On Tuesday September 10, the Women’s Collective organised a snap rally, Bigots off Campus, Reproductive Justice Now!, in response to the two-time presence of abortion abolitionist protestors on campus last week. A crowd of around thirty people collated at the City Road end of Eastern Avenue, with pro-abortion and feminist signs and banners.
The abolitionist position is that abortion procedures should be completely banned under all circumstances. Abolitionists advocate for the criminalisation of abortion, believing that people who have abortions and those that perform the procedure should receive legal punishment, such as imprisonment and even the death penalty.
The group of protestors on USYD campus appears to be affiliated with the Oklahoma-based group Abolitionists Rising, as they were holding signs from the group and displayed similar tactics of standing in popular walkways and waiting for passersby to engage in conversations initiated by their intentionally controversial messaging, however this is unconfirmed.
Women’s Officers leading the protest on Eastern Avenue.
SRC Women’s Officers Rand Khatib and Eliza Crossley headed the rally. The current inaccessibility of abortions in Australia was addressed, with only two public hospitals in NSW currently providing surgical abortions and only 10% of General Practitioners (GPs) being trained to provide instructions for over-the-phone abortions.
There were many other speakers, including Sophie Cotton as a representative from the NTEU, USYD students Freya Maddy Barry, SRC Education Officer Grace Street, SRC Queer Officer Jamie Bridge, and SRC Welfare Officer Jasmine Al-Rawi. All spoke to the need for safe and accessible abortions for women and people who can fall pregnant in Australia. There were also mentions of solidarity to women internationally, particularly in reference to the overturning of legal precedent Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the subsequent rolling back of reproductive rights in many US states.
The demands of the rally were for safe, free, and accessible abortion, the separation of church and state, an end to religious lobbying power, and an end to sexual violence on campus and the abolition of the colleges.
The Campus Access Policy (CAP) was mentioned several times, with speakers denouncing it and rejecting the notion that the policy was helpful in removing the abolitionists from campus. Instead it was clarified that the desire was for abolitionists and other far-right groups promoting the restriction of rights to not come to campus because they feel so unwelcome by the student body, rather than a “draconian” anti-free speech policy imposed by university management removing them.
SRC Education Officer Grace Street noted that the campus security and eventual police presence did little to restrict the protestors anyway prior to their removal.
At least four campus security officers surrounded the rally for its duration, and were observed to be speaking to many different individuals throughout. It is unclear whether these people were complaining about the rally. Police officers were also present on Eastern Avenue, most likely in response not only to the Women’s Collective’s rally but for the multitude of other stalls.
The rally ended with a promise that the Women’s Collective will continue to counter protest the abortion abolitionists everytime they show up on campus.
