Oxford’s Christ Church College has voted to cancel an abortion debate organised by a pro-life student group, after a planned protest was said to threaten security.
Christ Church College’s JCR, or student union, retracted permission to host the debate, which was due to feature journalists Tim Stanley and Brendan O’Neill speaking for and against the motion, “This House believes Britain’s Abortion Culture Hurts Us All”, claiming that a threatened protest from a Facebook group called “What the F**k is ‘Abortion Culture’?” made the event a security risk.
Stanley later warned in the Daily Telegraph that free speech was under assault.
The debate, organised by Oxford Students For Life (OSFL) was originally set to take place in a lecture hall at Christ Church, but met with fierce opposition. The Facbook protest group, set up by a now-deleted account called “Oxrev fems”, called on its members “take along some non-destructive but oh so disruptive instruments to help demonstrate to the anti-choicers just what we think of their ‘debate’.”
The Oxford University Student’s Union’s Women’s Campaign group, or WomCam, also strongly criticised OSFL, saying in a statement that “is absurd to think we should be listening to two cisgender men debate about what people with uteruses should be doing with their bodies. By only giving a platform to these men, OSFL are participating in a culture where reproductive rights are limited and policed by people who will never experience needing an abortion.
“The event description seems to suggest that increased access to abortion contributes to a ‘culture’ of ‘[treating] human life carelessly’. Framing the debate in these pro-life terms denies people autonomy over the choices they make regarding their own bodies.”
‘Cisgender men’ are men who were ‘assigned’ the male sex at birth and then choose to stay with that sex or ‘gender’ later on.
Will Neaverson, Christ Church JCR Treasurer, proposed a motion to get the JCR to “request our college authorities and our elected officers to try and cancel an event hosted by Oxford Students for Life”.
After a three-hour debate, the motion was amended to mandate JCR Officers to raise “security concerns, both physical and mental, of Christ Church students” with college authorities. The amended motion also noted the JCR’s “strong concern with the practical format of the debate”. Christ Church then moved to cancel the debate, and OSFL were unable to find another venue.
Neaverson told The Oxford Student: “I’m relieved that Christ Church passed the motion, which sends a strong message that the welfare and safety of our students is more important than an outside group’s access to use our space.”
Neil Addison, a barrister and national director of the Thomas More Legal Centre, told the Christian Institute the college’s decision not to host an abortion debate was unlawful under the Education No 2 Act 1986, which guarantees freedom of speech in universities.
He added: “If there were concerns, then the police should have been informed to prevent intimidation of the debate”.
“OSFL has failed to find an alternative venue to host the event and in a statement expressed disappointment, saying: “We only expected to have the same rights of expression as any other Oxford student society, and we’re disappointed that scare tactics proved successful.”
The pro-life group said they had received many messages of support including from pro-abortion supporters.
Several “said that we should have been able to hold this debate, including Ann Furedi, who personally expressed her solidarity with OSFL”. Furedi is the chair of Britain’s biggest abortion provider BPAS.
The group added: “Our society exists to defend the rights of the most vulnerable, including the unborn, elderly, and disabled. We think it is essential that Oxford University allows an open debate on these issues.
“We’re confident that most Oxford students would prefer free speech to censorship, and we look forward to continuing this hugely important conversation.”
Both Stanley, a columnist with the Daily Telegraph, and O’Neill, editor of Spiked Online, criticised the protestors and the college. Stanley wrote that “I would’ve thought that the one place in Britain where you could agree to disagree amicably would be Oxford University. But I was wrong.”
O’Neill, writing in the Spectator, called the protestors “Stepford Students” whose “student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform.”
The incident follows a number of other instances in the UK, Ireland and the United States where pro-life or Christian groups have seen their events or societies banned or denied recognition by third-level institutions.
Earlier this year, a student pro-life society was refused recognition at the University of Limerick despite meeting all the criteria for approval, and many Irish universities such as UCC and Trinity College have pro-choice Student Unions but do not allow pro-life societies to operate on campus.