January 2013
A B.C. university student union
will recognize and fund an anti-abortion group that threatened to sue for
discrimination if it wasn’t granted official club status.
The Kwantlen Student Association
board granted Wednesday full club status to Protectores Vitae, a group of
Kwantlen Polytechnic University students who want to discuss “bio-ethics” issues
around abortion. The vote was a reversal of its Nov. 9 decision to deny
recognition because the group’s philosophy conflicts with the student
government’s pro-choice position.
Oliver Capko of Protectores
Vitae declined the KSA’s offer of “recognized group“ status, an unfunded
category given to political and religious groups.
Mr. Capko has dropped plans for
a lawsuit. The first-year agriculture student said, “I’ve been working on it for
the whole semester, to get this club going, so it’s really nice to see that it’s
coming to reality.”
Chairman Christopher Girodat
said the board wanted to avoid legal action and will revise its policies on how
groups are categorized and funded.
“There really was no appetite to
spend student fees on litigation over this issue,” he said. “We’d indicated from
the beginning that he was more than welcome to express his views on campus, and
then unfortunately it looks like it came down to funding.”
National Post, December 7, 2012.
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