Letter Writing Campaign

SRR decided to postpone the support group (see last post) until the beginning of next semester. We did not have enough responses this this time, due to lack of timing for preparedness on our part, and it's also approaching finals time when UBC students refrain from all activities other than studying! The support groups will start up in September and we look forward to having a successful semester of support.

We still had the room booked, so we decided to have a last minute letter writing campaign about Stephen Harper's maternal health initiative for the G8 summit. We read some articles, including this one explaining Hillary Clinton's response to Harper's abhorrent decision not to include family planning in his initiative: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/30/clinton-contraception.html. After a discussion, we got to work writing individual letters to Harper. It was a successful and enjoyable event. Here is a photo of our finished letters, about to be sent off!

Bad news, good news

The buzz around Stephen Harper's spin on maternal health continues here in Canada. Here's an article of Stephen Harper's shameful neglect of international aid to the women who need it: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-sad-truth-about-harper-and-maternal-health/article1513829/

On the bright side, this opening up of the abortion issue in Canada has highlighted something important: that the majority of Canadians are pro-choice. Yay! Here's an article explaining the survey of the thoughts of Canadians around abortion: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/majority-backs-abortion-rights/article1519823/

As for our update, thanks to the GAP protest, SRR is enjoying its largest membership since its inception. At least some good came out of that awful display. And we have been more active than ever, working on a petition to UBC about GAP, holding our second pro-choice movie night last week showing "Lake of Fire", and organizing a peer support group for women who have had an abortion. Our first support group will be next Friday, April 9th from 1-3pm. This will be a safe space discussion, facilitated by a representative from speakeasy. No judgement, just tea, cookies, and stopping the silence and pain around this women's issue. Please spread the word about this event to all the women you know in the UBC community. RSVP to Justine at srr.ubc@gmail.com to learn the location of this event.