Anti-abortion protesters demonstrated outside Humber’s North campus supporting the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) on March 10, 2025.
The anti-abortion protest by the Learning Resource Commons raised the ire of some Humber students, but that didn’t stop the teens from sharing their message.
Despite a person walking by protesters and shouting “losers” at them, the young demonstrators kept with their message.
Nathan Cassar, a student at Humber in his second year of the Computer Engineering Technology program, said it is important to allow people to express their beliefs and to protest, as it is a right in Canada.
“I think it's a good thing that we're able to have these discussions in this country,” he said.
Gianna Baklinski, one of the staff members at the demonstration who’s been volunteering for about two years, said it is very important to do that outreach because many people haven’t seen what abortion is and it is important to educate others about it.
“I'm here because I believe that human life begins at conception and that it's important to defend human life. There are 300 abortions happening every single day in Canada and I believe it's murder,” she said.
“So we need to be telling people that it's happening and we need to be standing up for the babies,” Baklinski said.
Humber student Nathan Cassar said if the signs are triggering, "the best thing to do is just remove yourself from the situation.”
He said he disliked the signs but said that being rude or harassing the protesters is not acceptable at Humber Polytechnic.
“If people feel like they want to get involved in talking with protesters, they shouldn't be afraid to go up to them and just ask questions because, you know, they're here, like this is our home turf,” Cassar said.
“You know, if you disagree with them, you should be able to go up to them and sit down and talk with them about it,” he said.
Tanya Bouman, the team leader of the CCBR protest, who’s been volunteering with Toronto Against Abortion since 2018, said the team has a message about human rights and that all human beings should get human rights.
“I think it's really great when we're on a college campus having conversations,” Bouman said. “It's a topic that clearly a lot of students are interested in. They want to ask questions about, and be able to just have civil conversations about,” she said.
Bouman said the topic of abortion is important because it is a common thing in Canada and “one abortion for every four live births.”
She said abortion is a big deal since it is killing human beings and that many are being killed in Canada.
“We know from science that human life begins at fertilization, and so if we know those two things, if we believe in human rights and if we know that human life begins at fertilization, then I think we should all look at abortion and say, okay, that's not okay, that's a human rights violation,” Bouman said.
