Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Did I over-react? Anti-abortion leafletters

38 replies

FuzzyHeaded · 13/03/2015 11:50

I was wondering if I could get a bit of perspective on this from the folks on this board.

I am a PG student at a university which recently held student elections for various roles - president of the students' union, etc. There were a lot of people standing around the town near university buildings campaigning for positions, handing out leaflets etc. So a lot of people entered "take the leaflet and smile" sort of mode (or hurrying past and not making eye contact!)

I was walking past the students' union and there were a couple of leafletters, who I assumed were involved in the elections, so I took the leaflet they offered, but I handed it back as soon as I saw that it was an anti-abortion leaflet - "to some of us, ten weeks is a lifetime", with a soft-focus image of a probably 20-week foetus. These students were not wearing any badges or clothing or holding any posters that would identify to passers-by what they were campaigning for. A quick google afterwards showed that they were members of a specific campaigning group and had previously campaigned with posters and badges etc. I felt they were deliberately going "undercover" during a time when the university was swarming with leafletters to get people to take their leaflets. I stood and watched them for a little while and watched several people look really quite distressed when they realised what the leaflet was about.

I logged a complaint (by email) with one of the people in the students' union and was told that whilst they kept an eye out for the rest of campaigning week, the union is committed to freedom of speech and opinion. Of course that's fair enough, but was I over-reacting to be concerned about the way that 'freedom of speech' was being practised in that instance? I also feel that there's a gray area with campaigning on issues that people could have very real personal experience of - making it much more important that the style of campaigning used gives people who might be upset by it the chance to cross the road and move on.

Any thoughts? Was I complaining about nothing?

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
PuffinsAreFictitious · 17/03/2015 19:35

Still... if you can't accept that I was being genuine in my question, that's your problem. There was no intent to make you look like anything. Try not assuming that others are working to your agenda maybe?

CurlyBlueberry · 17/03/2015 14:18

When I was a student (not all that long ago honest... less than a decade ago) I did some 'holiday' work helping with a freshers fair at a university local to my parents. One of the student groups was handing out free rulers... which showed the length of a foetus at various gestations Shock with writing suggesting that you rethink "murdering your unborn child" etc. I did complain and afaik they weren't invited to have a stall at the next freshers fair.

GibberingFlapdoodle · 15/03/2015 19:44

Peace and love...

LynetteScavo · 15/03/2015 19:42

It's not that long ago since abortion was mostly not really acceptable to many.

I think that's because abortion is much safer and can be done earlier these days. I don't think it should be lumped with old fashioned ideas like racism, homophobia.

I don't think you over reacted at all, OP. Of course freedom of speech is important, but campaigners need to make it clear what they are campaigning about. There are certain issues I don't want to be faced with while out shopping. [wuss emoticon]

StillLostAtTheStation · 15/03/2015 19:28

Genuine enquiry from someone who hasn't experienced something is now suggesting you're making it up?

I was surprised at the alacrity you chose to follow up and follow up again what was a peripheral comment compared to the rest of the thread or anything else I had said. Almost as if you wanted to discredit what I had posted.

Original poster
FuzzyHeaded · 15/03/2015 18:29

Jessica

Thanks heavens, indeed!

OP posts:
Jessica147 · 15/03/2015 16:40

Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, the OP was concerned about the manner in which that opinion was being expressed.

It's also not that long ago that most people thought it was okay to be homophobic and racist. Thank heavens we've moved on a bit since "the good old days".

Viviennemary · 15/03/2015 12:17

I think they are entitled to their opinion even if it goes against the majority these days. It's not that long ago since abortion was mostly not really acceptable to many.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 15/03/2015 12:14

Genuine enquiry from someone who hasn't experienced something is now suggesting you're making it up?

Riiiiight. Not much point engaging with you if you're just going to read things into things that simply aren't there, is there? Thought you were supposed to be a lawyer?

jessica I've seen some of those leaflets from years ago on marches. I know that a majority of animal rights groups are now moving away from the 'icky pictures' leaflets, because they acknowledge that they don't help, and in fact turn people off. No one wants to see pictures of chopped up animals.... The organisations I'm involved with tend now to go from the 'look at the adorable puppy, how could anyone want to hurt it, nawwwwwwwwww' end of things. In fact, it would seem that the only group that still goes for pictures of graphic ick are anti-abortion ones and some of the more out there animal rights ones, I'll grant you

You would think that uni students would be more of the handing out animal rights leaflets type than being anti-choice, obviously things have changed since I was last there.... I'll have to go and shake stuff up then when I go back Grin

StillLostAtTheStation · 15/03/2015 11:57

As indeed did your initial question and follow up question to me. Both slanted to suggest I was making it up.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 15/03/2015 11:14

No specific point. You asked if I had ever been handed a leaflet from a variety of sources, and I answered your question.

