As passers-by walked through Howard Park on Thursday, they were greeted by a pro-life rally with pictures of unborn babies.
Images of aborted fetuses, on posters as well as a truck, were brought to Ohio University by Created Equal, a pro-life, anti-abortion group that visits college campuses to spread their message. The group campaigned in Howard Park, Thursday afternoon.
Seth Drayer, director of training for Created Equal, said the group brings the pictures to illustrate abortion, as well as start a public dialogue about the issue.
“If they find it shocking, it is because abortion is shocking,” Drayer said. “When you dismember, decapitate and disembowel humans, there is no way to put a pretty bow on that.”
Some students organized over Facebook to provide the pro-choice side of the debate. One protestor was Sarah Stevens, a second year graduate student studying film studies. Stevens said she had been at a similar protest held by Created Equal last year, and that she feels the graphic images harm the pro-life argument.
“The fact (is) it is meant to strike fear into hearts of people,” Stevens said. “As a political strategy, it is terrorizing, it is shaming and it seems to lack the ethic of caring that they seem to want to have … I think they have good hearts, I think they’re just horribly misguided.”
Others did not want to participate in either protest, because of the graphic nature of the images.
“I don’t like scare tactics,” said Rachel Anderson, a freshman studying environmental and plant biology. “The pictures made me lose my appetite.”
Anderson went on to say that if she saw that the group would come to campus without using the bloody pictures that she would be curious as to what Created Equal had to say.
“The dialogue … is settling the facts with objective visual evidence, not just my word against yours,” Drayer said. “It is visual objective fact … so we’re trying to bring that piece of visual evidence and scientific fact to the dialogue.”
While Created Equal said the group’s use of pictures was an objective fact, Jeffrey Koch, a sophomore studying creative writing, said the argument was flawed.
“When I got there, I saw how vulgar the signs were … That is not the thing you should do (to argue), either morally or functionally.”
Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life:
50 percent of Americans are pro-life
41 percent are pro-choice— a record low for the “pro-choice” group.
52 percent believe they should be available in some cases
Via: Gallup Poll
Total reported abortions in the United States from 2004-2009
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2009
2004 – 839,226
2005 – 820,151
2006 – 852,385 (includes numbers from Louisiana)
2007 – 827,609
2008 – 825,564
2009 – 784,507
2004-2008 – 45 reporting areas
2009 – 48 reporting areas
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