Mr Alex Redpath has announced his resignation as Deputy of Northern Ireland’s national students’ movement (NUS/USI) because of the organisation’s decision to reaffirm its pro-abortion policy. Mr Redpath made his resignation on BBC Radio Ulster's religious affairs programme, Sunday Sequence.
Mr Redpath, who is also Co-President of the Pro Life Society at Belfast’s Queen’s University, said he was quitting the key students’ movement post “as a matter of conscience”.
He emphasised: “As a member of the movement’s National Executive, I am duty bound to implement the union’s policies. This particular policy on reaffirming the union’s position in supporting the heinous tragedy of abortion is one which I cannot in all conscience support.
“I was elected Deputy President on a wave of pro-life support after changing Queen’s University’s policy on abortion to one of neutrality. I agreed to serve as Deputy President on the condition that I would not be expected to promote abortion, and in expectation of a change in NUS/USI’s policy.
“However, our disappointing defeat at the union’s national conference has put me in an impossible position. We could have won, we should have won, but because of the absence of certain students’ unions, we did not.
“Perhaps my resignation will remind several campuses of their own policies regarding abortion and may make them attend at the next national conference to vote for an end to this divisive and ineffective policy.
“There is no point in a national students’ union having an abortion policy. All this achieves is to divide students when we should be uniting against a powerful anti-student lobby whose sole objective is the marketisation of education, such as increasing fees.
“This pro-abortion policy is nothing more than self-indulgence by the extreme left who have for too long held the whip hand in the students’ movement,” said Mr Redpath.