University Campuses: Ground Zero for Canada’s Abortion Debate?

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Priyadarshinee N
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University Campuses: Ground Zero for Canada’s Abortion Debate?

University Campuses: Ground Zero for Canada’s Abortion Debate?

University campuses have increasingly become a focal point of Canada’s anti-abortion movement, prompting a fresh debate over free speech and questions about what critics call misleading tactics.

“On campuses across the country we have seen a rise in anti-choice groups,” said Trina James of the Canadian Federation of Students.

Crisis pregnancy centres often set up near university campuses, targeting students through ads, information campaigns and free pregnancy tests. They present themselves as non-judgmental clinics, a support service for people facing an unplanned pregnancy.

But students say they have received misleading anti-abortion information, including that ending a pregnancy could cause breast cancer and warnings about so-called post-abortion stress syndrome, prompting a backlash by student unions.

Earlier, an anti-abortion group at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., was evicted from the student union building after it “failed to comply with our bylaws,” union president George Philp said.

Students at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax complained after a crisis pregnancy centre set up at an orientation fair last fall, spurring the student union to develop a new policy to block their presence at an event later this month.

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