Opposition to the pro-life message in Oxford
Posted by Daniel Blackman on 30 November 2013
Dan Blackman, SPUC campaigns and education officer, spoke at Oxford Brookes University on 20th November 2013, as part of the SPUC universities tour.
The presentation was given to the student pro-life society, whom Dan had already presented to last year to help kick start the new group.
A few hours before the talk Dan received a call from a member of the pro-life society, informing him that members of the feminist society planned on coming to disrupt the meeting. Unfortunately SPUC and pro-life students have faced this sort of situation before.
When the presentation began there were about 20 people in the room; roughly half from the feminist society. The presentation began with a mesasge to the pro-life society members, encouraging them to keep their society going despite the student union and other students making things difficult.
The presentation was interrupted throughout by members of the audience who swore, read out their own quotes, stopped the speaker in order to ask their own questions and so on. Each time it quickly descended into arguments and calls for calm and patience until the Q&A at the end. At one point a student distributed pro-abortion handouts, including one that looked like a photocopy of SPUC leaflet with commentary added to it. It was clear that the pro-abortion students, apart from being rude, were poorly informed.
At the end of the talk there was time for Q&A. It was mostly people telling other people to stop shouting, speaking over one another, and giving short speeches rather than asking questions. Two girls announced that they had abortions. One of these was the main instigator in getting feminist society members to the event. The other girl marched to the front of the room in a huff and gave an impromptu speech, taking umbrage at much of the presentation.
Things wrapped up at 9pm. SPUC literature was distributed. On the way out one person shouted out to the SPUC speaker: "you should have been aborted".
A few weeks later a local woman in Oxford held regular monthly pro-life prayer vigil outside the John Radcliffe Hospital, as abortionists kill babies in that hospital. Needless to say, the vigil is peaceful and prayer. However, they too have recently faced opposition. See the photos below. Not surprisingly the people who disrupted the SPUC presentation are the same people who disrupted the prayer vigil.
This is what can happen when you are pro-actively pro-life. If you are willing to take the pro-life message to the public, you will face opposition, because there are plenty of people who want the truth about abortion to stay hidden. Talks, presentations, seminars, and conferences are useful for getting educated, motivated, and meeting like-minded people. However, we have to follow these things up with action.