Welcome to The Harvard College Anscombe Society! We are a student organization at Harvard College that strives to present another option to our peers regarding sex-related issues, endorsing premarital abstinence and sexual integrity, and upholding the institution of marriage and the family.
Who’s Elizabeth Anscombe?
We’re named after Elizabeth Anscombe, a Cambridge professor and celebrated British philosopher of the 20th century. In her work, Anscombe defended many principles shared by our organization, including chastity and the importance of marriage and the family. Inspired by her intellectually rigorous support for the group’s beliefs and by her witness to those values as a wife and mother, our group has renamed itself in her honor. The Anscombe Society joins other societies at universities including Princeton, Providence College, University of Texas, University of Pittsburgh, and Stanford in honoring Anscombe’s legacy. Our name highlights the philosophical foundation and intellectual mission of our group.
Her complete works can be found online at:
http://www.unav.es/filosofia/jmtorralba/anscombe_bibliography.htm
What’s the Anscombe Society?
The Anscombe Society stimulates campus and national discourse on the traditional perspective of marriage, abstinence, community, personhood, and other modern cultural issues. Through philosophical and sociological reasoning, the Anscombe Society advocates for a conscientious view of sexuality that strengthens American marriages, fortifies civil society, and contests the merits of a hyper-sexualized culture.
We believe that casual, liberationist sentiments toward sex, sexuality, and relationships are detrimental to the health and well-being of our fellow students. Out of concern for our campus community and in order to balance and enrich campus conversation on these matters, we are committed to engaging these topics through a variety of activities, such as campus lectures, debates, articles, and discussion. We strive for civility and intellectual honesty in our discussion of these topics, and we welcome all those interested in our activities irrespective of opinion or creed. The Harvard College Anscombe Society respects the dignity of all persons, irrespective of sexual orientation, and denounces all attempts to use dialogue and debate to promote demeaning and derogatory attitudes toward members of the LGBT community. Such speech does not reflect the attitudes or values of the Harvard Anscombe Society and its members, nor does it reflect the tone or character of the arguments which we seek to present.
The Anscombe Society’s main efforts focus on outreach to the Harvard University community. We are not a political organization, and we seek, through publicity and campus events, to promote respectful and open-minded discussion of issues relating to abstinence, sex, and marriage. We aim to cooperate with other student and campus organizations to discuss the benefits of abstinence, the merits of sexual integrity, and the role of marriage and family in today’s society.
Learn more:
Executive Board:
Joey Barisas, Class of 2021
Portia Berry-Kilby, Class of 2020
Dody Eid, Class of 2020
The Harvard College Anscombe Society 