GUEST POST: My first Abortion Is Not Right tour stop was hosted at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and as this was my first Nevada stop, I really didn’t know what to expect — but I would soon find myself confronted by some of the most radical pro-abortion arguments I had ever heard.
We set up our tour display in the corner of the Student Union, and it was initially hard to get people to acknowledge us. Many would pass by silently or refuse our attempts at interaction; eventually, many students did take our topic cards on fetal development, abortion law, human rights, etc. It was relatively quiet for the first hour — but that would change when one student walked in with a sign that said “My Body, My F*cking Choice.”
The pro-abortion student pulled up a chair and sat across from us, holding it up in silence. My group and I asked if she had any questions or would like to talk, but she said no and kept sitting in silence as we continued to engage with others. The Abortion Is Not Right tour exists to facilitate conversations on campus and bring vital resources and education to students.
Several other pro-abortion students soon joined this individual, laughing at the display, and making remarks about sexual assault, and that’s when I saw my opportunity to engage.
I asked them if they had questions about our display, and the girl with the sign immediately asked, “Why is abortion not a solution to sexual assault?” I was grateful for her question and explained that the pain and trauma of sexual abuse can never be fixed by abortion. Instead, abortion only adds more pain to the woman who has already suffered so much and would make the innocent child suffer as well for the act committed not by the baby but by the assaulter.
I went on to point out that many women who have become pregnant from rape and chosen to carry their baby have admitted that the gift of motherhood was a source of healing for them, while women who abort after rape have often said that this only added to their trauma and made them identify no longer as a victim but as guilty for ending the child’s life.
I brought up the true story of a sexual assault survivor who chose life for her son conceived in rape and now goes around the world with him, telling their story in order to help people realize the beauty of life regardless of conception and that abortion is not the answer to healing after assault. I hoped this would help her to see my point of view, but she asked, “Is she white?”
The student discounted this woman’s story simply because she was not a woman of color.
I have heard such positions exist but never with my own ears. I was speechless. To say that someone’s suffering is only credible if they are a certain skin color is so preposterous that I honestly thought this couldn’t to be impossible — but if you can to discount life based on something as arbitrary as their location or size, then what would stop you from discounting someone’s experiences based on something as arbitrary as skin color?
The students said our display was making people feel bad so I should take it down, but in the same breath, as I was so taken back by her question about the woman’s race, she looked at me and said, “I don’t care if I offend you.”
They continued saying that because I had never been sexually abused, I could not speak for victims of abuse, and they also said the same about victims of abuse who were not the right color. Abortion, they also said, was an issue for women of color — since I wasn’t one of those, I could not have an opinion on abortion. When I told them that my grandmother was a 1st generation Tucsonan and a full-blooded Mexican-American, they responded that that’s just my grandmother, and once again, they don’t care if I’m offended.
They so badly wanted to justify their position that they even admitted to me that sex-selective abortion is perfectly fine, and if a woman wants to kill her baby because it’s a girl, that’s her choice. Better to be aborted than to be born a girl and unwanted by society, right? These are the words of the “feminist” movement.
I wish I could say that I changed many hearts through my conversation, but sadly many of them were unwilling to acknowledge what I was saying. I know we planted seeds, however, and changed other hearts. I want them all to know — at the very least — that the pro-life movement works to protect all life and not just the lives of those who are born. And that’s the whole point. If the baby in the womb is not a person worthy of rights, abortion isn’t an issue. But if the baby is (and they are), abortion is never justified.
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