If I were to repeat some of the things I was called while sitting on the panel for the Oxford Students for Life (OSFL) a couple years ago, I don’t think the Catholic World Report could publish them. That’s why I was not surprised to hear that OSFL’s latest event was literally shouted down—that is, fifteen students from the Oxford Student Union Women’s Campaign (or “Womcam”) yelled for forty minutes to prevent pro-life speakers from making their presentations.
Rewind to my first year at Oxford, when I was invited to sit on a panel discussing the question “Can you be pro-life feminist?” Like my fellow panelists, I said that this was entirely possible, since abortion is not actually the answer for the problems women are facing. I occasionally find myself arguing with people on the right who do not seem to understand that there are real social justice problems that women face (and hence the continued need for the “feminist” part). However, students at Oxford were so upset that there might be people who believed in the “pro-life” part that they showed up in the same numbers as the attendees to protest. The protesters had written insults (and obscenities) on paper and folded them into little, white origami flowers, which they had strewn on the stairs leading to the event. During the presentation, their responses ranged from smug eye-rolling to open scoffing. Personally, I had a blast: that kind of thing reminds me that pro-lifers are fighting for something that matters. I’d much rather receive a hostile response than struggle to fill the room, as we did with some events at Harvard Right to Life.
This time around, the protest went much farther. On November 1st at St. John’s College, OSFL had planned a panel discussing an upcoming referendum on abortion in Ireland. Currently, abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland; voters will decide whether to change that by repealing the eighth amendment to the Irish Constitution in the spring of 2018. To discuss the referendum, OSFL had brought in Breda O’Brien of the Irish Times and Lorcan Price of the Pro-Life Campaign Ireland. The audience filed into the lecture room, all participants (regardless of their views) were welcomed, and the speakers were introduced. A minute into Breda’s presentation, fifteen protesters stood up and began shouting, and did not stop for the duration of the panel. Breda, in a November 4th piece in the Irish Times, wrote:
I had expected heckling, robust questioning, perhaps even a staged walk-out. But not this blatant inability to allow others to be different from them.
OSFL committee members and I pleaded with the protesters but were ignored. The protesters held cheat sheets from which they chanted slogans such as “Pro-life, that’s a lie! You don’t care if women die.” Chanting from the same slogan sheet, as it were.
Slogans are such an easy substitute for the difficult work of thinking.
Anna Bradford, President of OSFL, reports, “We had attempted to create an atmosphere in which all views were welcome and everyone would have a chance to speak, but were instead met with shouting, middle fingers and vitriol.” What unfolded next is a bit murky. College security tried, unsuccessfully, to remove the protesters. It appears the speakers went to another room, and the protesters continued to pursue them, banging on the windows and continuing to yell. The press release, and OSFL’s official response are both well worth a read.
What is clear is that their actions were a flagrant violation of the University’s Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech. Perhaps the most shocking thing about all of this is that the protesters are proud of themselves. Their actions were carefully planned, coordinated, and advertised as Right to Protest Right to Choose. “Bodily autonomy is not up for debate,” asserts the WomCam page, “it is not a question of opinion. Access to healthcare is a basic human right. We will continue fighting until all people have access to free, safe and legal abortion in Ireland, and everywhere.”
For them, there are issues that are beyond discussion or debate, even in a university environment. It’s very telling. Only someone who is not convinced of his ability to win the debate by rational argument will resort to shouting down his opponent.
There is another important lesson here for pro-life advocates in the US: abortion is a take-all issue. Its advocates will stop at nothing to ensure a complete victory. Ireland and the UK have very different political climates surrounding the issue of abortion. According to the Guardian, 76% of people in the UK are pro-abortion. Ireland, according to polling from the Irish Times, has situation very similar to that in the US, where about 50% of the population, to varying degrees, are pro-life. These students in the UK seized on the five-year anniversary of the death of Savita Halappanavar, a woman who died because of complications surrounding a miscarriage, who has been turned into a martyr of the pro-choice left. The point is that in the UK the matter of abortion is considered settled. Pro-choice advocates at Oxford do not fear they will lose access to abortion. But that does not mean that pro-choice advocates leave pro-lifers in peace. Quite the opposite: they will show up with a roar of deafening shouts, over which no civil discourse can be heard.
It’s a good reminder for Catholics to insist on speaking the truth, especially when it is counter-cultural. At no point will there be peace, so get comfortable with being at war. But let’s do it as Christians do. When our opponents shout, we continue to speak calmly and rationally, allowing the truth of our position to win the day by outshining falsehood.
And finally, a word to my friends in Oxford still fighting the good fight: Know that you have friends around the world who stand with you. And count on our prayers.
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Aurora the seeming obvious reason they shout down is they have no coherent rationale to justify the taking of an innocent human life. Though it’s something more sinister, an irreconcilable emotive reaction driven by the acceptance of evil as a right. Liberty has become an absolute. Our culture whether at Oxford or here in Am perceives unprincipled freedom as an irrefutable principle that defines the person. It’s the premise that socialists believe will cause chaos bring down democracies and end in utopia. For those of us like yourself our fight is for the right to life and our humanness.
Whenever I imagine hell a cacophony of ceaseless, senseless screaming always comes to mind.
How is a “debate” on abortion possible when Catholics say it is murder?
Confused about the nature of debate?
morganB, you might try reading a book called Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress. While doing so you can put yourself and the shrieking, hysterical harpies who shouted down the speakers at Oxford firmly in the same category as those contemptible supporters of slavery who were willing to throw out basic rights such as petitioning for the redress of grievances, freedom of speech, freedom of the press – anything- so that they could not only do the equivalent of plugging their own ears and saying loudly “la la la I can’t hear you” but also prevent anybody else from hearing something with which the slavery supporters disagreed.
Debate is quite possible between people who disagree. People who won’t listen or allow others to listen to arguments and shriek mindless slogans could save considerable wear and tear on their vocal cords by simply wearing t-shirts that say “I have neither a credible argument to make nor intellectual power exceeding that of a turnip.”
I read Arguing About Slavery, too. Great book and one that should have a wider audience.
How dare those Catholic-types call abortion “murder.”
Why it’s only the killing of
A) a blob of tissue
B) a “potential life”
C) “product of conception”
If you Catholics would only be reasonable….it’s not “black and white”.
Or life and death.
People who engage in this kind of outrageous intimidation are trying their best to drown out debate, not only in the room, but in their own minds and hearts.
The’re deeply fearful of hearing anything that might challenge their most fervently held beliefs.
God’s truths are all around them and that is a terribly frightening reality, especially to those who are determined to remain godless.
As C.S. Lewis wrote, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere.”
On a similar note, I went to my first street pro-life event in Detroit a couple of weeks ago. A couple of the ‘ladies’ attending gave me the double finger and the ‘Friendly You!’ greeting. Something is amiss inside of them…
As vocal harangue intimidation and worse likely increase [example the Southern Poverty Law Center is defaming using political pressure to silence pro lifers] our righteous indignation if unabated can overshadow our mission as Catholics to pray sacrifice for those in peril of suffering eternally for these trespasses.