Tensions were high between a Pro-life demonstration and an impromptu Pro-choice counter-demonstration in Prexy’s Pasture earlier this week.
Jackson Fouras, a freshman and the organizer of the counter-demonstration said, “I was walking to my Calc 3 Lecture and I saw them just starting to set up and I was like, ‘I’m not gonna let this go unanswered.’”
The members of the counter-demonstration accused the Pro-life demonstration of fostering and spreading hate.
Madison Corbett, a senior, said “someone in their group told me to abort myself.”
“If you’re supposedly fostering this peaceful Pro-life environment like they claim they’re doing but then telling someone to abort themselves, are you actually Pro-life, or are you just fostering hate on a campus that has seen enough hate in the past 25 years?” Fouras said.
The Pro-life demonstration denied Corbett’s claim and had a video of only one of their interactions with Corbett. The video showed Corbett taking several crosses from the ground and walking away while someone asks for them back and then the video ends.
“I passed by twice,” Corbett said. “The first time I picked up a few crosses in protest and then immediately gave them back. And then I walked away. I went to an appointment, and when I came back a guy yelled after me, ‘abort yourself.’”
Corbett went to the Dean of Students Office and told them about the interaction she had and the Office said they would inform the police.
A police officer did show up but declined to comment as to why he was there.
“The police officer only asked to see our permits, which I have,” Gabe Saint, president of UW’s Turning Point USA Chapter, said. “This kind of stuff happens when you got conservative groups actually doing stuff on campus. The other side didn’t like that very much and that is why they called the police, to get us out of here.”
The Pro-life demonstration was never shut down and never asked to leave. Corbett and the other Pro-choice demonstrators wanted to see more action from the police officer.
“I wanted their demonstration shut down. I think it’s predatory for them to be on campus,” Corbett said.
The Pro-life demonstration was a collaboration between the University’s Turning Point USA Chapter and Students for Life of America, the nation’s largest youth-focused, pro-life nonprofit.
The demonstration was an opportunity for Students for Life of America to share their Pro-life beliefs with the UW community and to collect signups from students on campus so that they can start a Chapter at the school.
“These are our crosses,” said Lori Cacio, a member of Students for Life of America. “There are 1666 of them to represent how many lives are aborted each day even after Roe v Wade was overturned.”
The Pro-life demonstrators obtained that number from their own calculations using data they found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.
“We performed the calculations ourselves with the CDC’s numbers and the numbers that states gave the CDC,” said Cacio.
However, upon further investigation, BI could not find the same information.
Abortion is an emotional and controversial issue across America and the debate about its legality and morality touches everyone, including students at UW.
“I am only alive because my mother got an abortion. The miscarriage she had before me would have killed her” Rye Belo, a UW student said. “Abortion itself is life-saving health care and it’s really nobody’s business what a woman does with her body.”
