Let them eat cake

Cardiff University’s Students For Life group is one of the most active and long-running university pro-life societies in the UK.

They are a great example of a group who have been active in the wider pro-life movement, attending local SPUC pro-life chains as well as the annual SPUC youth conference, and contributing to activities run by the Alliance of Pro-life Students (APS).

Formerly run by Alithea Williams, a past Cardiff university student and now a representative for APS, they have gone from strength to strength. Last year’s president, Isaac Spencer, now works for our very own Society for the Protection of Unborn Children as Supporter Development officer. Another of their recent graduates is, apart from being a mother to her 6-month old baby boy, a counsellor with the Good Counsel Network  (a crisis pregnancy centre in London). Within their ranks, they have many impressive people, including future doctors, lawyers and language students.

Like many pro-life societies, among their other varied activities, they also have film nights, where students can watch a film with a pro-life message. Often, these films were never made with the intention of being pro-life films.

This week, Cardiff Students For Life will be watching ‘Juno’, written by Diablo Cody, who describes herself as ‘pro-choice’ (that is, pro-abortion). They will also be selling cakes, to raise a few pounds for the group. This is Juno’s basic plot, taken from IMDB:

"A tale told over four seasons, starting in autumn when Juno, a 16-year-old high-school junior in Minnesota, discovers she's pregnant after one event in a chair with her best friend, Bleeker. In the waiting room of an abortion clinic, the quirky and whip-sharp Juno decides to give birth and to place the child with an adoptive couple. She finds one in the PennySaver personals, contacts them, tells her dad and step-mother, and carries on with school. The chosen parents, upscale yuppies (one of whom is cool and laid back, the other meticulous and uptight), meet Juno, sign papers, and the year unfolds. Will Juno's plan work, can she improvise, and what about Bleeker?"

Cody has said,

"Personally, I am pro-choice and liberal, but anyone who enjoys the movie is OK with me ... To me, it is a movie about relationships, unconditional love and maturity. The pregnancy is just a trigger."

Cardiff’s resident rent-a-mob, the local ‘Abortion Rights’ group, have decided that this intolerable film broadcast cannot take place. Cardiff Students For Life shall not sell cupcakes and watch films! They have decided to protest at this event. No, really, I’m not joking.

If I ever find myself protesting against cupcakes, please, somebody help me.

I feel that, even for people who make it their business to protest for child-slaughter, this is a new low ... and that is saying something. When you cannot bear the thought of students selling and eating cakes whilst watching a film, it is time to re-evaluate your ideology.

For my faults, I have had direct involvement with said ‘Abortion Rights’ group. In fact, I have had to phone the police numerous times because of their behaviour.

During the Easter 2013 40 Days For Life campaign in Cardiff, I had the honour of helping with the running of the very first Cardiff 40 Days For Life campaign. 40 Days For Life is a prayerful, peaceful campaign which takes place twice-yearly outside local abortion centres. It can be held either 12 hours or 24 hours a day for 40 days. The basic premise is that prayer volunteers turn up for an allotted time to pray outside an abortion ‘clinic’ for an end to abortion and specifically for a change of heart and mind for those entering the ‘clinic’, including those who work there.

The fruits of this campaign are extraordinary: since 2007, 9,654 lives have been saved (that we know of) and 105 abortion workers have left the abortion industry through this campaign.

Cardiff Abortion Rights aren’t very keen on 40 Days For Life though. They have no qualms with brazenly lying about 40 Days For Life prayer volunteers. They have said in the past that we harassed women entering the BPAS ‘clinic’ on St. Mary’s Street in Cardiff (the location of the vigil). In fact, since BPAS is located in a building with many other offices, we had no idea who was going in to abort their child or receive information about this and who was going in to see their solicitor or to sign up to the job agency. We never crossed the road to stand near the entrance but stood on the other side, praying. Nobody was approached unless they spoke to us first.

They have also said that we handed out dolls and danced on the steps of the ‘clinic’. Well, they certainly have a lively imagination, God bless ‘em.

We repeatedly pointed out that CCTV cameras were on us at all times but they never had the guts to prove any of their accusations.

Their favourite party trick was turning up for a couple hours every Saturday afternoon to blast bad music at us and scream over a megaphone that we should be ashamed of ourselves. I thought pro-abortion supporters were supposed to be against shaming people, but never mind.

One particularly charming old lady would grace us with her presence, forcing her way into our circle of prayer (we had to form a circle so that we could watch each other in order to lip-read and pray together in this way, such was the extent of the noise). She would thrash around, throwing herself into people and then scream that we were attacking her. She knocked one elderly gentleman to the ground.

Other people from their group were content to poke us and push us from behind. Did I mention that the majority of these people are grown adults, a good number with children that they had brought along for the show?

The same woman would also buy bird feed and scatter a whole bag around our small group, presumably in an attempt to attract pigeons.

They have tried to identify individual prayer volunteers so that they can complain about them to their employers, presumably in an attempt to get them sacked.

During the Easter 2014 campaign, they set up camp behind the prayer volunteers, again with their loud music, telling passers-by that those participating in 40 Days For Life were there because they hated women. They kept a score board of everyone who agreed with them and would periodically come up to the prayer volunteers to scream in their faces and use obscene language to explain in detail how they wished to use their bodies - information which I could have lived without.

I could go on and on about the lies and the hate which I have witnessed from this group but I honestly think that this latest venture is the most pathetic. They do not believe in free speech unless it is the freedom to kill unborn children and impose their degraded worldview on the rest of us.

Dear reader, don’t hate them but please pity these people.