Here’s one from the archives! Hear how Emma Findlay-Wilson, President of Cardiff University Students for Life in 2015/16, and her pro-life exec brought support to student parents and show that pro-lifers really are all pro-women and pro-life.
Pro-choice movements love to call us anti-woman. It’s always the same story: they assume that our pro-life leanings come from some kind of manic need to have babies born at all costs. We are told that we don’t care about the mother, that we dismiss women and their rights and their choices. We are “pro-birth”, not “pro-life”.
I probably should have learned a long time ago not to take the pro-choice rhetoric personally, but it seems that I haven’t, because this attitude really gets to me. We are pro-life in general, and committed to ensuring the wellbeing of both mother and child far beyond the actual moment of birth. But how to demonstrate this to an unbelieving audience? By going on the defensive — so to speak.
The pro-life society that I am currently president of is very lucky in that it is extremely well-established. Though we have come up against (and fought off!) a few pro-choice motions, we have a long history of being affiliated to the Students’ Union. In other words, we’re past the point of struggling to make our voice heard at all, and in a position to do some good. I decided that I wanted to go beyond what we usually do, i.e. raising awareness of pro-life issues, and to focus on the struggles that student parents face.
This is not an uncommon theme of late. Oxford SFL have done some wonderful work in this area, and as a result of dedicated campaigning have managed to make some real changes for good. Not only this, but two of the elected officers at my university included a desire to improve the situation in their manifestos. Perfect timing! I, my indispensable VP, and a few others began to put our heads together and discuss submitting a motion to the Students’ Union’s Annual General Meeting.
The truth is that in a world which considers unwanted children to be an unnecessary nuisance best swept under the rug (or ‘terminated’, or whatever euphemism of the day is currently the most popular), even wanted children are going to suffer from the stigma of being something ‘non-essential’, and this is something that is magnified in a student environment. Of the many girls who fall pregnant and are consequently pressured into having an abortion, or more specifically made to feel that they have no other choice if they want to continue their education, the brave few that make the commitment to life have very little support and face some truly challenging problems. University is a place for students, not children — or so the unspoken attitude goes. Consequently, the rate for half a day at a creche is over twenty-three pounds, whether you are a student or a member of staff: a staggering expense for someone on a student budget.
To put this into some statistical perspective: according to a 2009 NUS survey, 54% of student parents have debts in addition to student loans; 77% of them work to cover basic living costs; 78% feel it is not easy to get involved with university; 60% said that they had thought about leaving their course; 76% received no childcare funding at all (with only 11% receiving enough to cover their costs); and over 87% said that their university had never spoken to them about childcare options. In 2015, the typical cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two is £199.42 per week in Wales: equivalent to over £10,000 a year. Debt, isolation from one’s peers, an additional job on top of course study requirements, decreased attendance of lectures, and a lack of information and support are all things that student parents are likely to face. The students who put forward last year’s pro-choice motion insisted that ‘pro-choice includes the choice to keep the baby’, but is it a choice if there are no viable options? If a young woman is confronted by the fact that keeping her baby might cost her her degree, her friends, and her social life, is it any wonder that she feels pressured to have an abortion?
It’s time pro-life groups in a position to make change start making it, and the best part is that nearly everyone — whether pro-life or not — tends to agree that the marginalised group of student parents needs help and support. Our motion included the resolutions to adopt more child-friendly practices throughout the SU building, to provide concise information on the SU website regarding financial support and networking events, to develop support groups in recognition that student parents may not have the time to establish these, to collect data on the parental status of students in order to enhance the SU’s ability to support them, to petition the university to implement pricing tiers at the creche for increased accessibility, to make baby changing facilities available throughout the SU building, and to raise awareness of the difficulties experienced by student parents at university. It passed with overwhelming support — the discussion can be viewed on YouTube.
As students our power to cause positive change is limited, and it’s easy to feel belittled and pressured by the constant abuse rained on us by the pro-choice movement; but our victory was proof that with enough conviction, it’s possible to make a real difference for those who struggle. If you’re hoping to pass a motion at your Student Union, or would like to raise awareness of the difficulties women undergo when they choose life, it’s not hard to make those steps. Speak to student parents themselves, speak to APS, and speak to other pro-life societies that have done it before: and we’ll see who’s calling us anti-woman then.
APS are currently putting together packs of resources to help you support student parents and raise awareness at your uni – get in touch!
