Abortion debate shut down in Canada

You may have heard about the abortion debate that never happened at York University because it was shut down by the powers of the Graduate Students Association. Two debaters we’re going to discuss one of the most important issues of our time, and yet unbelievably, such a debate was deemed not to have a place in our universities. It would seem that it is a closed issue: the supreme court has decided it so just forget it. At first I was very disappointed, but then I thought about what happened to Pope Benedict XVI who had been invited to speak at the University of La Sapienza in Rome on January 17, 2008 but was forced to cancel due to the rather violent outcry and protest of some of the faculty and a few students. In the end he sent the prepared talk to the rector and the attention brought about a far greater exposure than one would have imagined. Here too, the debate refusal ended up on the cover of the National Post. The essence of the Pope’s talk was precisely about the nature and of the role of the university: we all know now that he focused on the need to respect others in their search for the truth, all within a civil debate. What else is the university for? Thousands of students we’re on hand to support the Pope’s courage. The entire text can be found here. It says something about the inferiority complex of those who can’t even bring themselves to debate with those they disagree with, labeling them and presuming upon the arguments they might use. Maybe they’ll be proven wrong in a rational debate, so they’d prefer to shut it down before that happens. So get your solid, rational, philosophically-nuanced arguments ready, for a debate at your local pub. At least there we can talk: there is only the background music to contend with.