Born to make you happy
reproduced from Varsity, 12th May 2000
It was with something of a sad heart that I noticed a sickly ironic juxtaposition on page 3 of last week's Varsity. The interview with Professor Evans, in which he claimed that the Holocaust's "factory-like, machine-like processing of human beings, the killing of human beings" has no parallel in history, appeared next to the News in Brief article announcing the CUSU Council's decision to affiliate to the National Abortion Campaign. During the Holocaust six million Jews were murdered simply because they were Jewish. Since abortion became legal in this country five million unborn children have died simply because they were unborn and unloved - for many people such as myself a clear parallel exists between these two facts. Without going further into the rights and wrongs of the abortion debate, my point is simply this - is it really good policy for CUSU to affiliate to the National Abortion Campaign given that CUSU is supposed to represent the interests of all students in Cambridge, and at least a significant minority of students consider abortion to be a terrible crime against humanity?
Francis Reid
Corpus Christi
Open letter from the CU Pro-Life Committee
Dear CUSU voters,
We were very disappointed to see that Motion (i): National Abortion Campaign was passed at the CUSU meeting last term.
CUSU exists to provide student welfare in this university. The NAC is not a student welfare organisation. The NAC offers no practical or financial support to pregnant students, it does not support women more generally on issues of childcare, and, as its name implies, does not promote the full availability of all options to students facing a crisis pregnancy. Regardless of whether you think what the NAC campaigns for is right, it is surely inappropriate for CUSU to affiliate to an organisation whose aims have no direct bearing on student welfare: for example, their proposed change to the law would have little effect on students, as the current UK abortion law already effectively allows abortion on demand.
Furthermore, whereas it is likely that the majority of students in this university would support abortion in some circumstances, we doubt that a majority would support abortion on demand for any reason or none. There are also a sizeable majority who would find being affiliated to the NAC very deeply offensive. In the meantime, we would be happy to answer any questions you may have about any matter raised in this letter. Please reply to Clare or Beata at New Hall using the email address to the left.
Yours sincerely,
Clare Devlin, Anna Wilkins, Rupert Beale, Naomi Young, Beata Klepacka, Fiorella Sultana, Ester Monti, Natasha Casie Chetty.
Cambridge University Preclinical Christian Medics
We are writing in response to CUSU's decision to affiliate to the National Abortion Campaign. CUSU exists to represent the views of Cambridge University and to promote student welfare. Your decision to support the NAC does not represent the views of the Christian Medics group on abortion. Due to the controversial nature of this subject we do not believe that CUSU can support one line of views as fully reflective of the entire student population. Also, as the Women's Campaign is already affiliated to the NAC, is there any need for CUSU to support them as well? The NAC is not a welfare organisation and its main objective is a political one - to protect and extend the 1967 Abortion Act. We feel that many groups of people, Christian or not, would not be in support of many of their aims. Instead, we propose that your support is more directly focused on promoting pregnancy support within the university, for example for providing further training for the helpline workers.
>>more letters>>
Home
Background
NAC Policy
Letters
Articles
Discussion Forum