To think universities should allow “pro-life” groups?

[Mellowfruitfulnessy]

There’s been a few incidents in the news of universities saying that “pro life” groups should be banned because they make women in campus feel “unsafe”.

There was a protest in Exeter today and there’s been similar rumblings elsewhere.

This seems odd to me: it’s fairly standard teaching in Catholicism and the students in the group largely seem to be Christian / non-UK students. Unis are saying these groups are not “inclusive” but if mainstream religious thinking isn’t allowed, isn’t this excluding free speech? Is it really making women feel “unsafe”?

AIBU to say that pro life groups should be allowed on campuses as part of free speech/thinking/religious freedom?

YANBU

I can't stand pro lifers and am pro choice to my core however people do have the right to disagree and no one has the right for their views not to be challenged. It is not "unsafe" to encounter people with different views.

I do agree with banning them from protesting outside of abortion clinics etc though as I think that crosses the line from airing your views to intimidation

@SusieBob

The university has every right to not allow a group to advertise, recruit and campaign on their campus.

Just like you and I have the right to do so on our property.

And that's before you get to the fact that pro-lifers are a bunch of mysoginistic, extremist fuckwits.

People on here will call anyone who doesn't agree with abortion til term a pro life or anti choicer

I think it's fine to advertise services for pregnant women as an alternative to abortion, as long as there's no harassment, accusations of murder or misrepresentation (eg graphic pictures of late fetus) - but I highly doubt that would be permitted on a campus in any context.

I think supporting abortion to term for any reason is vile. Far far worse than any prolifer's beliefs.

@lazylinguist at universities, or specifically events held by universities? Yes.

Why would we only be talking about universities? Do you think, then, that certain topics should be banned at university debates, but are fine for speakers in, say, a meeting at a village hall (because they don't need to be so 'intelligent' there)? Sorry, but either a topic or certain views are allowed to be addressed in public or they're not. Intelligence doesn't come into it.

foxgoosefinch

Hear hear.

[quote lazylinguist]**@lazylinguist at universities, or specifically events held by universities? Yes.

Why would we only be talking about universities? Do you think, then, that certain topics should be banned at university debates, but are fine for speakers in, say, a meeting at a village hall (because they don't need to be so 'intelligent' there)? Sorry, but either a topic or certain views are allowed to be addressed in public or they're not. Intelligence doesn't come into it.[/quote]
Because that's specifically what the OP was about?

At a village hall meeting, I trust that the organisers will decide what they deem appropriate to be discussed at their meeting. Just the same as a university, no one has an automatic right to have their views platformed.

@UsedUpUsername

Not all viewpoints are worthy of academic debate

But the medical/philosophical ethics over abortion isn’t one of those.

That's for each individual academic institution to decide for themselves, not people screeching about "freedom of speech".

@BubbleCoffee

My point is that not all arguments are academically worthy of being platformed by a university.

Who gets to decide what is 'academically worthy'? All topics can be discussed on a variety of different levels. Set up a discussion on 'Why is Mr Blobby pink?' and you could get into the depths of male privilege, racism and weight (why is fat funny)? Yes, it's a deliberately absurd example, but pretty much any subject is what you make of it.

Should debates on religion and philosophy be banned because many people are atheists and don't think science and spirituality can coexist? Should debates on gender ideology be no-platformed because 'everyone knows' XYZ? Should a debate called 'A woman's place is in the home' be banned in case women don't feel 'safe'? How about political debates when certain views are relatively unpopular in academic circles?

The answer is to stand up and defend your views, or go and do something else, not to switch other people's voices off as you would a TV programme you didn't like.

Who gets to decide? Universities. Just the same as how every other company, institution, or organisation can decide what they deem worthy of platforming.

@Libertaire

Of course ‘pro-life’ groups should be able to promote their views in universities and elsewhere, in exactly the same way as ‘pro-choice’ groups can..

Free speech is currently under attack in Britain as never before in my lifetime. This country needs to get back to “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it”. Free speech only for people I agree with is no free speech at all.

Well said!

I think it was reported recently that many students view their opinions as facts , rather than opinions

and that is dangerous .

Freedom of speech is slowly being eroded and that also is extremely worrying.
As long as discussions are limited to debate in a peaceful way then i think society is on a dodgy wicket to ban everything that falls outside a narrow agenda .

There are laws to prevent certain behaviours - and if a group is telling lies then that should quite rightly be proven ( easily) within debate .

I haven't seen anyone 'screeching' on here The definition of 'screech' is not 'say things with which I disagree'.

Freedom of speech =/= being entitled to form groups at a particular institution, hold particular memberships, use a particular platform.

You are free to say that everyone who drives an Audi is a prick, but Audi are under no obligation to let you wave a banner round in their showroom saying so.

You're free to say you think meat-eating is immoral, but you don't have a right to verbally abuse people in the meat aisle of Tesco as they'll quite reasonably ask you to leave.

You're free to think abortion is wrong, and to say so to other people, but you do not have the automatic right to run a group to that effect under the banner of a university.

Of course, unis hover in a weird space between private and public sector - they both behave like private institutions while being held to similar levels of scrutiny and behaviour that public institutions are. In that sense, you could argue that because universities receive state funding, they don't have the same level of freedom to disallow groups they don't want on campus.

