Pro-Life Collegians, a UT student organization, has invited The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform to set up anti-abortion displays on Pedestrian Walkway today until 4 p.m. and again tomorrow. UT administrators permitted the national pro-life organization’s visit.
“We’re out here to show (students) the truth about what abortion is and what it does,” said Fletcher Armstrong, Director for the southeast branch of Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. “A lot of people think abortion just makes you ‘not pregnant,’ but in reality, it destroys a living human being, and these pictures make that clear.”
Several students arrived as early as 10 a.m. to protest the display, many skipping their classes to do so.
Andrew Wynn, junior in plant science, said it angered him to see the large display on campus and triggered harmful memories from his past.
“I myself am a childhood abuse victim. To come here with PTSD and see bloody pictures on my campus infuriates me,” Wynn said. “It is not acceptable in a learning environment for a public university to have a private group that’s funded to come in here and traumatize students.”
Tia Freeman, a freshman in interdisciplinary programs, agreed with Wynn, and said the display was a distraction for students trying to walk to class.
“I feel like this is unacceptable to be on a university campus because this is harassment,” Freeman said. “ It’s a distraction from my learning experience.”
Student protesters argue the definition of "genocide" with an anti-abortion supporter.
Armstrong, however, argued that the display’s primary intention is to educate students.
“People are telling lies to students, to potential customers if you will, saying it’s not a baby, it’s just tissue,” he said. “The first thing people get (with the display) is a brief education about what abortion really is, what it looks like.”
Many student protesters claimed the group’s arguments were largely illogical and inaccurate.
An anti-abortion exhibit was constructed early Wednesday morning on Pedestrian Walkway.
“No matter what your stance is on this message, it’s the way they’re bringing it across,” said Tori Gilooly, a freshman on the exploratory track. “This an illogical argument. This is sensationalism. They’re using non sequitur reasoning.
“Their reasoning is just propaganda.”
Gilooly cited the display’s connection from abortion to Nazi principles on the disposal of unborn fetuses as a part of this “propaganda.”
“People sometimes say, ‘You’re comparing women to Nazis,’ but we’re not,” Armstrong countered. “They’re comparable in the sense that in both cases, victims are being dehumanized. (Babies) are being treated as less than human.”
Armstrong said he agreed with the common slogan that he claimed many abortion clinics use— every child should be a wanted child— but he offered a different perspective.
“We want that too, but their way of getting to that point is to kill the unwanted ones,” Armstrong said. “We don’t think that’s right.
Students made signs from cardboard to protest the anti-abortion exhibit on Pedestrian Walkway.
“Whether it’s unwanted children, overpopulation, no matter what it is, we should not use violence to solve that problem.”
Look for an updated story in tomorrow’s Daily Beacon.
