Excusing Pro-Life societies has nothing to do with Free Speech

2017 and people still won’t let us decide what happens to our own bodies


The debate surrounding the rights for Pro-life societies to exist on University campuses is definitely a complicated one, and unfortunately it seems, it is one that is often not taken as seriously as it should be, by people on both sides.

Strathclyde University were the first to actually ban a Pro-Life society, but many began to follow in their wake with petitions proposing a ban, and Dundee University banning their society from a Fresher’s Fair.

EUSA currently allows the society to exist on our campus, but this doesn’t come without its controversy.

A petition to ban the society from Liverpool Uni

One of the main recurring arguments against banning Pro-Life societies on campuses is about their rights to free speech. After all, they are a group who have a certain point of view on a very controversial matter, so they’re entitled to their freedom of speech, right?

Look, all those who say this needs to learn a thing or two about freedom of speech, and also about what Pro-Life societies across the world actually do.

Amnesty International states that even though Freedom of Speech is the right to express any idea, they also go on to say that: “Governments have an obligation to prohibit hate speech and incitement. And restrictions can also be justified if they protect specific public interest or the rights and reputations of others.”

The fact of the matter is, the ideas of Pro-Life societies’ are harmful, and their methods even more so. Saying that they are allowed to keep acting as they do because it’s their right to have free speech simply demeans and excuses all the harm they are causing.

The statement from Edinburgh’s Pro-Life society on their website states “the mission of the Life Society is to build a university community in Edinburgh that has a lasting and profound respect for human life from fertilisation to natural death.” While this sounds perfectly okay on paper, many societies are a lot more sinister and threatening than this.

Pro-Life groups will frequently stand outside abortion clinics showing distressing images of aborted foetuses, preaching about how having an abortion equates to first degree murder. Sometimes it isn’t simply a psychological attack either, with people reporting to have been physically blocked from entering and leaving these abortion clinics.

These attacks have been so damaging that there have been discussions to enforce borders around abortion clinics, inside which pro-life campaigners are not allowed to enter due to the harm and distress they cause.

Therefore, to argue that abortion equates to murder is incredibly harmful to women who are thinking of undergoing this safe and routine medical procedure. It disregards the many reasons for abortion, and also the distress women experience while considering this option.

It forgets about the young student who can’t afford to pay rent, let alone afford to raise a child. It forgets about the rape victim who doesn’t want any more reminders of her attacker. It forgets about parents who decide they can’t raise another child. It inhumanely forgets about every possible reason for considering abortion, by using methods that they argue are to “support humanity.”

Investigation into anti-abortion protesters.

This is the moment an undercover reporter is confronted by protesters on her way into an abortion clinic. Dispatches investigated the extremist groups congregating at centres in London.

Publicado por Channel 4 News en Martes, 11 de octubre de 2016

What’s more, arguing that these attitudes and actions should be excused because of some misguided view that it will improve discussion, or make people consider the argument better, is an old rephrasing of the idea that women are not competent enough to decide what happens to their own bodies.

People think that the banning of pro-life ideas will reduce discussion and cause women to fall into a drowsy acceptance of abortion because it is “the easy way out.” Women do not consider abortion lightly, and it’s never an easy decision to make.

But, this is 2017. We are educated and confident, sensible and sensitive to all matters affecting our bodies and our health.

If Edinburgh’s pro-life society truly intend to do as they say and respect life from fertilisation to natural death, then they will support not only the foetuses, but the mothers who have to decide whether they are in fit enough state to be able to care for another human life.