Anti-abortion protesters return to Calgary campus

An anti-abortion group whose members are already charged with trespassing returned to the University of Calgary with a controversial display.

Campus security officers have warned that members of Campus Pro-Life could face more trespassing charges, but that doesn't worry Leah Hallman, one of six people who has pleaded not guilty to trespassing charges stemming for setting up the display in November.

"If we view that our actions are just actions and that what we are doing is not wrong, then we should continue to conduct ourselves in the manner that we always have," Hallman said on Wednesday.

The graphic display, set up outside McEwan Hall Wednesday and Thursday, compares abortion to the Holocaust, the Ku Klux Klan and the genocide in Rwanda.

Brit Aberle, who held a pro-choice sign across from the anti-abortion display on Wednesday, said members of Campus Pro-Life have the right to voice their opinion but the way they do it crosses a line.

"They use really graphic images and appropriate the struggles of Jewish folks and the Rawandan genocide. I have talked to many Jewish and Rawandan people and they don't want their histories being used for this."

Last year, university administrators asked the group, which has about 30 members, to make the posters less visible, citing safety concerns.

When the students refused to comply, the school issued a letter threatening legal action. The letter warned that the university would consider the students to be trespassing and that they would be subject to arrest, fines, suspension or expulsion.