On Oct. 4 2010, Queen’s Alive President Zuza Kurzawa was one of five students arrested at Carleton University for tresing on school grounds, as part of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).
The controversial GAP project uses graphic displays which compare aborted fetuses to victims of genocides, such as Jews during the Holocaust. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) provides pro-life clubs at universities with billboards depicting images of aborted fetuses and genocide victims.
In her Wednesday night presentation, Co-Founder of CCBR Stephanie Gray compared victims of the Holocaust to aborted fetuses. Kurzawa said Queen’s Alive won’t be using the graphic image display project this year.
“We wouldn’t … for at least another year,” she said.
The GAP project has caused controversy at other university campuses. Most notably, last April eight students from University of Calgary’s Campus Pro-Life Club faced the possibility of expulsion for refusing to remove a GAP display from campus.
The GAP has been seen at over 150 university campuses in the US since 1998 and was first seen in Canada at UBC in 1999. Since then, the GAP displays have made appearances at UBC, Simon Fraser University, Thompson Rivers University, Trinity Western University, University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of Manitoba, University of Toronto and Carleton University.
In the future, Kurzawa said she plans on having abortion survivors and organizations of post-abortive men and women give testimonies and training on how to approach the issue in debate.
Kurzawa said it’s hard for Canadian students to get involved in GAP because they often fall into legal troubles regarding graphic images used. However, she said that despite the problems, the display really drives home the point.
“I’ve never seen a more effective way to express the pro-life message. 65 per cent of the people I spoke [to] literally had no position,” she said. “And couples that were expecting said, ‘thank you for being here, because now we want to choose to keep the child.’”
— Clare Clancy and Meaghan Wray
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].