Pro-Life Student Group Banned at University in Scotland

Country: United Kingdom

Date of incident: November 27, 2018


The Aberdeen University Students' Association (Ausa) prevented the affiliation of the Aberdeen Life Ethics Society, a pro-life student group. This means that the group would not be recognized as an official club of the University and thus would not be eligible to receive any funding for their events. The Ausa has an explicit pro-choice policy supporting "free, safe and legal access to abortion." The Life Ethics Society challenged the ban and accused the Ausa of censorship.

"Ausa is the latest in a long list of students’ associations which selectively repress the freedom of speech of certain students and societies," said Alex Mason the spokesman of the Aberdeen Life Ethics Society. He added: "Ausa’s willingness to censor dissenting speech, even though such speech is protected by UK and EU laws, should be chilling to any fair-minded student who believes the free exchange of ideas is essential to a university’s ethos. The pro-life position is admittedly an unpopular minority opinion on this campus, but it is fully protected by law. The right to speak freely must be equally applied to all."

Just a week earlier, another pro-life group was banned at the University of Glasgow

Source: Herald Scotland
Photo by Alan Findlay, CC-BY-SA 2.0, geograph.org