https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/62030/archive/files/f1e023a02556be373973d438b49c6425.pdf?Expires=1790208000&Signature=asVNqOLgb62uM9aZU57L1NMXMRVC7pLOA5VUldUktiRcBVEJxQ78TrZa-s1G3RzM8VFZzg83PkWdhoIapMTtZ%7EzWjGtFRpqYEKoUw3hbD%7ERXqQNPzCq8oTZxOAVSNPpmlJ7%7EePwmEDmErY4jT9JRNAEfXiz9hVlTsT9PzgQmEWVsldYzXA2dvj3mqIwMyueqRidcAfR9XjkhNXybkshkhYjZMPpB0Z%7EXnfAUNkKiGinIj4yEt9bgq9pm3upZIQcCX70uqOFMF9-ufI1o2%7EQbfUK8utvISEc1G%7EcM6yIUn74H8MqzNCv9rhz8RjK8nHiLYS5xvW%7EEAF%7E5ek3q3nDOag__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM bfc0b9223875364848143e7fceae8899 PDF Text Text 6 News The McGill Daily, Thursday, January 22, 2009 Principal defends tuition increase, travel policy at Council The majority of international tuition goes to provincial government Erin Hale The McGill Daily P “There is no one more helpless than an unborn human being,” said Mary Meehan. Shu Jiang / The McGill Daily Pro-lifer seeks liberal support Eugenics sparks debate on abortion rights Ariel Lefkowitz News Writer P ro-life speaker Mary Meehan was met with general applause and a significant number of boos at her talk on liberal and feminist support for the pro-life cause during an event at McGill on Monday. The question and answer period, which lasted over an hour, saw many heated and a few virulent arguments. The talk, organized by Choose Life and entitled “Why Liberals and Feminists Should Defend the Unborn,” drew almost 100 individuals of varying opinions on the issue of abortion. The left side of Leacock 232 attracted the pro-choice supporters, while the pro-life supporters and event organizers opted to sit on the far right. Meehan criticized the left side’s current position of “worship[ping] at the shrine of choice.” “Some choices really should not even be considered, because they do involve harming or taking the lives of other people,” she said. “Liberals indeed are anti-choice on many issues... the death penalty, most wars, torture, rape, racial discrimination, and many more. They should add abortion to the list.” Speaking at length, Meehan suggested the existence of a “eugenics influence” in the pro-choice movement. She alleged that abortion is a new tool used for population control in the United States and around the world. Meehan also cast abortion as a civil rights issue. “Early in the 20th century, the eugenicists in the U.S. used compulsory sterilization of poor whites and poor African-Americans to keep their numbers down,” Meehan said. “But eugenicists did not have to use coercion after our Supreme Court legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade.... One of the ways they do it is by supporting public funding of abortion.” Elise Eisenkraft Klein, U2 Jewish Studies, objected to what she believed was Meehan’s conflation of eugenics and the pro-choice movement. “Choosing to have an abortion is not the same as forced sterilization,” she said. Charles Pitman, U2 Economics and Philosophy, argued that support from eugenicists does not invalidate the legitimacy of the pro-choice position. “All sides of the [abortion] issue have allies that they aren’t proud of. It’s not like the pro-life side has only friends that are reputable,” he said. Meehan argued that abortions performed after neonatal testing for disabilities were wrong and that access to abortions increases paternal irresponsibility. “Guys have to talk to guys about walking out [on women]. We need to reinstate the old stigma against guys walking out on their children.” During the question period, Salma Moolji, U1 International Development Studies, told her story of becoming pro-choice while running a school for abused girls in Nicaragua. “The day that I decided to be ‘pro-choice’ was the day that I saw the child [of a] child die of starvation.... If I put myself one generation back, I would be in India, where my grandfather was sold into child slave labour.... I might have been that girl.” A few students in attendance were particularly incensed by Meehan’s sentiments. One such student, Elsa Beaulieu, a PhD candidate in Anthropology, called Meehan “arrogant” and “insidious.” At the end of a detailed and emotional criticism of Meehan’s points, she pleaded, “What about addressing the reality of women’s lives? What about the consequences of illegal abortions on women’s lives? What about it?” But derogatory comments from the audience toward Meehan convinced Raphael Dumas, U1 Civil Engineering, to reconsider his position. “Those few rude students actually pushed me in the direction of [the pro-life stance],” Dumas said. Meehan insisted that her position is not hostile to women who have had abortions. “I want to say to [those women who have had abortions] that I’m not out to make you feel badly or send you on a guilt trip, but I appeal to you to take another look at this issue, because there are more lives at stake every day. I hope that you will help save some of them.” Choose Life, granted interim club status by SSMU in October 2008, will be applying for full club status at the end of this month. According to Choose Life’s Community Outreach coordinator Kathryn Sawyer, the group tries to offer resources to “women who want an alternative to abortion” on