Oct 15/10 - Pt 2: Free Speech

PART TWO

Free Speech - Panel

We started this segment with a scene from last week at Carleton University in Ottawa. Ultimately, five students -- all members of an anti-abortion group -- were arrested for defying a university order that barred them from demonstrating in one of the campus' main squares.

Over the last few years, anti-abortion groups have clashed with student unions and university administrations at the University of Calgary, the University of Victoria as well as McGill, Memorial and York universities. Some of those cases have ended up in court, with anti-abortion groups arguing that their views are being unjustly silenced.

At UBC Okanagan, a group called Students for Life took its complaint all the way to the BC Supreme Court. The court ruled in favour of the student union, which had denied the group funding and status as a club largely because of the graphic nature of its materials.

Ruth Lobo is the President of Carleton Lifeline - the anti-abortion group at the centre of the most recent controversy. She was one of the students being arrested in the tape we just heard. And she was in Ottawa. And Tara Patterson is a member of the University of Victoria's student union, and the national coordinator of the Student Youth Reproductive Justice Network.