{"id":51221,"date":"2014-06-29T21:39:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T01:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=51221"},"modified":"2014-06-29T21:39:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T01:39:23","slug":"oxford-pro-life-club-wins-free-speech-vote-following-discriminatory-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/oxford-pro-life-club-wins-free-speech-vote-following-discriminatory-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford Pro-Life Club wins free speech vote following discriminatory attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

In order to understand what pro-lifers on college campuses are up against, I recommend reading this piece by Oxford student Dan Hitchens, \u201cPro-lifers: the student censor\u2019s favourite target.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, Hitchens resides in the UK. But that\u2019s even more reason for all of us to wake up and pay attention. As we know by now, illiberal ideas tend to take off in Europe before they\u2019re adopted by U.S. \u201cprogressives.\u201d And what happened to pro-lifers at Oxford is downright alarming.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want some first-hand experience of the contemporary free-speech debate, I recommend joining a student pro-life society,\u201d Hitchens writes. \u201cLast month, Oxford Students for Life, of which I am president, discovered the following clause was being put forward at the Oxford University students\u2019 union: \u2018Never to [provide a] platform [to] any group or organisation which provides directional advice around abortion or explicitly stands against women\u2019s right to choose.'”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In other words, the student union tried to impose an all-out ban on speech that doesn\u2019t explicitly support abortion. Outrageous? Yes\u2014even \u201cfarcical,\u201d according to Hitchens. But, he says, \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily humourless Stalinists who are behind these motions; believe it or not, many students are genuinely confused about what free speech is and why it matters.\u201d Hitchens says this is a problem at universities throughout the UK, including Cardiff University, where there have been ongoing attempts to outlaw pro-life demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Luckily, thanks to Oxford Students For Life\u2019s relentless activism, the clause that threatened to ban pro-life speech at Oxford was defeated, 27 votes to 24. Hitchens says that free speech supporters helped vote it down, even if they were personally pro-choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of those who supported us were not pro-life,\u201d he writes. \u201cAs one of them told me afterwards: \u2018I\u2019m not on your side. I just believe in having the argument.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But what happens when people who don\u2019t<\/em> believe in \u201chaving the argument\u201d become the majority, or worse, when they have positions of power over students? We\u2019ve seen this problem in the US already. This spring, an associate professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara was arrested for physically assaulting a pro-life demonstrator<\/a> on campus. If a professor who becomes physically violent at any hint of disagreement doesn\u2019t have a chilling effect on student speech, I don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n

Although the student union voted in his pro-life group\u2019s favor, Hitchens says that free speech on campus shouldn\u2019t be up for a vote. \u201cThat simple point \u2013 indeed, the whole case for free speech \u2013 has to be made again before it is forgotten,\u201d he writes. \u201cYou can hope for an informed, conscientious public debate, while recognising that such a debate won\u2019t exist if some people feel they have the right to silence others. Which is why, when the right to free speech is endangered, so are all our other rights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to understand what pro-lifers on college campuses are up against, I recommend reading this piece by Oxford student Dan Hitchens, \u201cPro-lifers: the student censor\u2019s favourite target.\u201d Of course, Hitchens resides in the UK. But that\u2019s even more reason for all of us to wake up and pay attention. As we know by now, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":26297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nOxford Pro-Life Club wins free speech vote following discriminatory attack - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last month, Oxford Students for Life, of which I am president, discovered the following clause was being put forward at the students\u2019 union.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/oxford-pro-life-club-wins-free-speech-vote-following-discriminatory-attack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oxford Pro-Life Club wins free speech vote following discriminatory attack - 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