Cardiff University Votes On Pro-Choice Motion

Cardiff Uni Chooses To Not Be Pro-Choice In Landslide Victory
Pro-choice activists at Connolly station, Dublin, after they took a train from Dublin to Belfast to bring back abortion pills unavailable in the Republic of Ireland.
Pro-choice activists at Connolly station, Dublin, after they took a train from Dublin to Belfast to bring back abortion pills unavailable in the Republic of Ireland.
Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A motion to make Cardiff University's Student Union officially pro-choice was defeated by such a landslide that the votes weren't even counted.

The proposal, put forward by the chair of the Cardiff Women's Association, called for CUSU to support pro-choice campaigns, “prevent affiliated societies and groups from taking part in anti-choice protests or rallies outside of abortion clinics and under the banner of the student's union", and force any literature regarding abortion or contraception on campus to be academically referenced.

The Keep Cardiff Uni Free campaign was opposing the motion, and had backing from multiple on-campus religious groups. A representative said: “Students from religious societies made it clear that they felt under attack from this motion, as well as the pro-life society Students for Life.”

Jonathan O'Connell, President of Students for Life, told the Catholic Herald: "The university environment has long been a bastion of free speech, which the proposed motion seeks to attack."

CUSU's ex-Women's Officer Emma Carragher tabled a similar motion in May, but it was withdrawn.

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