At British universities, political correctness hangs like a fog over every lecture, seminar and campus bar. In my own time as a student, a well-respected lecturer almost lost his job for carelessly using a phrase that would have been commonplace in his youth. The Christian Union was attacked for expressing their views on traditional marriage and I witnessed a member of a particular political society being bullied for daring to turn up to a cross-political event. More recently, I found out that debating abortion is practically illegal.
As a Christian, I am deeply concerned about the issue of abortion and as a consequence I set up a pro-life society along with some Christian friends. Until this point I hadn't realised how deeply set the PC agenda ran. The student paper was livid. 'Fury as Pro Life Society is ratified' read the headline, as various student groups lined up to brand us "disgusting", "misogynistic" and "vile". Except the fury was really consigned to a select group of free speech guardians, determined to safeguard their own ideology. Of course, they were perfectly happy to use hypocrisy as a means to an end. You see, according to our opponents, our anti-choice vibes had apparently made the whole university unsafe, and as a consequence we were made to feel unsafe. "Get off my campus", read one tweet.
When I was kicked off the university feminist Facebook group, I accepted that I had perhaps only been there to cause some mischief. But when a friend showed me the comments that students had been making, it became clear that this was no joke. There was open incredulity that a man could have an opinion on this issue. During a radio debate with some feminists I was accused of homophobia, racism and misogyny, and reported to the student union for hate speech.
The president of our society shockingly revealed that if she met a woman who had been for an abortion she would try to give them a hug and then make them a cup of tea. A pretty innocuous remark I thought, but the student newspaper confidently proclaimed that we had advocated punishment for all women who had visited an abortion centre.
As a student society our purpose was explicit; to open debate and break apart the closed issue that is abortion. We were not going to protest outside clinics or show placards displaying dead babies; we wanted a conversation. An opportunity to show that there is another side to the argument. Historically, students have been an affront to the established order and a dissenting voice against the political consensus. Universities have long been the carriers of new ideas and the fortresses of free speech. This is absolutely no longer the case.
The problem with many students in Britain is not just that they want to abort innocent babies, they want to abort my right to call it what it is. Campuses across the UK have become obsessed with 'safe spaces' – designated 'no thought' areas for bland, sheep-like students, capable only of bleating Orwellian newspeak and expressing moral outrage on demand.
You have to hand it to their ideological masters; the range of vocabulary gymnastics employed is second to none. "Pro-Choice", "interrupting a pregnancy" and "reproductive rights" all mean killing your child. Although don't say child, say "pregnancy tissue" or "uterine contents" – that's much more palatable. If only such creativity was spent in helping people make wiser choices in the first place. The sobering reality is that since 1967 around eight million babies – sorry, pregnancy tissues – have been aborted in Britain. And we call that choice and celebrate it as a freedom.
It is not nice to be on the receiving end of potentially career-ending accusations. But the real victims of the anti-thought generation are not pro-lifers, but the people that cannot speak up for themselves. We are called as Christians to speak up for those who cannot, so let's not wait until they are out of the womb before we say something. I was encouraged to read recently that increasing numbers of students are becoming pro-life. Perhaps the anti-thought generation are in their death throes, and their intense anger has come from a sense of unease. I certainly hope so.
To all the pro-lifers out there, we must not back down under opposition. Our job is to graciously but firmly be a voice to the voiceless. And to my opponents: leave your safe spaces, engage us in debate and stop aborting free speech.
