Pro-Lifers Under Siege

Pro-life students often find themselves to be a beleaguered lot, and not just on Catholic campuses. Life News.com chronicles their travails.

“According to Tradition Family Property Student Action Director John Ritchie, Notre Dame is offering students ‘summer internship opportunities’ at several notorious pro-abortion organizations,” Steve Ertelt reported on Life News.com on March 20, 2012. “Our majors have interned at the following organizations,” the university’s web site states, These include:

•Center for American Progress
•Emily’s List
•Feminist Majority Foundation
•Human Rights Watch
•Institute for Women’s Policy Research
•National Women’s Law Center
•Think Progress
•United Nations Population Fund

Secular campuses provide even less respect for the pro-life position. “I just wanted to send you out a quick update on the situation at Western Kentucky University (WKU), where just last week, the pro-life student group’s (Hilltoppers for Life) Cemetery of the Innocents display was vandalized by an art student who put condoms on top of the group’s crosses that were there to remember those 3,300 killed each by legal abortion in the United States,” Kristan Hawkins wrote on April 23, 2012. “We were able to alert you right away and your calls and emails have been successful in reaching the school’s administration, alerting them to the fact that this desecration was not freedom of speech and that campus police should not have stood by and let this happen – but protected the student’s display and their crosses.”

“WKU Hilltoppers for Life is an official student organization at Western Kentucky University and sought permission via proper University procedures to utilize the space for their Hilltoppers for Life display,” the school responded. “Free speech – all free speech – is valued by WKU administration. Interference with the expression of free speech is not condoned and is not supported by WKU.”

“A few states north last week, the Dartmouth University pro-life group, Vita Clamantis, was also the victim of the same type of vandalism,” Hawkins wrote in that same dispatch on April 23. “Vita Clamantis set up a display of 546 American flags on campus to represent the 54.6 million abortions since 1973’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions.”

“While their display faced minor attacks all week with flags being knocked over and stolen, as well as some of their signs being defaced, nothing could have prepared them for what happened last Wednesday afternoon when a Toyota Camry drove up onto the curb and then across their display, plowing down a large swath of American flags, before continuing down the street.” Hawkins is the executive director of Students for Life of America.

“Campus Police were summoned and went into action right away, along with Dartmouth’s administration, to make sure the Vita Clamantis group was safe and that the perpetrator would be caught,” Hawkins reported. “There is no news yet on if the driver of the vehicle has been found.” It bears noting that Dartmouth has never been noted for its tolerance of conservative views and yet…

“What is the difference between these two schools?” Hawkins asks, rhetorically. “When Vita Clamantis was faced with vandalism, their campus police stepped in immediately to help.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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