During the third and fourth week of October Joseph Meaney, of Human Life International, was speaking at universities around the UK. Our second stop on the tour took us to the pro-life society at the university of Bristol. The society is now in it's third year. Eve Farren and Annie Howard founded the society after attending an annual SPUC youth conference. Annie and Eve were the first and second presidents. The society committee, with Phil as the current president, has organised lots of talks, campaigned against a pro-abortion motion at their student union, joined in with various public acts of pro-life witness, joined the SPUC internship over the summer, and been out in full force at the SPUC international youth conference year after year. Joseph and I had a bit of a delay at Paddington but were on our way and arrived in good time to join the students for a very nice dinner of homemade chicken and leek pie courtesy of Jenny, who is also on the pro-life society committee.
The talk was preceded by a brief overview of the abortion problem in Bristol (abortion statistics, where abortions are being done in local centres and hospitals, the need to raise public awareness about the problem and the help available etc), and students were urged to be the active pro-life presence not only at the university but also in the city of Bristol itself.
Below are the photos from the evening (we changed venue halfway through). As ever, the students had some interesting questions to ask - use of graphic images, the ideology behind abortion, and student activism to name a few. Each student received a pro-life pack and the newsletter to put pro-life campaigning into action. They have lots more events planned for the year and we look forward to helping the society to grow.
Group photo at the end, then we made a swift departure to catch our return train.
Next stop: Plymouth.
