Campus pro-life group is 'danger to the student body,' according to editorial board
The CWRU student newspaper criticized a the student government’s decision to recognize and fund the campus pro-life group Case for Life.
The editorial claimed that the student club makes ' the majority of the student body feel unsafe.'
The editorial board of a Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) student newspaper slammed the student government and school administration for an early September decision to recognize the campus pro-life group, which the paper called “a danger to the student body.”
“CWRU does not care about its students. If they actually cared, they would have immediately considered concerns about the student body’s immediate safety and the broader school-community impacts, and they would have easily determined this organization to pose a danger,” The Observer editorial board wrote.
The pro-life group Case for Life seeks to “protect and promote respect for all life from conception to natural death” through education, outreach, and volunteering at local pregnancy centers. They have faced criticism and calls for denying their recognition since last year.
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“It is not just that students have to worry about laws that impose on their bodily autonomy, but they also have to worry about being in an environment that is supposed to be safe but isn’t,” the students’ editorial reads. “Who could care less if someone is pro-forced-birth, but when that someone takes action to enforce that opinion on others—that’s when it becomes dangerous. “
The editorial continues to argue that CRWU’s approval of Case for Life is just another example of the attack on “reproductive rights,” referencing the new Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks.
”We already have to deal with anti-abortion laws dictated by governments that put our lives in danger, but now we have to face the reality of our tuition going to a club that makes the majority of the student body feel unsafe,” the editorial board wrote.
In an email to Campus Reform, CRWU said that it “does not agree” with the editorial board, but also “strongly support[s] the student newspaper’s right to express its perspective.”
”Case Western Reserve’s Division of Student Affairs formally recognized Students for Life last fall because, as the division’s leader wrote then, denying it would violate the university’s policy on freedom of expression,” CWRU explained. “It notes in part ‘..it is not the proper role of the University to exclude or suppress those ideas some may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive.’”
In Spring 2020, Campus Reform reported over 600 CWRU students signed a petition asking for a referendum vote to defund a Students for Life group, claiming that it is “coercive to present morally-founded opinions.”
Campus Reform reached out to The Observer and the CRWU Undergraduate Student Government for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter @katesrichardson.
