Ultrasound Group Banned?

Wheely

Hey i just heard that that Ultrasound Pro-Life gruop were supposed to be giving a talk on your campus and you guys had them cancelled...I was just wondering what happened there.anybody who knows anything about it???

Karoma

Good old IndyM' : http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72902

rainbow kirby

Thank the good dude they weren't let speak. I can't stand the amount of bull**** people like that spew.

orangerooster

Saw ads about this on campus,looked like pretty hardcore stuff. If what it says on indymedia is true then they probably shouldnt have been allowed in. That said indymedia isnt really the most balanced place to get info.

Edit: I wouldnt agree with anything this groups views on abortion at all but most of what you read on indymedia isnt the best.

Karoma

orangerooster wrote:

..but most of what you read on indymedia isnt the best.

Aye. Edited my original post to include a pinch of salt
There is some basis for what they say though, and the group is pretty hardcore and has an interesting history.

That said, shouldn't academia encourage freedom of speech and association. If people choose to disagree with their beliefs-then so be it..

Red Alert

why exactly weren't they allowed speak, and who had the authority to decide that?

Wheely

I was thinkin the same thing myself.....Indymedia certainly isnt the most unbiased place to get information....Im a student in NUI Galway where this group are scheduled to speak next Thursday... I was tryin to get some information as to how UCD stopped the event going ahead and if the same thing could be done in Galway. While i dont know much about the group I have heard that they're extremely radical and from what I know of Youth Defence they're terrible. I didnt even know they were associated until I read that link...that said I generally dont believe everything i read on Indymedia....

john^doyle

they're an "Anti-woman group" ??

wtf? how does that work?

rainbow kirby

They're one of those militant pro-life 'women have no right to choose what they do with their bodies' groups. Blecch.

ferdi

"While I disapprove of what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Red Alert

i think they should be allowed speak, just as ivana backik is allowed speak on th extreme of the other side. some thinly veiled racist talks are allowed take place in UCD (and racial hatred is thank god illegal in ireland). therefore why is an anti-abortion group prevented from speaking, when being anti-abortion is not unlawful. did the SU prevent the talk or who was responsible for it?

everybody deserves the right to be heard so long as they are not breaking the law. i'm sure it would have been quite a heated debate, but everyone from both sides would have gone away more knowledgable and thoughful. just my 0.02c

Tayto2000

Ultrasound got the boot because they are a commercial operation that booked a theatre in arts as a society under Youth Defence (A now defunct society). Only societies and college organisations can book space for free, outside groups have to pay. All this came to light when they got confronted in Arts by some students about who they were and what they were doing handing out fliers. The booking got cancelled as a result.

zap

as far as I know they tried to book the clinton Auditorium as well but have now been cancelled from that.

Red Alert

so if they were prepared to pay for the WJCA then who decided to cancel them? because if it's the SU i'm going to fúcking scream. i think there'd be a clamour of discontent from the SU if a pro-choice person was barred from speaking.

ferdi

Red Alert wrote:

i think there'd be a clamour of discontent from the SU if a pro-choice person was barred from speaking.

of course there would be, and rightly so. i dont understand why they arnt allowed hold their meeting

ozt9vdujny3srf

Red Alert wrote:

just my 0.02c

0.02 of a cent?

Wow, that means your opinion is valued at a hundredth of everyone eles. Surely not even worth listening to.


On-topicwise: I'd be interested to know who stopepd this event and what tehre reasons are for doing so. Censorship like this is a worrying thing to see, especially in a university. And thats just my €2,000,000,000.

Tayto2000

Got bumped about, but last I heard it was going ahead in the old UIC (Now the WJCA). Has it been cancelled from there?

Syth

Anyone who thinks that a group should be banned because that group advocates a point of view different from there own has no right to talk about freedom of speech.

We are not children. We do not need to be protected from harmful words. We are able to see something for crap without you shielding it from us. You are not our parents. We are not children.

Tayto2000

It's still on in the UIC tonight, it was cancelled from Arts.

Vainglory

Posting in an entirely personal capacity...

The talk in the Clinton Institute was cancelled last week (by the college, not the SU, who would have no power to cancel stuff in there) due to insurance reasons. It was cancelled previously in the Arts block because they weren't a college society and had pretended to be when booking it. Now, apparently, Youth Defence have got around the insurance issue, and although the college claim they don't want the talk going ahead, it might still be on this evening.

I do not want this talk to go ahead, but this does not mean I am against the principle of free speech.

Free speech is not the ultimate right which supercedes all other rights.

I will always support free speech when it does not infringe upon anyone else's rights. UCD students have a right to feel comfortable and safe and unintimidated in their own university, and for people who have had abortions or whose partners have had abortions, the presence of Youth Defence here will do exactly the opposite.

I have seen members of Youth Defence call women murderers who express a pro-choice view and harrass them to the point of them breaking down into tears. Should they be allowed to do that, on the basis of "free speech"? Of course not. Would it be alright for me to fire a load of racial slurs at someone and defend it by saying I was only exercising my right to free speech? No way. There are limits to free speech and those limits are when you infringe on the rights of others to peaceful enjoyment of their own lives.

A friend of mine in UCD who has had an abortion was too upset to come into college after seeing those provocative posters. This university has a Dignity and Respect policy and the Youth Defence posters contravenes that.

It is not because Youth Defence are pro-life that I do not want them on campus or giving a talk. It is because of the violent nature of their organisation and how they intimidate and harrass women. I have many friends who are pro-life and I often debate the issue with them ; they of course have a perfect right to that view. But YD are a different story altogether, they are dangerous and should be stopped.

