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December 2000
Contents: Cambridge vote. Human cloning. Feminist article
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here for our press contact details Dear pro-lifers Here is the fairly hefty third Student LifeNet newsletter, things have been fairly manic and unfortunately the webpage is currently inaccessible so this newsletter is packed with detailed information and I hope not too wordy. Here we go... Big News from Cambridge: Over 5500 student voted on the 1st November not to affiliate to the National Abortion Campaign by a massive 2:1 majority. The campaign proved a great opportunity to point out the horrendous flaws in the prevailing attitude that pro-abortion is pro-choice. If you think your student union may be affiliated to the NAC please seriously consider campaigning for disaffiliation, it is well worth the effort and please get in touch at any time for lots of material and ideas to help in any future campaigns. Below is an article written by Fiorella Sultana, a member of the Cambridge Pro-Life Society giving you more of a picture of the Cambridge situation. Union elections will be soon be upon us: at most institutions this will be happening around February and candidates will shortly be required to put themselves forward. Please consider standing for these elections and becoming more involved in student politics generally; it is vital that we increase the level of pro-life representation and involvement in as many student unions as possible, particularly if we are to change the prevailing pro-abortion policy of the NUS (which is currently affiliated to the National Abortion Campaign). It is particularly important therefore that you consider standing as a delegate for the NUS National Council and National Conference as this is where NUS policy is decided. You will be able to find out more about election procedures from your union (most offer special information sessions for interested candidates). If you decide to make a pro-life stance part of your manifesto then be encouraged by recent events at Cambridge which have shown that there is a lot of student support for a 'neutral' policy on abortion; also you may find success mounting a campaign with 'positive' elements such as promoting better pregnancy/childcare resources, etc. Even if you decide not to stand on a specific pro-life platform (and you may judge it best not to), then please consider standing anyway as you can of course use your influence once elected. Best of luck with your electioneering. We all urgently need to act fast to stop the government legalising human cloning. Such a step would be irrevocable, licensing the limitless destruction of embryos, for dubious therapeutic gain, and it would inevitably lead to full human cloning for "spare parts". It seems that letters to MPs is one of the most effective ways to get our voices heard, remember to an MP, each letter represents 1000 voters and we need to insist that medical research should be confined to adult stem cells which will not involve the destruction of human life. The risks of embryo stem cells are hidden, for example it has been kept very quiet that a patient in the US was discovered at post mortem to have hair and nails growing in his brain following brain surgery using embryonic stem cells, ignoring the broad potential fate of embryonic stem cells contributed to this tragic mistake. Student LifeNet has been organising a national petition, which needs to be signed over the next few days. If you would like to get hold of this and collect signatures please contact Sarah Macken at SLifeNet@aol.com. A very successful street petition has already been organised by the Oxford Pro-Life Society which collected over 600 signatures, they were interviewed by BBC news while they were doing this. The petition was presented to Evan Harris MP, whose bill to introduce human cloning was defeated in Parliament. This shows that petitions can be very effective, the public are largely unaware of quite how dangerous cloning could be and also how near the government are to legalising it. An exciting opportunity is the forthcoming World Youth Alliance, a three day training session in Brussels, 1,2,3 December. Topics will include: Demographics, Current Legal Challenges, European Union, International UN conferences, Bioethics, Child rights. Discussions, workshops and presentations will take place over the 3 day period with European and international experts, as well as legislators and policy makers from national, regional and international levels. The conference is open to any pro-life student and is an exciting opportunity to get involved in pro-life issues on an interantional scale, if you are interested in going or for further information contact SLifeNet@aol.com, 020 8830 2086 or europeanyouthalliance@yahoo.com +322 732 1147 Serrin Foster proved a sparky and inspiring speaker and clearly has done great things in the US for improving childcare facilities through her work as President of Feminists for Life. Some student unions have already responded positively to literature and information about Feminists for Life so it would be great if other universities improving childcare and pregnancy facilites could benefit similarly (www.feministforlife.org). FEMINISM ARTICLE: We all know about a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body; it is one of the main tenets of the feminist movement, and it is wheeled out as an argument in favour of abortion. It will therefore come as a