I think "allowing groups" is quite a nebulous concept. If you mean groups of people who meet together to discuss stuff, even scheduled public debate then yes I think it should be allowed for ANY subject that is not illegal. I think that campaigning is different and that i would not allow, not for pro life, pro choice, extinction Rebellion or any other group that's belief set seems to have a habit of meetings and campaigns ending in disarray and trouble.
Its a balance today between letting students exercise their brains and develop opinions and POV's, and allowing free for alls and the silencing of views by the most vociferous groups.

@foxgoosefinch

And, don’t kid yourself that this is new, in the 90s there would be the pro hunt and hunt sab stalls set up opposite each other, and the antivivisectionist stalls with leaflets of horrifically damaged animals and the pro life ones and the Conservative association and the pro Hamas stalls and the Israel Society and the Alpha Course Christians opposite the LGB stall and the campus territorial army society or whatever, and somehow people managed to avoid the ones they found distasteful, and still not feel like they were “unsafe” or “triggered” or that anyone should be banned.

this Mostly it didn't result in riots and fights either.

Yabu. I am a Christian, yet am very much pro choice. As a woman I would not feel comfortable with a pro life group operating at a uni that my children, particularly my dd attend.. They usually have aggressive tactics and work through intimidation.

@Mellowfruitfulnessy

I’m surprised that most people think IABU. I don’t see how you can want this banned from campuses but not radfem/GC groups. Surely they are two sides of the same thing I.e. a position on ideology that should be openly discussed and debated?

I think people are getting used to their ideas being shared and backed up by other people on SM etc, and they've lost the ability to deal with challenges to their thought process. So when someone has a different idea, people are scared or threatened and can become aggressive.

No one has to change their beliefs because someone else disagrees with it, but it's good to listen to what others have to say to both check the validity of what you think, as well as occasionally nuance your beliefs. If everyone had the same beliefs and were bullied into thinking the same thing, we'd still be saying the sun moved around the earth. It was only because Galileo stuck his head above the parapet that that belief changed.

I guess I'm pro-choice, although not as radically as in my younger days, but I'm happy to engage with others who think differently - how else am I going to get them to change their mind?

@Viviennemary

I think supporting abortion to term for any reason is vile. Far far worse than any prolifer's beliefs.

Then consider yourself incredibly lucky that you have never had to face that decision.

Terminations after the first trimester are overwhelmingly performed because the baby has severe, life limiting and often fatal fetal anomalies.

At a village hall meeting, I trust that the organisers will decide what they deem appropriate to be discussed at their meeting. Just the same as a university, no one has an automatic right to have their views platformed.

What a mangled backformed new verb “to platform” is

Anyway. As lots of posters up thread, including me, have pointed out, a village hall meeting isn’t subject to the Charities Act; it doesn’t have a public sector equality duty or to comply with PREVENT or have to be mindful of ECHR guidelines. So it’s not at all the same; neither is it the same as a company; so it sounds very ill-informed to claim it is. Please do some sustained reading around this before keeping on making claims that are frankly not true. I’m a trustee of two educational charities and can tell you absolutely that what you’ve said here is rubbish.

@foxgoosefinch

And, don’t kid yourself that this is new, in the 90s there would be the pro hunt and hunt sab stalls set up opposite each other, and the antivivisectionist stalls with leaflets of horrifically damaged animals and the pro life ones and the Conservative association and the pro Hamas stalls and the Israel Society and the Alpha Course Christians opposite the LGB stall and the campus territorial army society or whatever, and somehow people managed to avoid the ones they found distasteful, and still not feel like they were “unsafe” or “triggered” or that anyone should be banned.

Oh my god. Not a Conservative association!!! How do those poor students survive university?!

Freedom of speech =/= being entitled to form groups at a particular institution, hold particular memberships, use a particular platform

The university is a place to challenge your ideas and your values, it shouldn’t be a place to simply inculcate middle class values. So yeah, not the same as the meat aisle of Tesco’s.

Who gets to decide? Universities. Just the same as how every other company, institution, or organisation can decide what they deem worthy of platforming.

A university is all its people, not just some leader 'on high'. A university is a diverse group of thousands of adult students, academics and other staff. They are individuals with their own ideas, opinions and beliefs, not a homogeneous lump. All of these people are the university, and this is rightly very different from a hierarchical, corporate environment.

You wouldn't have the town mayor telling the residents they mustn't debate particular topics; it would be beyond their remit and considered patronising and intrusive.

If you read my message I said abortion to term for any reason. No. It should be a medical decision in late pregnancy. Which it is.

people screeching about "freedom of speech

Screeching. What next, dismissing people’s need for ‘freedumbs’?

@Viviennemary

If you read my message I said abortion to term for any reason. No. It should be a medical decision in late pregnancy. Which it is.

Then my apologies for misunderstanding your post.

Of course they can't have a 'pro life' group. The only person that should have an opinion on whether a woman gets an abortion is the woman herself. If you're pro life don't get an abortion yourself but don't push your views on ANYONE else. The persons body is literally no one else's business EVER!!!