...posting in a purely personal capacity..

rainbow kirby

Well said Vainglory.

AngelofFire

These youth defence people are facists, When i was a kid i went on a pro divorce march with my family just before the referendum, they came up and started attacking people with hurling sticks, one of them pushed me over on the ground. i was traumatised for a long time afterwards. During the summer i was at a meeting of the IFPA and they came and started pushing people around and shouting abuse.

These people are Scum and they must be Smashed.

daRobot

These right wing cvnts have no place being on campus.

Debate is fine, intimidation is not.

John_C

daRobot wrote:

Debate is fine, intimidation is not.

I agree they should be allowed to hold the debate and if anyone is attacked or intimidated services should interviene.

The posters were in poor taste (and not put up be a club or society) so should not have been allowed.

Red Alert

nobody is forcing you to go if you do not like the content of the talk. if college did not cancel the talk would you use your position to advocate doing so? i hope you wouldn't, as it prevents anybody making their own informed choice on the matter.

ferdi

ok, sorry to rabbit on about freedom of speech but i seriously believe that not allowing this group to speak is seriously damaging - not to the group but to the university.

i do not believe that stopping this talk/meeting is the answer. if you do not agree with what they stand for, it is your duty as a free thinking human being in a democracy to go to that meeting and argue your position. Banning the confrence is an act worthy of the the government of the peoples republic of china and will ultimatly be looked back on as an act of cowardice and single minded oppression.

Syth

The world in general is not a nice warm fuzzy place. You do not have the right to that. If you can't deal with that, that's your problem. Grow up. You should not ban my free speech just because you are oversensitive.

Vainglory wrote:

Would it be alright for me to fire a load of racial slurs at someone and defend it by saying I was only exercising my right to free speech?

Should the government (in this context college) punish you for doing it? No. If you do it to someone (say calling a group of black men ****) and the assalt you, should they be charged? Almost certainly not.

You should not be banned from saying what you want, but you must accept the consequesces of that. You are not a child, grow up.

Vainglory wrote:

There are limits to free speech and those limits are when you infringe on the rights of others to peaceful enjoyment of their own lives.

I disagree. There are 6 billion different definition of 'peaceful enjoyment of their own life', to ban everything that contravens that would be impossible.

daRobot wrote:

These right wing cvnts have no place being on campus.

I agree. We should not put up with people who want to ban everything they disagree with.

LovelyHurling

The world in general is not a nice warm fuzzy place. You do not have the right to that. If you can't deal with that, that's your problem. Grow up. You should not ban my free speech just because you are oversensitive.

Chillax lads, look at it this way. There are certain debatable arguments that are worthy of public meetings, there are others that are not even worthy of a Sinn fein constituency office (yowza that one was personal!) My point (essentially just a vile regurgitation of Vainglory's point) is that freedom of speech is fine, but freedom to talk complete and utter bull****, while fine in itself, should not be facilitated by a bunch of educators and the educated.

The line that is to be drawn between valid debate and bull**** debate cannot be measured by any very expensive calipers borrowed from the physics department, but quite simply with common sense.

Common sense says no.

I'm not oversensitive to any debatable issue. But the thought of this particular group being given the opportunity to speak in UCD does rile me. Bring a valid pro life vs pro choice debate to the table and 'twill all be rosy.

Red Alert

but it seems anything pro-life is disparaged by the SU whereas people advocating near-full-term abortion on demand have no problem getting airtime from those who matter?

parsi

Vainglory wrote:

Posting in an entirely personal capacity...



Free speech is not the ultimate right which supercedes all other rights.

I will always support free speech when it does not infringe upon anyone else's rights. UCD students have a right to feel comfortable and safe and unintimidated in their own university, and for people who have had abortions or whose partners have had abortions, the presence of Youth Defence here will do exactly the opposite.

I have seen members of Youth Defence call women murderers who express a pro-choice view and harrass them to the point of them breaking down into tears. Should they be allowed to do that, on the basis of "free speech"? Of course not. Would it be alright for me to fire a load of racial slurs at someone and defend it by saying I was only exercising my right to free speech? No way. There are limits to free speech and those limits are when you infringe on the rights of others to peaceful enjoyment of their own lives.

So I take it from this that if there was a meeting called which was designed to tarnish all members of the clergy with the same brush you would call for its cancellation ?

I wonder how people get the view that students are radical. From what I've ever seen students are only radical and accepting of free speech and discussion if its one of their accepted subjects or people. In my days we voted to disassociate from USI (rightly so) but during the debates God help you if you were pro-USI.

Ivana Bacik broke the law back in the days of SPUC. But yet it was the SPUC people who were demonised and who were made feel uncomfortable and who were upset by people demanding a right which they deeply believed was wrong. But hey, its sort-of anti-establishment so all the students rowed in behind. Youth Defence took the radically opposite step and were reviled.

Even now you see the silly disputes about banning Coke and Nestle and Caterpillar and you think "how come no-one is proposing a ban on Chinese goods?". Maybe its because the Yankee devils who allow argument are viewed as worse than the Chinese devils who shoot you for arguing...

Vainglory

Red Alert wrote:

but it seems anything pro-life is disparaged by the SU whereas people advocating near-full-term abortion on demand have no problem getting airtime from those who matter?

The SU has a clearly defined non-directional policy on abortion and I did state that I was posting in a personal capacity.

For the record, the talk did not go ahead.