Spring Break
Students protest anti-abortion exhibit
Johnny Hart
Issue date: 10/1/08 Section: News
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Justice For All, the organization presenting the exhibit, allowed the students to remain in the exhibit area, where the organization has been permitted to display since Monday, under the condition that there would be a dialogue between Director David Lee and the students.
Tammy Cook, director of field operations for J.F.A., said, "We're excited when students show passion about an issue that is vital to our country. Fruitful dialogue is a necessary catalyst to further the rights and protect unborn children."
Student protestors agreed.
"If we get a crowd of people to wake up at seven in the morning to make a statement says more than other ways," junior sociology major Sam Bowersox-Daly said. "It sends a better message than vandalism and senseless verbage."
Bowersox-Daly and junior political science major Melisa Panagakos brainstormed the idea of the protest, but did not want to take credit as the protest's leaders.
The protest remained peaceful, as was planned by Bowersox-Daly and Panagakos.
The students passed out a letter stating the intentions of the protest and signed it from "Concerned Colorado State University Students".
"Those who gathered today feel that [J.P.A.'s] display is intrusive, insensitive, overwhelming and therefore inappropriate on a college campus," the letter said. It went on to read, "The pure magnitude of [J.P.A.'s] display keeps the voices of students who oppose the display from being heard."
Panagakos said the display is inappropriate and offensive and that it is so prominent that you avoid it.
Cook justified the display, saying that its graphic nature fits the action it portrays.
"It does not match the official definition of obscene, but we do agree that [the images] are disturbing," said Cook. "Most forms of injustice are very rarely visually appealing."
Students were pleased with the dialogue resulting from the protest.
"We were looking to find a way to get those voices heard," Panagakos said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 9 of 11
Steve
posted 10/01/08 @ 2:12 PM MST
so much for the First Amendment.....we support it as long as we agree with the speech??? Come On.
steve
Steve
posted 10/01/08 @ 2:15 PM MST
So much for the First Amendment.....we support it as long as we agree with the speech??? Come on.
Claire Schumacher
posted 10/01/08 @ 3:28 PM MST
I am extremely happy to see this story. I had the (dis)pleasure of a brief discussion with one of the anti-abortion activists yesterday afternoon. I would like nothing more than for them to stay off our campus. (Continued…)
David
posted 10/01/08 @ 6:51 PM MST
I have no problem with this display being in the campus. I wish some pro-choice group would be as proactive. I do, however, have a problem with the general argument being made by this group. (Continued…)
laura
posted 10/02/08 @ 8:00 AM MST
I feel so much better that students have finally organized around this issue. This group that calls themselves Justice For All has taken on abortion as only one issue of justice in our society. (Continued…)
Peace Love
posted 10/02/08 @ 3:45 PM MST
Kind of weird that all the people protesting the pictures are alive and well.
But all the people in the pictures are dead and butchered with the full support of the protestors. (Continued…)
Miki
posted 10/03/08 @ 1:01 AM MST
When a woman has had an abortion, she is extremely offended by a display like this, because the violent images scream "THIS is what you have done." Men who have insisted on an abortion for their woman tend to feel the same way. (Continued…)
Star
posted 10/03/08 @ 7:41 AM MST
I think the scare tactics of the anti-choice movement (they are not "pro-life" so I refuse to call them that) are truly ridiculous. A lot of those pictures are stillborn babies, not aborted fetuses. (Continued…)
Bob
posted 10/06/08 @ 11:41 PM MST
Amen Peace Love, well said.
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