Roughly 4,000 pink and blue flags criss-crossed the upper quad Tuesday as part of a demonstration by Voice for Life, a campus pro-life organization. The scattering of nylon flags represented the number of abortions performed daily in the United States.
At the demonstration, group members gave out fliers featuring a photo of an eight-week old fetus and information about abortion, including statistics about the African-American population under the moniker "Is Planned Parenthood racist?"
According to the fliers, about 1,452 African-Americans are killed by abortion daily. Also, the pamphlet states that 35 percent of abortions are performed on African Americans, while African Americans constitute only 13 percent of the population. The flier featured a quote by the founder of the birth control movement, Margaret Sanger, in 1939 that read, "We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Voices for Life President Mike Sciscenti said that Tuesday's demonstration was about educating the public rather than protesting or vocal opposition. The club took much of its platform from the Feminists For Life, a pro-life organization centered in Washington, D.C. Sciscenti said that the organization seeks to get to the heart of the abortion debate and to dispel the myth that pro-lifers do not care about women. Feminists For Life and Voice for Life believe abortions not only kill human beings but also harm women. Voices For Life operates under the belief that abortions are signs that society is failing women. They believe that women deserve better emotional and material support so that they do not feel coerced into abortion.
Student reactions on the demonstration varied. Sophomore Stefanie Alzate said, "I think it was a perfect display for pro-life; a silent display of pure numbers through flags is more powerful than a loud protest."
Other students, including many African-American students, were put off by the demonstration or found it factually incorrect. President of the Black Student Union Gerald Rasheed contested the claim that planned parenthood is racist.
"There are a lot of underlying issues which cause a higher incidence for abortion among the African American community that some tend to neglect," Rasheed said. "I don't think that planned parenthood is something that is targeted to the black community, but it is something that the black community happens (due to other factors) to take advantage of at a higher rate."
But Sciscenti said some research indicates that the African American community is targeted as abortion candidates.
"There has been a lot of research done by some people in the African American community, mainly through the Life Education and Resource Network (Learn)," Sciscenti said.
"There is a contingent in the pro-life movement of African Americans who have done research that suggests that perhaps abortion is targeting the African American community in a similar way that the African American community was targeted for racial profiling," he added.
Other students disagreed with Tuesday's demonstration because of personal experience, such as junior Hope Kelaher, who worked as a trained contraceptive counselor for Planned Parenthood. "The fact of the matter is that experience and research and the authorities on contraceptive counseling indicate that those seeking the abortion procedure or the emergency contraceptive pill are more often those who are of middle class non-minority status," she said.
Abortion and contraceptive counselors do not go out and seek people to have abortion," said Kelaher. "They do not advocate that abortion is for everyone; it is an individual choice. From my experience as a contraceptive counselor in Baltimore city, a predominantly African American city, most of the clients were not of minority status.
Sciscenti claims that this was not what Voice for Life was advocating.
"The race issue we brought up because it is an intriguing talking point. While they [Planned Parenthood] may not be actively advertising to the African American community, by placing their clinics predominantly in those areas (according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research wing of Planned Parenthood) they are implicitly targeting minorities for their services," he said. "We feel that the primary issue at hand is to talk about abortion."
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.