Another term, another clash between the CUSU Women’s Campaign and Cambridge Students for Life, and it is the talk of the town. While the events of Tuesday and Wednesday have already been extensively covered, I felt Hesham Mashhour’s recent article in this newspaper warranted a reply.

I am not a committee member of Cambridge Students for Life. I am a Catholic Christian and, since there is evidently some confusion about these categories, I’d also like to mention that I do not support the BNP. I do not claim to be an impartial observer (none of us is), but I believe that CSFL was wrongly treated in Kelsey Kerridge and in Mr Mashhour’s article. I’m not here to take a side in the abortion debate, but to encourage you to do so: to examine the claims of both sides with regard to Tuesday and Wednesday to demand a better standard of representation and fairness. These issues are important, and there is too much at stake to deal with them childishly.

This latest article is below Mr Mashhour’s usual standard. It is difficult to find evidence of serious research into CSFL beyond his admitted “quick glance at [their] Facebook page”: he doesn’t quote any of recent or past statements released by CSFL, instead opting for entire paragraphs of speculation. He asserts that CSFL are wrong without engaging with any of their arguments, instead citing (assumed) non-rational religious premises: “Without the religious zeal, then, one finds the arguments against abortion and women’s rights far less compelling. What motivates CSFL is religion – to deny this would be a fallacy.”

There is a great deal of confusion in the writing of this article. He makes false equations: that CSFL = Catholics, and, what’s worse, that Catholics discriminate, and so does the BNP, thus Catholics/CSFL are the BNP. There are also many unnecessary ad hominem attacks: CSFL “discriminates against women”, “strips people of their rights”, “works to shame those who disagree with them”; is “hardline”, “patronizing” and “presents a serious danger to the welfare of some students in this university”. Even worse, he publicly outs the private religious beliefs of members of CSFL’s committee, conduct unbecoming of a LGBT+ welfare officer.

I have long admired the Women’s Campaign, especially their autonomous campaign for wage equality and last year’s superb survey on sexual violence, conducted with Varsity. But I was disappointed by their conduct over the last few days. The impression that I got was that they were simply using any means they could to remove CSFL from the Freshers’ Fair and, in so doing, have alienated many of their supporters who agree with their views but not their methods, as online comments from an article on The Tab testify: “I really wish the CUSU Women's Campaign would realise their belligerence can sometimes risk completely undermining what is otherwise a just and worthy cause (i.e. equal rights for women).” Throughout Tuesday afternoon, I watched from a nearby stall on which I was volunteering as women from the Campaign’s stall stood in front of the CSFL table, turning people away, although they later began a more positive ‘pro-choice selfie’ idea, which students at the Fair appreciated. The trigger warnings posted around Kelsey Kerridge were immature:  this isn’t Tumblr, and women don’t need protecting from a societies’ fair. Accusations of homophobia should be taken extremely seriously and I hope the alleged incident is investigated, but no specific facts have yet been mentioned by the Women’s Campaign: only the accusation itself, which has appeared in all of their statements on the Fair since Tuesday afternoon.

Since both CSFL and the Women’s Campaign use the language of power and oppression when describing their clash at the Freshers’ Fair, perhaps it’s worth looking at the respective societies to see if there is a visible power imbalance. In terms of funding, the Women’s Campaign is led by a salaried sabbatical officer and receives funding from the University; Cambridge Students for Life has no external funding, raising the money needed to book venues for debates (its sole expenditure) by running bake sales. The Women’s Campaign represents, by definition, every self-defining female student in the University, and is led on a collegiate level by JCR Women’s Officers and its own committee; CSFL is a new society, founded last year, with a small membership and small (mostly-female, incidentally) committee. I think that the position and power of Women’s Campaign is justifiable and proportional to its role in representing the women of a major world university, but it’s clear that in the areas of funding, power within the University, and influence on students, the Campaign is much more powerful than CSFL and, as we have seen, able to stifle debate in many ways.

This is a sad state of affairs: a Women’s Campaign that alienates those it is supposed to represent, and a stifling of free debate in our University. Abortion is a difficult ethical issue – ask a medic – and we as students need to know what we believe about it and why. We don’t want to be spoon-fed by either CSFL or the Women’s Campaign, and we need to call for both sides to follow certain principles in debate or, if debate is indeed “a conversation of power”, as protesters put it this May, we need an alternative means of public discussion that does justice to the issues. “It just isn’t OK” won’t cut it.