Very cool lecture by the president of Feminists for Life

[lavendersparkle]

Someone on prolife posted a link to this very cool lecture by Serrin Forster, the president of Feminists for Life.

Her approach to abortion chimes a lot with the way I view it. Whilst in many ways the situation in the UK is better than in the US, we have maternity leave, universal health care and a better benefit safety net, the issues she raised are still pertinent. Thus it has inspired me to actually get proactive and do something. I wish there were feminist or left wing pro-life organisations in the UK.

At CU pro-life society's freshers meet one of the things that was raised was the idea of producing a leaflet telling students what resources there are in Cambridge for pregnant and parenting students and what to do if they want to carry a crisis pregnancy to term whilst studying here. I think that this is the single most effective thing pro-life soc can do. Women aged 18-21 have the highest rate of abortions as a proportion of population. It's not as if pro-life soc is going to be able to bring about great law reforms but we can provide information that pregnant students need to be able to exercise choices other than abortion. In addition, doing anything that helps students to view a crisis pregnancy as something that doesn't have to destroy your education may help some people get over the cognitive dissonance that prevents them from being open to accepting an anti-abortion ethic.

Now, I have no idea what the procedures for pregnant students currently are. I've already had a poke about the CUSU website and can't really find much info. I figure the most obvious first ports of call would be CUSU's Welfare and Women's sabs and my college nurse. I have this terrible feeling that CUSU might become unhelpful if they know what I want this info for. There's no logical reason why they should be. They should be in favour of providing women with more information about their choices. If I'm just being pessimistic and they are cooperative we could even do something like make this information available on CUSU's website and publications. I'm not bothered if it's alongside information on how to access abortion because I think information on how to carry a pregnancy to term is more useful. It's relatively obvious how to get an abortion: go to doctor and make appointment or check whether you have a few hundred pounds in the bank and call BPAS. On the other hand keeping the baby is more complex: talk to tutor about how pregnancy will affect work, try to move into student parent accommodation, find out about university funds and state benefits for student parents etc.

Now they mentioned producing a leaflet like this last year and sweet FA happened so I may well have to badger people and do a lot of the leg work myself. Five Catholics sitting in a pub telling to each other about how abortion is bad isn't going to save any lives.

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

I think this is a good approach - you are aiming to help with a useful and needed service, and I think people respond a lot more favourably to people offering actual help than people saying "you are evil scum". Plus even though I think abortion isn't a Bad Thing I think that people being forced to have abortions because they don't have any other options *is* a Bad Thing.

However I think you may be disappointed by the lack of any kind of useful service offered by the university to pregnant and parenting students. The consensus of Newnham JCR was that the university is just not interested in providing such services. IIRC the graduate/mature colleges have the best provision for child care for students, most colleges having pretty much none although there is an informal network of students aiming to help each other out. I'd assume that pregnant students would be permitted to degrade if they wished to but am not sure.

(Provision for staff is much better that provision for students - but that's small comfort to a pregnant undergraduate)

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I suspected that there might not be much provision for pregnant and parenting undergrads. In that case gathering information for the leaflet can also provide a start for working out how provision could be improved and working with CUSU to campaign for improvements. Lack of provision for student parents is a serious Access issue as well as a Welfare and Women's issue.

[naath.livejournal.com]

It is indeed a serious issue which I think the university ought to take more notice of. Starting with a leaflet on what there *is* would be an excellent way to both help people and say to Those In Authority "look, this is really really crap".

[atreic.livejournal.com]

What a good idea! It would be worth joining up with the stuff produced for student parents though, to avoid duplication etc.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Yay! Good idea.

I have big issues with Feminists for Life of America - they don't seem at all feminist to me (and are they against birth control and comprehensive sex education, or was I imagining that? At the very least, they're not for it.)


I wish there were feminist or left wing pro-life organisations in the UK.

Me too. I am very tempted to ask whether you want to collaborate in starting one, but I suspect neither of us has the time or other resources...

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that the founders of Feminists for Life of America and the people at the top are very feminist and see being pro-life as part of a wider feminist equality and non-violence project. I also get the impression that a lot of their membership/support/celebrity endorsement are from people who aren't so committed to feminism but want to put a cuddly face to their pro-life position. Presumably, due to this they can't come out in favour of contraception (they don't have a policy on contraception) because they don't want to risk losing money from their members who are opposed to contraception.

However, if you look at the work they do, the vaste majority of it seems to be lobbeying for better maternity leave, protection for women from violence, provision of resources for pregnant students etc.

Alec says

[(Anonymous)]

Ask the nurse. She's a good catlick girl.

Just make it clear these details are for a leaflet, not personal information.