PBS100Y: The Mission

Mission Statement:

The University of Toronto Students for Life Club is committed to proclaiming and defending the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death. We seek to do this by educating the students and faculty at the University of Toronto on current life issues. We oppose abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and all other acts which fail to protect and affirm the dignity of human life. We believe that all people have the inherent right to life. We do not condone, under any circumstances, the use of violence to achieve these ends.

• Some groups are focused only on a single issue (e.g. CCBR and pre-born human rights, or EPC and EOL issues), and other groups focus on a variety of issues relating to bioethics, sexual ethics, and marriage and family life. UTSFL deals with the bio-ethical life issues – abortion, euthanasia / assisted suicide, etc.

this sense of mission needs to be better instilled, per PBS101Y.

Go around the table and have each person introduce themselves:

• Name
• Year and area of study
• Why are you here, or why do you think it's important to be in a pro-life club on campus?

• With life issues, we are not facing primarily a legal or political challenge, but a cultural challenge
  • Pick a recent example of a tragic event that our culture responds to as tragedy, with abortion, which our culture responds to as if nothing is happening
    • e.g. 2004 tsunami – 186,000 dead; 100,000 die from abortion annually in Canada
    • e.g. 2013 chemical weapons attack on civilians in Syria may have left (on high-end estimate) up to 1500 dead, including over 400 children; nearly 300 children are decapitated, dismembered and disemboweled in the womb in Canada every day, with the authority of our laws, the support of our medical system, and the funding from our taxes
    • With these other tragedies, society rushes to aid the victims, or the injustice makes headlines
  • We need to change people's attitudes about abortion so that this human rights violation becomes unthinkable, to change how people feel and think about abortion so that they will act differently towards it¹⁾
  • Similarly, with EOL issues, a cultural shift is underway, and our society is increasingly looking to killing instead of caring as a solution, especially since we've already accepted “killing” as a solution for unwanted pregnancies. We need to reverse the trend.

• The law in Canada
• Frequency of abortion, ratio
  • For every four children born, one is killed by abortion
  • “One in three Canadian women will have an abortion in her lifetime, Dunn said, citing the findings of a 2012 study by University of British Columbia researcher Wendy Norman.”²⁾
• Wounded culture
  • Killing our relatives

• Aristotle on persuasion³⁾
  • ethos (credibility): we tend to believe people whom we respect (Collins: build a bridge) – hands
  • pathos (emotional) (Collins: touch the heart) – heart
  • logos (logical): persuasion by use of reason, argument (Collins: deliver the message) – head
• Qualities of effective pro-life ambassador
  • knowledge (logos/head) – science, evidence, reason
  • wisdom (pathos/heart) – how to communicate the knowledge that we have
  • character (ethos/hands) – everything we say and how we say it is complimented by who we are. If we talk about respect, we need to show respect. If we talk about love, we need to show love.
    • “Whom you would change, you must first love, and they must know that you love them.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
• CCBR: why truth matters? beINSPIRED?

• Key argument against abortion
  1. Intentionally killing an innocent human being is a serious moral wrong;
  2. Elective abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being;
  3. Therefore, elective abortion is a serious moral wrong
• If pre-born children are not human beings, no moral justification for abortion is necessary. But if pre-born children are human beings, no justification for abortion is adequate.
  • Either elective abortion kills a defenceless child or not. If it does, we should not tolerate it.
• An unplanned pregnancy may be emotionally, socially, psychologically, practically, etc. complex, but the question of abortion is not morally complex
  • This is not to condemn or to belittle the stress of an unplanned pregnancy. There's no doubt that the circumstances surrounding abortion are often difficult. But the question is whether we can kill innocent human beings as a way of dealing with difficult life circumstances.⁴⁾
• Similarly, most of us are not used to talking about EOL issues. We need to be well-informed in order to be good ambassadors for the pro-life position.

• But being right isn't enough. We need to change hearts and minds in order to save lives
• This means effective dialogue – not just knowing what to say, but also how to say it:
  • listening
  • asking good questions
  • focusing on the central issue
• left/right brain, Charles Kenny – don't let the left brain yell back at the right brain
• Heart apologetics: understanding the heart of a women in a crisis pregnancy
• Challenging a pro-abortion cultural requires all the skills (an interdisciplinary approach): visuals, media, relevant arguments, technology, sensitivity, cultural awareness and engagement, strategy, etc.

EOL issues

• Three arms of the pro-life movement: political, educational (prophetic), and support/services (pastoral)
• Political activism (CLC, WNAL, 4 My Canada, etc.)
  • But before you can change public policy, you must change public opinion – change hearts and minds to save lives
• Also, in the meantime, services, support and counselling are desperately needed for women in crisis pregnancy
  • But so long as the cultural problem persists, very few abortion-minded women turn to these services
• The success of the other two arms depends on the success of the educational arm – changing hearts and minds, engaging the culture to transform it through dialogue and activism and witness

We must…

• convert the unconvinced (head)
• activate the converted (heart)⁵⁾
• train the active to work effectively (hands)

EOL issues (more education than activism in the prophetic, but also pastoral and political here)

Pass out interest sheets here.

• seminar for training, formation, growth (apologetics, science, politics, strategy, etc. – we need ALL THE SKILLS, interdisciplinary approach)
• special events: debates, lectures, symposiums
• volunteer outreach
• activism
• opportunities for leadership and involvement
  • assisting or joining the exec
  • writing for our blog or campus publications
• mention some upcoming events planned for the seminar/year

• Networking and connecting you to the broader movement (NCLN, TRL, CCBR/CLCY activism, etc.)
• Participating in other activism projects (“Choice” Chain, Defund Abortion)
• Volunteer Outreach (Aid to Women, TRL Christmas Card Campaign)
• Political Activism: March for Life, Defund Abortion Rally
• Education and Training: Conferences, Symposiums, Events

“Instill within your club members a sense of mission (why it’s critical to be actively pro-life on campus), a sense of belonging (why they are needed in this particular club), and provide them with opportunities to be formed as pro-life activists.”⁶⁾

Set the tone for the club, on the issues, and the perspective from which we will be approaching them.