Pro-life society present at Freshers’ Fair

Cambridge is the latest university to be critised for allowing pro-life organisations to attend their freshers’ fairs

Oxford, Exeter and Bristol university have also faced criticism for allowing pro-life groups to have stands at their freshers' fairs Dwain Currier/Flickr

by Caitlin Farrell

This article is 4 years old

Tuesday October 12 2021, 4:32pm

Content note: this article contains discussion of abortion and anti-abortion campaigning

Cambridge Students for Life, the University’s pro-life society, featured at Cambridge’s Freshers’ Fair, which took place on Parker’s Piece on Tuesday and Wednesday this week (5/10 and 6/10).

Cambridge Students for Life is largely viewed as a group which campaigns against abortion and aims to prevent the legalisation of euthanasia.

The society hosts events to, according to their website, “encourage students to deeply consider issues in life ethics like abortion and euthanasia, and aim to equip them to offer life-affirming support to those who are directly affected by them”.

About half a million given to Cambridgeshire Police for women’s safety

The reception to similar groups having stalls at other universities has also been negative, particularly on social media. Speaking of Oxford University’s pro-life society, Twitter user Ellie Redpath (@inelliegant) said that she “wanted to reassure oxford [sic] freshers that the vast majority of this university is firmly of the view that abortion is a fundamental human right”.

Exeter University was criticised for allowing its Students for Life society to attend its freshers fair, whilst Bristol University’s feminist society called on the Bristol Student Union to “ban the pro-life feminist society from advertising at the freshers fair & to cut the funding they receive as a society affiliated with the SU”.

Cambridge Students for Life is the campus chapter of the national organisation Students for Abolition, which campaigns to ban abortion in the UK.

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