campus. rincipal Heather Monroe-Blum was the highlight of the first SSMU Council session of the semester last Thursday evening. In her opening remarks, Monroe-Blum expressed a wish to stay in contact with Council on a more regular basis, and her intention to respond to all councillors’ questions. When Law Senator Alexandre Shee asked about tuition increases, Monroe-Blum tried to explain the financial logic behind her support for a form of deregulation of tuition fees, which she calls “re-regulation,” and described as deregulation with principles. “What you should know is with our international students...McGill receives only the Quebec tuition from your fees. If you pay, say $12,000, McGill receives $1,750, and the rest goes into the Quebec system to subsidize students who come in free from France and from the Francophonie. I think if you want to look at a fairness issue you should look at that,” Monroe-Blum said. Monroe-Blum noted that under her proposed system, the full amount charged to international students would get channelled back to the postsecondary institution they attend, and would theoretically benefit all students. She also defended McGill’s capital campaign and drive for private funding. NEWS BRIEF Right to write in French to be on syllabuses The right of students to submit graded assessments in French will be more widely publicized, thanks to two amended motions passed at yesterday’s Senate meeting. The first motion clarified the sort of assignments students are allowed to submit in French, and the second required all course outlines to reiterate that students have this right. Jane Everett, Dean of Students, introduced the motions on behalf of the Senate Committee on Student Affairs (CSA). “The right has been around since the eighties, but there is some question as to whether or not it exists in practice,” Everett explained. She stressed how important it is to remind students who are more comfortable using French than English “There’s often a question about [if we are] overly corporatized.... My experience is not that the private sector or philanthropists want to tell us how to do our business,” she said. “[But the] government tries to tell us all the time how to do our research. Government values certain disciplines over others...Humanities and social sciences get short [changed].” Arts Representative Sebastien Ronderos-Morgan asked about McGill’s new travel policy, which restricts students from travelling to countries with formal travel warnings from the Canadian government. After commenting on the “international nature of McGill,” MonroeBlum stressed how dangerous travel to insecure areas can be. She mentioned that Canadian diplomatic and federal support pulls out of the countries that the directive would prevent travel to. “I’ve lost three colleagues [in Afghanistan and Mumbai] in less than six months. These aren’t casual concerns about safety,” she said. SSMU VP External Devin Alfaro asked why former Quebec Health Minister Philipe Couillard was appointed as a Senior Fellow at McGill’s Law School. Couillard is under investigation by Quebec’s lobby commissioner for talks he held with a private health care company that was not registered with the provincial lobby bank and that hired Couillard two months after he retired as Health Minister. “Controversy, in itself, does not have us shy away if something is good at McGill. We actually invite a lot of people to come work in as a distinguished speaker or a fellow. If the guy’s corrupted, I think there’s no record on that,” Munroe-Blum said in his defence. that they will not be at an academic disadvantage at McGill. “The motion will establish a level playing ground for any student who is more familiar in French than in English. We are trying to accommodate that.” Adding the article to course outlines was a contentious move – several professors felt that the syllabus is not the proper medium through which to communicate students’ rights – and only passed narrowly after three recounts. With the second motion, CSA hoped to clarify the rule on submitting assignments in French and proposed changing the description of work that can be submitted from “essays, examinations, and theses” to “written work that is to be graded.” As before, this allowance does not apply to language proficiency courses. The motion passed overwhelmingly. The two proposals were originally introduced to Senate in last May, but procedural errors made their approval void, postponing their reevaluation. – Jennifer Markowitz � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Coverage from The McGill Daily Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data PDF Volume 98 Issue 28 Page Number(s) 6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pro-Lifer seeks liberal support Description An account of the resource An article about a pro-life speaker appearing at McGill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ariel Lefkowitz Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The McGill Daily Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009/01/22 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Choose Life events reproductive health reproductive justice SSMU