Pro-choice university activists protest Day of the Unborn Child

Fabian Robertson and Jayfel Tulabing report.

Women’s Collectives from USyd, UTS and Macquarie University united in protest against the Catholic pro-life tradition, Day of the Unborn Child, outside St Mary’s Cathedral today. USyd Women’s Collective organised the event as a counter-protest to a procession planned by the Life and Family Institute, which did not proceed due to the rain.

Day of the Unborn Child is a yearly Catholic tradition created by Pope John Paul II to commemorate aborted fetuses and further the pro-life movement. In their Facebook event, Life and Institute encouraged attendees to show that “every human life is worth protecting. That every human life is sacred. That abortion is evil!”  

WoCo’s pro-choice protest faced off with a small pro-life congregation standing outside the Cathedral, with two lines of police officers and College Street between them. The pro-choice contingent of an estimated 40 participants chanted from their position in Hyde Park.

“Get your rosary off our ovaries,” “fuck the church, fuck the state, we will decide our fate,” they chanted.

USyd Women’s Officer Amelia Mertha framed abortion as an issue of “bodily autonomy” and demanded that “men, the church and the state keep their fucking hands off our bodies.”

Although abortions are legal in NSW, Mertha emphasised the need for “reproductive justice.”

“Reproductive justice is access to safe abortion, access to safe births and the ability to conceive. Reproductive justice is gender-affirming surgery, adoption, access to contraceptives and holistic consent and sex education,” she said.

UTS Education Officer Ellie Woodward said she sees it as their “ancient duty as midwives to fight … for the right of all women to decide if and when they will bring forth life.”

USyd Interfaith Officer Jayfel Tulabing spoke of reconciling the conflict between her Anglican faith and pro-choice beliefs.  

“This isn’t an issue of morality, spirituality or faith. An abortion is a choice a woman makes. Women have the unwavering moral right to decide what they do with their own bodies,” she said.

Tulabing also referenced regressive abortion laws around the world.

“Because of the criminalisation of abortion in different countries around the world, over 21 million women are forced to seek unsafe abortions,” she said.

First Nations activist Erin O’Leary was a member of the Catholic Church for 13 years.

“This is hate, this is just plain hate…I don’t know why we put a book written 2000 years ago over the life of a woman,” she said.

“I am tired of being told what I can do with my body,” she said.

USyd student Eve Madden directed her speech towards the cathedral.

“On that side of the road, I can see three women and the rest are all men… Clearly, women are telling you this is what they want. And men, who will never have to give birth, who will never have to carry a child, and, if they want to who can step away and don’t have to be a father, they are telling us that ‘you have to be a mother’,” she said.

“Well, I say no,” she said.

The pro-life contingent remained silent for the duration of the protest with the exception of one woman, who held a placard and occasionally yelled inaudibly.  

USYD Catholic Society and USYD LifeChoice were also in attendance at the mass inside St Mary’s Cathedral.