GUEST POST: I recently visited Onondaga Community College (OCC) in Syracuse, New York with Students for Life of America’s (SFLA) Defund Planned Parenthood Cemetery of the Innocents campus display. We brought a display consisting of 1,025 pink staked crosses to represent the lives lost to Planned Parenthood nationwide every single day, and I also brought preborn baby models to showcase the humanity of life in womb in its various stages. Together with two OCC students, we were looking forward to making a positive, pro-life mark on campus.
I had no idea that I would scramble to leave campus later that day with damaged and missing property — some of which (although plastic) was actually eaten — in a police car for my own safety.
I had come to survey the campus with a simple question: “Should America fund Planned Parenthood?” Yet while this was meant to merely prompt peaceful and thoughtful discussions on campus, I learned once again that the abortion lobby is never up for that. Yelling and violence, however? Always — and it began just thirty short minutes into my day.
Soon after setting up my display, an angry student approached, yelling profanities at me, kicking my display, and threatening to get me thrown off campus. Campus police were called to the SFLA display, but when they realized what was going on (perfectly legal activity within my First Amendment rights), they dismissed the pro-abortion student and walked away after a few minutes of monitoring.
Everything went downhill from there.
Soon after the police presence was gone, an angry mob began swarming around the display, verbally attacking me and attempting to intimidate me.
Voices from the mob were screaming that I “wasn’t providing resources to help women” except that’s exactly what I was doing. As a pro-lifer genuinely concerned for women, I had a Sexual Assault Hotline resource, local pregnancy center resources, and information about SFLA’s Standing With You supportive services initiative to hand out. They were just mad I wasn’t handing out condoms.
And how did they express that? My materials to educate and uplift women were torn up in front of me.
The pro-abortion mob started their own survey next, prompting their peers with the question: “Abortion is Healthcare? Yes or No?” They also began playing the national anthem on their phones. The irony was thick — life is arguably our most fundamental American right.
While I was filming the event, I was able to capture a pro-abortion student stealing two preborn baby models and chewing them up in their mouth like a toddler before spitting them back out into my hand. To the abortion lobby’s embarrassment, this isn’t even the first time this has happened to me. I saw someone eat a fetal model at Hunter College, as well. Another SFLA team member just had this happen last week at Binghamton University, too.
I’m seriously worried about New York abortion supporters’ eating habits…not to mention their moral compasses.
One large, pro-abortion man was screaming so loud at me and getting so close that he was actually spitting on me. I asked him multiple times to back away, and he didn’t. He told me, “I’m not sure if I can control myself but I will try.” It didn’t work.
It was sad to see that even while the mob knew their harassment was wrong, they kept it up. I had one student approach me from the middle of the chaos and say, “If I was you, I would have left by now.” If you know your behavior is bad, why don’t you stop?
Only one student spoke up for me and defended me from the names that I was being called. School staff members passed by the event and said nothing as the crowd became bigger, louder, and began closing in on me.
When I needed to pack up and leave to attend a fundraiser for women in the community, I was still packed inside the abortion supporters’ loud mob. Seeing my distress, campus police escorted me safely out of the situation but not without being actually chased by the mob. They even went so far as to jump on the police car to prevent me from leaving safely.
I keep thinking that I am going to be able to go to a campus and be treated with respect, but I am met with the same mistreatment every time merely for being pro-life. This mob mentality spreads like the plague.
While I worry about pro-life students attending these schools which clearly tolerate pro-abortion hatred, I am not deterred. As a member of the Pro-Life Generation, this is the cross we have to bear in order to fight for preborn lives — and it actually inspires me to get out there again, continuing to support and love every life.
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