severe shock to most people that the early feminists were against abortion. In the USA, feminist pioneers such as Susan B. Anthony and Elisabeth Cady Stanton campaigned to outlaw abortion. Why was this ? They demanded rights and public respect for mothers, including unmarried mothers, believing that abortion only served to reinforce the social stigma surrounding children conceived out of wedlock by sanctioning means of getting rid of them. They saw that many women had abortions because they were unsupported by the father of their child. This is still very true today. Worse, it is very rare for a man to stay with his partner if she does have an abortion. Current statistics show that more men than women are in favour of abortion. The early feminists campaigned against abortion partly because it legitimised the unacceptable tendency of many men to want sex without commitment or consequences. Contemporary feminism, with notable exceptions, has been built upon a false androgynous notion of the human person as being not 'both male and female' but rather 'neither male nor female'. It is disembodied and abstract, and no wonder therefore that it fails to connect with the reality of most women's and men's lives. Elaine Storkey, sociologist at King's College, London, points out that egalitarianism which abandons difference is the most subtle way yet of making women invisible. The philosopher of science Mary Midgley, who has published extensively on evolution and the mistaken worship of science, traces this mistakenly androgynous philosophy back to Descartes, who defined the human being exclusively in terms of the 'rational' mind, through to Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Sartre. All of these men had real problems relating to women. All of them display overt misogyny and disgust at women, as well as being narcissistic and anti-social. (Midgley is spot-on when she complains that modern feminists 'have not subjected Nietzsche to anything like the well-deserved acid-bath which they have given Freud.') Nietzsche notoriously said: 'What is happiness ? Not contentment but more power. Not peace at all, but war. The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. And one shall help them to do so.' Modern feminism all too often slavishly follows this attitude. Stamp on women who are pregnant by persuading them to have an abortion, regardless of the physical and emotional trauma this involves. Ignore the consequences of aborting unwanted foetuses. Ignore the wishes of the father, who may be feeling vulnerable for once, and possibly willing to help bring up the child. Campaign for abortion on demand, as the National Abortion Campaign is doing today, so that we have the 'right' to abort babies that are handicapped, or 'unwanted', yes, even the right to partial-birth abortion, which involves putting the mother on valium for three days, artificially inducing labour, waiting until the baby's head is out of the womb, dashing its brains out and then proceeding with delivery. This is already legal in the USA. The question posed by Alasdair MacIntyre is relevant here: Whose Justice ? Which Rationality ? So much for human rights. Clearly the right to human life only extends as far as some people want it to extend. Children, contrary to some ultra-capitalist views, are not merely social capital, not merely the property of their parents. If that were the case, how would we deal with orphans or children who have ran away from home because of abuse? Children, including unborn children, are human beings with the right to life.Human rights are relevant to everybody, whatever their opinions of or knowledge about abortion and pregnancy. Indeed, creating better and more widespread childcare facilities should be a goal for all feminists, and could unite people despite their differences. It would be an acid test of who really cares about women's welfare and social welfare generally. Most other universities in Britain permit students to take part-time degrees, and this works in favour of women and men, whether married, cohabiting or single, to study at the same time as looking after their children. Indeed, in future this arrangement might become even more important if top-up-fees compel people have to start working at 18 in order to save money to go to university (possibly to do a part-time degree so they can carry on having a job to support themselves). It is arguable that encouraging abortion is a short-term substitute for serious social planning. I'll let Germaine Greer have the last word on the issue: 'What women 'won' was the 'right' to undergo invasive procedures in order to terminate unwanted pregnancies, unwanted not just by them but by their parents, their sexual partners, the government who would not support mothers, the employers who would not support mothers.' Copyright: Carys Moseley 19 November Plans for the Student LifeNet conference around the Easter vacation next year are moving ahead. We really need more people coming forward to work with and take over from some members of the current Student LifeNet committee. The work of Student LifeNet is growing rapidly and it is a wonderful opportunity, we are all students with no particular expertise so please don't be shy and come forward if you would like to. We are in urgent need of people to help set up a new webpage, so any internet wizards please lend a hand. Best of luck with all the pro-lifing, I'll try to be more concise with the next newsletter! Anna |
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