Students need support trying to establish a pro-life group at the University of Auckland
19 Oct 2009
To whom it may concern
I am writing on behalf of a group of dedicated students trying to establish a pro-life group, Pro-Life NZ, at the University of Auckland. We require your help.
It will be the fourth attempt to establish such a group on campus in the last decade; all previous instances have apparently failed. This has been due to a number of factors, which pertain to the administrative organisation of the student body and the manner in which student clubs are officially recognised. Firstly, in order to be able to advertise in the student forums and receive limited funding from the University administration, student groups are required to be affiliated with the Student Association (AUSA). Unfortunately for us, the Association, or rather the Student Executive is heavily pro-abortion. In fact, abortion is recognised as a woman's right under the AUSA's constitution. Therefore, our first difficulty lies in establishing a pro-life group in such a blatantly hostile environment.
The second, and more significant, obstacle however lies in the manner in which proposed clubs (such as ours) are affiliated. Once a year, a student forum is held on campus, open for all Auckland University students, during which a vote is made by a show-of-hands. Only after a group has attained the majority of votes will it be formally recognised by the AUSA. Such a process is ultimately controlled by the most organised groups meaning that the ultra-organised ranks of the pro-abortion lobby has always trumped any number put forth by pro-life groups.
In the hope of countering the activism of such groups, this year Pro-Life NZ waited until the last possible moment to enter the documentation required for affiliation.
The closing date was Monday night- the student forum was organised for today, Wednesday the 14th of October. In doing so, we had intended to give the pro-abortion lobby the least amount of time to organise themselves. However, the Student Executive cancelled the forum today and there was no vote made on any club whatsoever. Although no official reason was given, we can be fairly certain that the decision to reschedule the forum was made in order to thus allow the pro-abortion lobby to organise their voter numbers- the fact that the Student Executive has been purposely misleading us throughout the course of the day is indicative of this.
The student forum has been rescheduled for next week, the 21st of October. The pro-abortion lobby at its most prominent can muster nearly two-hundred supporters. Today, we had just under thirty. From previous examples, we estimate that our opposition will probably number around fifty. To this end, every AU, AUT or GSC student available at 1PM next Wednesday at the Auckland campus needs to be there at the student forum to defend our right to affiliate and to express our views. The attempt to stifle our cause is an assault against the rights of the Human person on a number of levels; firstly, our right of free expression of speech; secondly our right to affiliation; and thirdly our right to life.
I can not emphasis enough the precarious and urgent nature of our position on campus; it is only with your support can we hope to succeed. If your not a student of any of the afore-mentioned universities, or you are unable to make it there on the 21st, please forward this email to your friends and families who would support our cause.
Yours sincerely,
Rowan P. Light
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