Totalitarian Impulses at Carleton University Student Association

Carleton University's Student Association (CUSA) decision to prohibit 'anti-choice' groups from funding, meeting space, or even forming a university association is a tremendous opportunity to advance the pro-life cause at that university. Despite the fact that it comes as a heavy-handed and totalitarian response to reasonable debate at that venue, pro-lifers should only see this as an opportunity to ask some much-needed questions, and to do so very publicly. Why are those members in power at CUSA (all pro-choice) so afraid to allow their students this opportunity to advance this particular debate? Despite any rhetoric they can offer, there is no reasonable excuse for this particular decision - it seems to be grounded in fear. As I understand it, just previous to this vote, there had been a university debate between representatives of local pro-choice groups (Planned Parenthood and another I forget), which many observers (including pro-choice) concluded was easily won by the pro-life debater. The fact that the CUSA leaders responded by crippling future debate on this issue shows that they lack confidence in their position. What CUSA has done by this decision is exposed in a very public way the weakness that many pro-choice people feel for their arguments, when exposed to pro-life arguments. For a debate that was supposedly 'closed' a generation ago, it sure seems like some people sit very uneasily when they are exposed to the pro-life position.

To these and all pro-choicers, we should be ready to say, at every opportunity, 'bring it on'.