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?

I'm inclined to think it should be allowed. Assuming they simply intend to meet and not have shouty protests anywhere on university premises.

People's rights to organise and discuss are increasingly being eroded under the guise of 'safe space'.

I don’t like the vile and personal abuse that some pro-lifers have aimed at me on Twitter when I have expressed my pro-choice views.

I also didn’t like it much when pro life types waved plastic foetuses at me on the doorstep of BPAS when I once had reason to need their services.

But they should absolutely have the right to meet on university campuses. Otherwise, tomorrow it will be you or me who is censored and cancelled.

But they should absolutely have the right to meet on university campuses. Otherwise, tomorrow it will be you or me who is censored and cancelled.

I work on a university campus. It already is.

You can end a life and still admit that it's a life.
This.

And I know many many people who would express the same. Is it “pro life”? I think most would say so. People seem unable to understand that while you may see abortion as killing a human being you may also see WHY someone would choose that. Yes there are noisy rude and cruel people but if you want to hear the quieter more measured voices you do have to allow them to speak.

Any gestation is a fetus, yet people claim it's not alive and all sorts of rubbish. It's still alive whether you think it's ok to end the pregnancy or not

A foetus is the word used from the start of the 9th week after fertilisation, i.e. what's usually known as the 11th week of pregnancy. Before that, the word is embryo.

At the end of life, someone whose brain has stopped working is medically pronounced to have died.

In early pregnancy there is no functioning brain or nervous system. So it is not unreasonable to apply the same logic, and say that at that stage the embryo isn't a human 'life'.

I think to be “brain dead” you must fail to respond to outside stimulus, have no hope of improving and have brain damage. I don’t think it’s the same as a natural stage in development.
But the thread is about no-platforming and silencing a particular group of people who (I think) both believe life starts at conception AND that it should never be stopped in any circumstance AND choose to use aggressive and shocking behaviour to get that message across. I think it’s the behaviour that is problematic not the ideas.

I am unwilling to share my personal experience on this thread, I haven't got the mental strength today.

But for what it's worth, I haven't come across a TFMR mum who doesn't absolutely know that they ended their babies life. The language used in hospital and after during bereavement care is always baby, son, daughter. These small lives are loved and wanted. They are too ill to stay. We don't want them to suffer. They have worth to the parents.

The wording on the official paperwork, discharge papers, death certificate etc, is fetus because legally, the baby isn't assigned personhood if they don't arrive breathing. This is how it should be. It should not be emotive or heart wrenching (of course it is for the parents, but it would be whatever it says). It is legal and necessary and I would fight till my dying day for women to have the right to end a pregnancy if they feel that is right for them.

Yes they should be allowed. No one has to agree with them.

Yes , absolutely they should be allowed.

A group that exists to judge vulnerable young women? Why on earth would any university want that?

@SarahBellam

A group that exists to judge vulnerable young women? Why on earth would any university want that?

Freedom of expression

@MurielSpriggs People who are pro-life already have freedom of expression. They are able to hold their views and express them freely without government interference. What's that got to do with a university not wanting them to set up a society?

I understand why pro life would not be seen as inclusive.

But the no platforming in unis is ridiculous. You are supposed to be able to argue and challenge. How are you supposed to do that if everyone thinks the same?!

They're not innocuous at all but we can see from the current trans ideology that no-one actually gives a shit about how women feel so you've got to wonder whose interests this is really serving.

I've been mulling this one over and I tend on the side of freedom of speech. I think they should allow this group to meet if it wants to. However if this group starts threatening people, disrupting healthcare access or generally being an anti social pain in the backside then they should be banned. Freedom of speech, association or thought is fine but it crosses a line when they threaten, harass and intimidate others.

It's a place of learning and you would hardly let those groups into a school or a sixth form college either.

These groups are pro baby and don't give a monkeys about the baby or the mother afterwards.
I'm all for freedom of speach, just not shoving opinions down someone else's throat.

You are also making massive assumptions around religion. No doubt the University will have its own religious societies on campus, which will have opinions but also a code of conduct to follow. Randoms forcing opinions on young women who are trying to get their heads down to work, having paid £thousands for the privilege is just not on.

It’s a slippery slope once you start down the line of disallowing legal groups. Where do you stop?

It is much better to encourage informed debate, critical analysis skills to enable people to form their own opinion rather than trying to censor out debate

I'd prefer the Dungeons and Dragons group myself.

I am so fucking fed up of people using the term "i feel unsafe" to justify censorship.

Universities should be the absolute opposite of echo chambers. You should meet people from different backgrounds who hold different views to you. Talking to people who don't think how you do is a critical part of learning how to really think for yourself.

If you remove people that you don't agree with, then you end up with an echo chamber, where badly thought through ideas and mantras replace critical thinking. This is the opposite of enlightenment.

We should not be teaching our young people that thoughts and words they disagree with are dangerous.

If people have been threatened and harassed, then yes that is not ok and they should be sanctioned, and i would totally include demonstrating outside clinics in that bracket. But having a stall with materials you don't agree with? That does not constitute making people feel unsafe.

Meh. Yes, they're entitled to voice their opinions but by the same token, if a university doesn't want them promoting certain messages publicly on its grounds then I'd say that it's well within its rights to put a stop to it. They can still meet and do that somewhere else.

As an aside, the term 'pro-life' really needs a re-think. It's not pro-life, it's anti-choice and as someone else pointed out forced-birth. Are these pro-lifers willing to take care of the kids they want other women to bring into the world? Probably not.