Free Speech?

 

University censors two campus pro-life groups

By Dave Andrusko

Outside the Dundee University Students Union are Joseph Geoghegan and Julie Allison of the Life Society. DC Thomson / Dougie Nicolson

It’s a long ways to Scotland, but the intolerance of pro-abortionists is obviously as all-encompassing at Dundee University as it is in many universities in North America.
In spite of their best efforts, a pro-life lecture was delivered to medical students at the university. Which infuriated “Dundee Abortion Rights.”

According to Steven Dinnie, writing for The Courier,

Mr. Mahesh Perera, a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician with Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS, gave a lecture on Tuesday on ‘how to be a pro-life obstetrician in the NHS today’, and was met with a blood-splattered protest outside the Dalhousie Building where the lecture took place.

The irony is kind of hard to miss. Dr. Perera is evidently speaking to medical students about the gauntlet they will need to run when they are part of the NHS (National Health Service). Turned out that this gauntlet also includes being able to have a contrary view to Dundee Abortion Rights protesters.

Read this and see if you are amazed at the blatant hypocrisy and talking out of both sides of her mouth: Protester Marlyn Glen said

“We welcome the free and frank exchange of ideas on our campuses and would never seek to stop a peaceful speaker challenging ideas, but when a talk is targeted at medics and is about refusing women their rights, that goes too far.”

Excuse me? It’s okay (maybe) to have a “free and frank exchange of ideas” unless those ideas are shared with the people who will be asked to or be coerced into participating in abortions. THAT “goes too far.”

It’s gets more Alice-in-Wonderland by the moment. Here’s how Dundee University Life Society described the event, according to Dinnie:

“Many medical students and junior doctors have considered a career in obstetrics and gynaecology but are dissuaded from pursuing it because of certain practices associated with the job.

“There is a perceived pressure on doctors to accept the provision of abortion is part and parcel of the work of an obstetrician.

“However, many people from different religious and cultural backgrounds have a conscientious objection to abortion.

“Is there room in the NHS for obstetricians who believe in the principle of caring for both woman and baby?”

Just to be clear—is there room for men and women who believe in caring for both women and their unborn babies? Clearly there isn’t room at the Dundee University inn, according to a spokeswoman for Dundee Abortion Rights. Here’s the logic:

“Pro-life means anti-abortion.

“Women in the UK have the legal right to an abortion and anti-abortion obstetricians put that right at risk.

“Abortion should be a woman’s personal decision and medical personnel should support that decision.”

Get that? For pro-life physicians even to exist puts the “right” to abortion “at risk.” How much worse if they are allowed to actually share their views on a university campus!
There was the usual drivel from the administration about being committed to free speech. I took a moment to see what had happened in the last few months on campus by looking at previous stories at The Courier.

In a story that appeared last September by reporter Andrew Argo, “A second pro-life group [Life Society] claims it has been banned from the Dundee University freshers’ fayre [Welcome Week]. The Dundee University Students’ Association “insisted they would accept a pro-life students’ group provided their views did not conflict with the association’s constitution.”
The Student Association had decided to vote to ban another pro-life organization, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). Life Society’s Julie Allison told Argo that they were then warned in a phone call

that if we were to use any materials provided by SPUC, we would risk being made unaffiliated with DUSA and any members from SPUC would be escorted from the premises.

“This came as a surprise to us as we were hoping to receive some help from some SPUC members on the day.

“We were to be using some of their material, because it is factual, and using material from other organisations. We are not able to source any material from alternative sources at this stage.

“He went onto explain that a student representative council passed the motion banning SPUC and all those affiliated with them.

“The motion was proposed and carried when the Life Society was affiliated and yet it was never informed of the motion nor of its result.

“We feel that this concealment was a deliberate attempt to prevent the Life Society from voting against the motion.

“We are disappointed that a union which prides itself on representing all students is not prepared to even consider the pro-life message and instead zealously censors it,” she said.

Disappointed? Of course. Surprised? I’m guessing not.
 Source: NRLC News