News
Featured Image
 LifeChoices Sydney Facebook page

SYDNEY, Australia, May 21, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – “Racist” and “sexist” were among the accusations hurled at the pro-life movement during a protest last week on the University of Sydney campus, despite the intervention of a black, female pro-lifer.

A self-described “intersectional feminist” club at called the Women’s Collective gathered Wednesday to protest a speech by LifeChoice Australia director Rebecca Gosper, the university student newspaper Honi Soit reports. Gosper’s talk, titled “Abortion: The Exploitation of Women,” was part of the campus Catholic Society’s annual Life Week event.

The pro-abortion demonstration featured chants such as “get your rosaries off our ovaries” and “pro-life, your name’s a lie, you don’t care if women die”; and speakers calling abortion restrictions “oppression” and complaining that “you don’t see this when people need to access their flu vaccines.” The students also passed out free condoms.

Video released by LifeChoice shows several highlights from the event, mainly focusing on a pro-life student identified as A.J. who attempted to challenge the chants of “racist, sexist, anti-gay, Christian fascists go away.”

AJ stepped forward to ask how the pro-life position was racist, to which chant leader Lily Rosebell simply stuck her megaphone in AJ’s face and continued shouting into it. “Is this civil?” AJ simply asked.

 

“Well, I’d like to argue that denying women abortion rights and arguing that gay people should go through conversion therapy, is that civil?” Rosebell responded. “This is outright discrimination, outright oppression.”

In fact, LifeChoice Australia makes no reference to “conversion therapy” on its website, and its only references to homosexuality or transgenderism are posts warning about the use of abortion and euthanasia to exterminate both groups.

“This is the end of LifeChoice, and we say that you people are not welcome on campus and we are going to protest you whenever you turn up,” Rosebell continued, “and yeah you are racist, and yeah you are sexist, and yeah you are anti-gay.”

“You realize I’m black,” AJ responded. “How can I be racist against myself?” Instead of answering, Rosebell simply walked past her and continued chanting.

“Well, I can see you’re wearing a LifeChoice shirt, so clearly you’re a f***wit,” she said a bit later. AJ began to answer by noting that she studies medical science, but the pro-abortion activist simply began another chant, then claimed it was “totally disgusting that a medical student would come up to me and try and debate the medicine of whether or not abortion is safe or not.”

At this point, a man appearing to be with the pro-abortion crowd approached AJ, spreading his arms and forcing her to step backward, forcing her away from Rosebell and blocking her from the audience. A student reporter also approached her, and gave her the opportunity to explain herself.

“I study medical science here at the University of Sydney, and I just had questions scientifically about this whole thing that they’re doing and what evidence they have scientifically that the baby isn’t harmed in the process or the mother isn’t harmed,” AJ explained. “I’m not even Catholic, and I’m studying medical science, so you would think that I would be there, but the more you look into what actually goes on, as far as the mother’s own body, when the baby is excreted or taken out, we see that it’s not helpful for the mother.”

Meanwhile, Rosebell doubled down on her claim that pro-lifers were “racist” and “want to deny civil rights to everyone, not just women.” At no point in the video does she offer an example of racist pro-life beliefs or actions.

“We should say that they should be challenged wherever they rear their ugly heads, and that their ideas are not welcome on Sydney Uni campus,” she declared. “This is the campus of the left, and we stand up for women’s rights, gay rights, and all of the above.”

The University of Sydney’s own LifeChoice chapter weighed in by noting that the school’s Code of Conduct calls for “intellectual freedom,” “recognition of the importance of ideas and the pursuit of critical and open inquiry”; “tolerance, honesty and respect”; and “high standards of ethical behaviour.”

“Are these standards being upheld on campus?” the group asked.

This is not the first clash between LifeChoice and the Women’s Collective. In March, Gosper wrote a Spectator op-ed revealing that one of the latter group’s members admitted “we’ve tried to get [LifeChoice] de-registered a lot of times” and detailing the Collective’s history of “harassment,” including glitter bombs, personal insults, breaking a LifeChoice water bucket, “abusive chalk messages,” and releasing inflated condoms like balloons in LifeChoice’s stall.

“The behaviour of the University of Sydney Wom*n’s Collective is completely contradictory to the core value of feminism: respect for women,” Gosper declared. “As a young, pro-life woman, I want everyone to know that they do not represent me or my values. By shutting down civil conversation, these women are not advocating for real choices for women.”

Abortion laws vary among Australia’s states and territories, with abortion for any reason offered as late as 24 weeks in Victoria, though most jurisdictions limit it to some sort of ostensibly-medical purpose.