The Protest That Can’t Be Killed

Photo: Chris Jacobs

Radical anti-abortion group Abort67 returned to Bristol last week to continue their campaign targeting students.

As well as previously visiting Bristol, the group have also made appearances at Nottingham, Cambridge, Manchester, Liverpool and Sussex; all of which are universities with an official pro-choice policy in their Student Unions.

Response to Abort67’s use of graphic images of aborted foetuses has so far largely been negative.

As with last time, the University of Bristol Students Union and FemSoc made efforts to hide the graphic posters in the their counter protests, and Bristol Students for Life have denounced Abort67’s methods, despite sharing in the pro-life cause.

Photo: Chris Jacobs

Concern has been raised over the effect the shocking images will have on passing students, particularly women who may have had an abortion.

Abort67 state that “it is definitely not our aim to upset women who have been through the trauma of abortion, however we absolutely believe that the life of an unborn person is considerably more important than hurt feelings.”

The visual protests have been extremely successful in drawing attention to the controversy regarding abortion.

Bristol Students for Life argue providing a platform for intellectual debate is more effective than shock tactics. Their constitution states they aim ‘to inform students and be open to academic debate.’

Abort 67’s campaign may shock but is designed to encourage people to research abortion. They claim that ‘seeing it is the first step to changing it’ and offer advice, information and statistics on their website.

However, debate has mostly been focused on whether or not publicly displaying disturbing images of terminated pregnancies is acceptable, rather than pro-life or pro-choice argument.

Given the scaled-down nature of their second protest, it appears the student-targeting campaign may be gradually running out of steam.