Everything we know about the pro-life protest at UoM yesterday

Yesterday the protest group ABORT67 gathered for a pro-life protest outside the University of Manchester.

The protest was organised as part of their Awakening Tour to raise awareness about abortion with the aim of changing UK policy.

Images depicted on the ABORT67 protest likened abortion to slavery and showed images of aborted 24 week old fetuses.

Within hours, students from the University of Manchester mobilised against them with a banner obscuring their protest.

Twitter user and member of the University of Manchester Feminist Collective, @noonbinary described the pro-choice counter protest as "spontaneous", stating: "We managed to get a decent crowd of around 30 plus people to obstruct the way of the pro-life demonstrators.

"I saw the original demonstration on Facebook, grabbed some material and spray paint from my house and rocked up to cover up their awful propaganda that compared the slave trade to abortion.

An image from the ABORT67 website likening abortion to slavery

"When I got there there'd been a presence of pro-choice people (including a labour councillor) for an hour or so, and half an hour later they just gave up because the counter-protest outnumbered them so much."

Police got involved to prevent escalation, with ABORT67 commenting: "The police response in most cities we have been to has generally been excellent. The first set of counter protestors were moved on, and then later some other protestors came out with their blankets. The police should have exercised their powers, to prevent breach of the peace, to move these counter protestors on too."

The pro-life protest, which was due to end at 2:30pm continued until 2:46pm when they eventually packed up.

ABORT67 commented: "Almost everywhere we go, those who support abortion try and hide the reality or deny the authenticity of abortion victim photographs.

"This leads to the question: if abortion is such a noble choice, why don't its supporters want others to see what it looks like?

"We very much look forward to coming back to Manchester and Liverpool. We think we have identified a good number of volunteers to take on the work of exposing the horror of abortion on a more regular basis."