Blogpost by Project Truth team member and Queen's University student, Leah.
In July 2020, our SU sent a generic email to all students regarding elections for councillors. Initially, we joked with each other about putting ourselves forward. This seemed particularly amusing because our SU is an extremely hostile environment where pro-life students generally avoid at all costs. For example, just last year, our equality and diversity student officer threatened to ‘cut’ pro-life students. Despite this, she remained in her paid position – without any penalty.
After this, we ran a #NotMYSU campaign to highlight the abuse and unfair treatment we’ve received at the hands of our Students’ Union. This received an unprecedented amount of support, we then realised that there was an appetite for pro-life students to have their voices heard. On further reflection, we decided ‘if we couldn’t beat them, join them’ – so that’s exactly what we did.
A number of us put ourselves forward for the student councillor roles, and thankfully, got elected! We soon discovered that the way to engage with the SU (on their terms) was by proposing motions – so we got to work. We realised that the proposer of any motion is allowed to talk for ~three minutes, uninterrupted. We wanted to use this opportunity to create the most uncompromising and unapologetic pro-life motion imaginable, so we created the ‘Sanctity of Human Life’ motion. Our motion outlined the arguments against abortion. We talked about the value and dignity of every human life, the brutal reality of what abortion is and the devastating consequences it has on families and wider society. We also urged for funding of pro-choice groups to be stopped immediately, and for this funding to be directed towards providing better support for pregnant and parenting students – and to establish a post-abortive counselling service.
We proposed this motion in an SU council meeting last week. Needless to say, it provoked quite a response. It was truly remarkable to see how unhinged people became when they heard us talk about the sanctity of human life. The debate was incredibly biased with those from a pro-choice point of view given more time to speak whilst pro-lifers had their mics muted. There were even tears (from the pro-abortion activists) at the sheer cheek of us putting forth a pro-life motion, resulting in many of those present calling for the debate to be ended abruptly for the 'mental health' of everyone involved. Interestingly, none of the pro-abortionists disputed the contents of our motion – they just spewed the usual slogans and said we were a disgrace for putting such a motion forward.
It was unsurprising to see such a biased debate with such irrational responses.
The results were released the following morning. The motion failed, with only 13 out of 56 council members voting for it. However, we never expected this motion to pass - we simply put it forward as a means of giving the pro-life voice a platform in an otherwise pro-abortion echo chamber. We can only hope that our message planted some seeds in the hearts of some of those that were present.