Your question seemed to suggest that I was a bit odd for not having been handed this type of leaflet, so I enlarged my answer by stating that, despite having lived in all sorts of places, in the UK and abroad, I hadn't been handed such.

Apologies if your original question wasn't meant to make me look like I was lying, but that's very much how it came across.

puffins really? Never been handed some end of the world is nigh/ Jesus is your saviour/boycott this/boycott that/weird church you've never heard of pamphlet?

Does look a touch like you thought I was being less than truthful, doesn't it really?

StillLostAtTheStation · 15/03/2015 11:04

puffins and your point being what?

PuffinsAreFictitious · 15/03/2015 10:47

No Still, never. Not in any of the many many places I've lived in the UK or abroad.

Odd that.

BallsToThat · 15/03/2015 10:13

Beaky - good point.

My argument when ever this debate arises is always just that.

Women have abortions whether its outlawed or not, so pro-abortion campaigners need to be forced to face up to what their stance means: horrific back street abortion; women shamed into travelling abroad to have the procedure at a much later stage than they would have been able to access it if it were legal; women forced to have and raise children they didnt want, alone, often young women who end up raising children without fathers in circumstances of deprivation.

Its not a pretty picture and to the previous poster who said that safe, legal abortion is brutal - it isnt as brutal as the alternatives.

Original poster
FuzzyHeaded · 15/03/2015 10:12

*that includes

OP posts:
Original poster
FuzzyHeaded · 15/03/2015 10:09

Still

That wasn't my point, but the context of the situation was a student group campaigning outside a student building, mostly leafleting to students, and me raising the issue with a representative of the student union. And universities DO have a responsibility towards the welfare of their students, and I believe that include at ensuring that student groups campaigning etc on university grounds are doing so in a reasonable and considerate manner. I also think the student body may well include individuals who due to their age and the circumstance of being away from home in a new environment are potentially vulnerable (many first year undergraduates at my university are still legally children). I guess the hypothetical individual I had in mind was a 17, 18 year old woman who was either considering an abortion or had gone through one and then found this leaflet in their hand. It may be discarded as "rubbish" by people with, as we were discussing above, more life experience, but that hypothetical young person (whose local support network IS the university) may be distressed by it.

OP posts:
StillLostAtTheStation · 15/03/2015 00:39

puffins really? Never been handed some end of the world is nigh/ Jesus is your saviour/boycott this/boycott that/weird church you've never heard of pamphlet?

Fuzzy I'm not sure why students are any more potentially vulnerable than any other group.

Original poster
FuzzyHeaded · 14/03/2015 19:06

StillLost

Sorry - I thought I'd written a reply earlier but it didn't seem to go through! I do see your point about freedom of speech. My main concern was that the way they went about it didn't give people who might be personally affected by the issue the chance to "opt out", as it were. I feel that in the context of leafletting outside a university building the university has some responsibility to balance freedom of speech with the welfare of potentially vulnerable students.

Beaky, I think that's a really good point, and Apocalypse, you're very right. I do worry a lot that these rights might be chipped away at bit by bit - and people won't realise it soon enough to think and get angry about the ramifications. I remember Jeremy Hunt just last year talking about wanting to restrict the time limit on abortions.

And I'm not in NI.

OP posts:
Jessica147 · 14/03/2015 14:54

puffins, the anti animal testing ones are pretty emotive. Can't think of any others though.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 14/03/2015 11:31

On what subjects, Still? Because I can't think of any offhand, so I'm interested to know which ones you've been handed.....

StillLostAtTheStation · 14/03/2015 11:10

I'm assuming OP is not in NI so it is hopefully the case that their leaflets will be so obviously nonsense that they are counter- productive.

I'm sure we've all at some time been presented with poorly written, over -emotive pamphlet and just thought " rubbish"

ApocalypseThen · 14/03/2015 07:52

Yes, you should be. Don't take it for granted - you can be sure the forces working to keep abortion unconstitutional in Ireland are interested in getting rid of it everywhere.

BeakyMinder · 14/03/2015 06:56

Maybe we pro-choicers should be spelling out the consequences of banning abortion in more graphic detail. I think we're starting to take it for granted in the UK, people forget how horrific it used to be. Backstreet abortion, unwanted children, multiple lives ruined by rape. There's even a theory that the long-term decline in crime is due to legalisation of abortion.

Anyone read Rebecca Schiller's book All that matters? Scary stuff ... We should be out marching to protect our reproductive rights, like my mum did in the 1970s!

Foolishlady · 14/03/2015 00:24

Agree about the life experience thing. I was anti-abortion at age 17 (though definitely not to the extent of leafleting or even broadcasting my views). Definitely pro choice now. Life does that so not surprised about the young ones - life seems v black & white at that age.

StillLostAtTheStation · 13/03/2015 23:56

I'm not sure about this. I am vehemently pro-choice but the freedom we enjoy in this country does I think have to include the right of others to distribute leaflets we disagree with.