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VANCOUVER — Pro-life and pro-choice groups clash frequently at the University of Victoria, and the results can be messy. The pro-life crowd claims it’s been a one-way street; they say they’re subject to verbal abuse on campus, and their events are sometimes disrupted by opponents, some of whom have hurled more than just epithets. Stink bombs, for example, in one alleged incident two years ago.

In September, an information booth set up by a University of Victoria student group called the Youth Protecting Youth Club (YPY) was vandalized: Used cat litter was thrown onto a YPY display table and the group’s anatomical fetus models were snatched.

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Free speech and freedom of assembly are threatened at the university, or so the campus pro-lifers claim. The staunchly pro-choice B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) agrees.

Last year, the BCCLA and a former YPY president filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court, asking, among other things, that any restrictions or regulations placed by the University of Victoria on students wishing to use school property for “expressive purposes” be consistent with Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.