in proving others wrong with “logical arguments”, or would like to risk being proven wrong themselves, then they would initiate public discussion forums or something of the sort. But they do not. Their sole focus on campuses across the country has been to demonize pro-choice advocates and psychologically traumatize women who have been, or may potentially be in, the unfortunate position of having to seek an abortion.
The nonsense about the university’s supposed opposition to debate aside, Turner slips further into delusion to suggest that Simon Fraser University is obligated to provide an unmitigated platform to her organization. On display here is the popular conservative free-speech mania and comical martyrdom. In a free society, you absolutely have every right to say whatever you want, however repugnant. However, the public and its institutional arbiters of cultural meaning and reasoned discourse, universities chief among them, have the freedom to marginalize and exclude you at their discretion. There is no law, and there certainly is no right that says you are owed a public platform of amplification and relevance. After all this is what the university, and institutions like it, offer to those who deserve it. No one owes you an expressive outlet, and no one owes it to you to listen.
The academic community, as a bastion of a healthy public sphere, moderates all kinds of important topical discussions. And just as the university community does not welcome Holocaust-deniers or 9/11 truthers, it may see fit to not accommodate GAP. Given the group’s obvious disdain for the values of academia, I think they should be grateful they were given any kind of forum at all
As I mentioned, the morality of abortion is a complex issue. Turner rightly points out that medical science affirms that a fetus is a living organism. And society should be very interested in listening to those who seek to preserve life. But we would be remiss to think that the purpose of GAP and their travelling carnival of mindless brutality are interested in protecting life. There are plenty of uncontroversial ways that human life can be preserved, in which there is no conflict with the rights of other human beings. Starvation, accessibility to clean water, and poverty are all social issues that could easily be addressed by the relatively privileged members of anti-choice groups.
Instead of campaigning for UNICEF or other useful organizations that demonstrably save lives, they waste their time and resources on circulating meaningless and disgusting images. If anyone involved with GAP were truly concerned with saving lives, they would be just as loudly screaming for increased foreign aid to the people dying of hunger in East Africa. We cannot take seriously an organization whose priorities are so vulgar and confused.
It is clear that GAP’s interest is not in life, but control. Control over a woman’s body, control over social policy, and control over public debate. I urge the SFU community, other universities, and the public at large, to recognize the Genocide Awareness Project for what it is: a hypocritical group of control freaks, with a disdain for intellectual conversation, and a tertiary interest in preserving life.
