Another semester over

The 2nd semester of SRR has officially come to a close. It was a very successful semester for our new group, including movie nights, the GAP protest, political activism through letter writing, and ongoing discussions about local and global reproductive rights issues. Along with increased membership, SRR has also become an official AMS club! It has been heartwarming to feel how the UBC community has accepted and embraced our efforts. That being said, we have a lot of work to do over the next academic year!

Part of our ongoing work is our petition to limit the extent to which the GAP display can shock and emotionally harm the UBC community if and when this display returns in the future. If you havn't already, please sign our online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/choice12/petition.html.

Speaking of petitions, Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) has an online petition regarding Stephen Harper's refusal to include abortion in his global maternal health initiative at the upcoming G8 summit. You can sign that here: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/safe-abortion.html.

Abortion has become a revived hot topic here in Canada, despite Harper's attempts to avoid the discussion. On the one hand, seeing our government so blatantly taking an anti-choice stance is infuriating and embarrassing when this extends to the global political stage. On the other hand, Canada is speaking out against the government and there has been some excellent coverage in the media of this issue and of the necessity of safe abortion. It's still important for Canadians to speak up and tell our government that we're pro-choice and that we won't stand for these recent decisions not to defend a woman's right to make decisions about her own body.

Happy Summer everyone!

- Justine