Dear Imprint:

I was a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Pro-Choice Action Network
(PCAN) that created pro-choice posters that ran on Kitchener
Transit buses for several years.  (You can see one of these ads
in my office.)

As someone who believes strongly in a woman's right to choose,
I was distressed to see that our group's ads were often defaced in
the buses.  The ads read:  "You have 3 choices when faced with
an unplanned pregnancy:  parenting, abortion, adoption."  
Some people were clearly uncomfortable with our message.
Some anti-abortion supporters could not tolerate our group
expressing its opinion, and they used markers to cross out
"abortion" on these posters.  

Now the same tactic is being used at the University of Waterloo
to suppress the speech of anti-abortion supporters.  Unable to
tolerate the speech of these activists, the Feds have 
censored the posters of some campus anti-abortion groups.

This censorship is disgraceful.  Perhaps the posters do make some
students "uncomfortable".  But one goal of a university education
is to challenge closely-held beliefs, and such a challenge may
produce discomfort.

Perhaps the posters do "maliciously distort the pro-choice philosophy".  
But one goal of a university education is to learn to think for
one's self, to detect propaganda in all its guises, and to examine
information skeptically and critically.

The proper remedy for bad speech in a democratic society is not
censorship, but *more* speech:  speech that educates and informs.  If
pro-choice activists are offended by the anti-abortion posters, they
should produce their own counter-posters.

Some years back many students were incensed when the University
administration censored Usenet newsgroups.  At that time many
students spoke eloquently about the value of free speech in
a democratic society, and eventually the censorship was 
repealed.  It is time for students who support freedom of
expression --- a core value of Canadian society as expressed in the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms --- to speak up and get the poster
ban repealed.


(Prof.) Jeffrey Shallit
Department of Computer Science
x 4804