The Peak

Pro-life demonstration draws few supporters

By Sam Reynolds

Last Wednesday, the SFU Students for Life club hosted an abortion awareness seminar entitled “Echoes of the Holocaust.” Presented by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform’s Stephanie Gray, the seminar attempted to “unmask” the prochoice movement by equating legalized abortion to historical atrocities, such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.

At the core of the presentation was the argument that society has a moral obligation to protect those who are weak from those who are strong. Gray argued that legalized abortion is similar to the cases of the Holocaust, and the Rwandan genocide, a marginalized group that fell victim to their powerful enemy.

In the case of abortion, Gray contended, the victim is the unborn child and the enemy, in this case, is legalized abortion. She was also quick to point out that doctors that perform abortions are not the enemy, as she claimed we are all equally guilty through our apathy that has allowed such acts to occur.

The presentation relied upon shock value to further its argument with many graphic pictures of fetuses displayed on operating tables. Midway through the presentation a graphic video of an abortion was screened, resulting in gasps from the audience.

When the same presentation was delivered at McGill University earlier this year, it brought tremendous controversy and protest. At SFU the event drew a crowd of 17.

Students for Life President Jonathon Van Maren was quick to label the event a success stating, “the event was satisfactory . . . even though the crowd wasn’t big, we reached a number of abortion supporters.”

While Gray found the lack of supporters disappointing, she was still enthusiastic, as she claimed the seminar was to “try and reach the apathetic fence sitters and activate them as ‘pro-lifers’.”

However, not everyone in the audience agreed with Gray’s argument. Third-year student Peter Neufeld explained the presentation “failed to create a solid philosophical backing. . . . [The argument lacks a solid definition of] what constitutes a person, which doesn’t make the [anti-abortion] argument true in its entirety.”

Wesley May, a third-year computer science major, echoed Neufeld’s thoughts on the speaker, “while Gray was a good speaker, her argument wasn’t complete.”

Absent from the presentation were campus activists the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG) and the Women’s Centre, the latter of which is traditionally involved in protesting such pro-life events.