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Students gathered yesterday in the Dustbowl to represent both sides of one of American society's most contentious and divisive issues: the right for a pregnant woman to choose to have an abortion. The issue was not as significant in this year's presidential election as it has been in the past, which Rachel Lamorte, Women's Health Initiative (WHI) member and A&S '10, said she attributes to the importance of the economy's dominance in the minds of voters. Since the election, however, some Catholic officials have spoken out strongly against President-elect Barack Obama's stance on abortion rights, including some more extreme examples who have suggested that Catholics who voted for him should refrain from receiving the Eucharist.
Andrew Kaplun, WHI president and A&S '09, said that his group was there to represent a difference of opinion and to demonstrate that there is no singular viewpoint on campus. "We just want to make sure that people don't think that the voice of the University is monolithic on reproductive issues," he said. "We just want people to know who we are."
Kaplun and others who are involved in the WHI situated themselves at the top of the pathway leading down into the Dustbowl with signs and literature. All those present said education about the issue is crucial to being able to make an intelligent personal decision. Mari Knuth, a WHI supporter and LSOE '09, said, "How better to educate people than to give them information on both sides and let them make up their own minds? There needs to be a dialogue."
Lamorte said, "The entire idea of choice is that people think about these issues."
Abortion rights is an issue that typically raises strong emotions in members of the Catholic community, and Kaplun said that this has sometimes been detrimental to dialogue about the issue.
"I think that it's been more difficult in the past," Lamorte said.
The WHI members said they had few negative responses to their presence, barring one man who stopped to engage the students in a critical manner. "People have been extremely supportive," Kaplun said.
The abortion rights demonstration, the group's third such gathering on campus, was timed to provide a perspective different from that of those who support an anti-abortion stance. Just a short walk away from the WHI representatives stood members of the Boston College Pro-Life Club, who designated this week as Pro-Life Week and held a number of events to convey their message.
"Today we're focusing on the women and children that are affected by abortion," said Meghan Crosby, a Pro-Life Club member and A&S '12. "We're giving out fact sheets." Crosby said that people were, except for the occasional curt reply, receptive to their message.
Phil Micele, a Pro-Life club member and A&S '11, said he was worried about the lack of concern some students have for the issue. "On college campuses, I think it's a problem that is very widespread," he said. Micele said that it seems many people are polarized on the issue of abortion rights.
Anti-abortion supporters, in addition to distributing literature, constructed rows of small, white crosses intended to represent the persons affected by abortion. Next to the neat rows of crosses hangs a banner explaining that each one represented 10 women and children affected by abortion in a single day.
"I think if people were aware of the pain that abortion causes both to the women as well as the children, they would feel differently about abortion," said Ian Fitzmorris, Pro-Life Club supporter and A&S '12. He said that many students seemed interested in their perspective on the issue. "We ran out of them [the literature] much faster than we expected," he said.
The WHI representatives for the most part did not share the view that the majority of people are polarized on the issue of abortion rights and said that while some people have strong sentiments about the subject, that it is dialogue and education about the topic that will lead to solutions. "We want a collegial environment where there's not conflicts; there's just discussions and dialogue," Kaplun said. "It would reflect well on BC to allow that debate to happen because it would show a lot of trust in their students."
Kaplun said that today's activities marked the first official encounter between the two groups on campus this year.
He said that relations between the groups are friendly, and while they differ fundamentally on the issue of the right of a pregnant woman to choose to have an abortion, he said that the groups were still able to get along enough to offer each other a friendly beverage on the bitterly cold day.
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