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November 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A controversial pro-life group at one of Australia’s highest ranked universities has been barred from affiliation, funding and advertising by the university’s student union.

University of New South Wales’s (UNSW) student union, known as Arc, rejected affiliation with LifeChoice UNSW earlier this month. The decision followed Life Choice’s successful bid to create Australia’s first pro-life campus group at Sydney University.

The decision means that LifeChoice UNSW is barred from funding, use of campus facilities, and advertising and promotion of the group on campus.

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The Student Development Committee (SDC), which governs club affiliation for Arc, stated it rejected affiliation because LifeChoice UNSW’s constitution had contradictions.

SDC Convenor Chris Antonini told UNSW’s student magazine Tharunka that two of the group’s aims – fostering discussion and debate, and promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death – contradicted each other.

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LifeChoice UNSW president Anna Fernon said the reason given by SDC for rejecting affiliation was an excuse to silence the pro-life group on campus.

“I am disappointed by the blatant ideological bias in Arc’s decision,” said Ms Fernon.

“To not affiliate LifeChoice reflects the prejudices of a few students who sit in positions of power, not the interests of the wider student body,” she said.

The campus group, which launched in August, has faced fierce opposition from other students who tried to disrupt the Inaugural Annual General Meeting, threw condoms at attendees and started an online petition to ban the group from UNSW.

Ms Fernon said the SDC modified its reasons for rejecting LifeChoice UNSW as the discussions progressed, later telling LifeChoice UNSW that it was worried about the group “targeting women on campus”.

She said that the SDC was “extremely pre-emptive” in suggesting the group would harass women on campus.

“They are judging the club based on things that it hasn’t done… our club has ways of ensuring it doesn’t target women,” she said.

Ms Fernon said the SDC’s decision had stifled free-speech on campus, pointing out that Peter Singer, a prominent pro-abortion ethicist, publicly supported LifeChoice USYD’s right to free speech earlier this year.

“Abortion and euthanasia provoke many perspectives and opinions; however the right of university students to enter into discourse on controversial issues is not contingent on whether their fellow students agree with them,” she said.

“This is not about the prolife/prochoice dichotomy. Many people who disagree with our views, such as Peter Singer, support our right to be represented on campus.”

Australia’s first pro-life campus group LifeChoice USYD ran the gauntlet in June this year as its leaders faced fierce opposition from the University of Sydney Union(USU) and students against its establishment.

It survived a narrow vote of 36-34 at a Students’ Representatives Council (SRC) debate, much to the disappointment of the SRC’s and USU’s respective presidents.

Annabel Osborn, a USU women’s officer and member of the SRC, told The Australian in June that there was strong opposition to the group.

“It’s not supposed to be a lobby group. (But) I think that a woman’s right to feel safe is more important than funding and facilitating a bunch of pro-lifers,” she said. 

Despite the initial upset to LifeChoice UNSW, Ms Fernon said the group would continue to try to gain affiliation from Arc in the future.