This post is written by Kelsey Bolte, president of Mizzou Students for Life.
Last night, Mizzou Students for Life members spent nearly two hours chalking Greektown with 25-30 life-affirming messages down several blocks, in preparation for National Pro-Life Chalk Day. We included messages such as “Abortion hurts women”, and “Pregnant and scared? You are not alone”, and listed our local pregnancy help center’s phone number numerous times.
Around 8am this morning, one of our members discovered that many of the messages had been destroyed. Later in the morning we were mentioned on Twitter by @MissJuBooty who said “Women deserve better than being told how to make decisions with their own body as they walk home” (mocking one of our quotes “Women deserve better than abortion”).
Women deserve better than being told how to make decisions about their own body while walking home pic.twitter.com/fQ0cfB6OUF
— Ju (@MissJuBooty) March 5, 2015
There were some replies to the tweet, and @MissJuBooty posted a picture of herself (or her friend @LilKraus) using a broom to destroy the messages.
@Kayley_Hotstuff They didn’t last long after @LilKraus and I found them. pic.twitter.com/UUzuLd1ukh
— Ju (@MissJuBooty) March 5, 2015
Although we did not include our group name on any of the messages, one Twitter user said she was planning to write a letter to Mizzou’s Organization Resource Group about us concerning the messages. She also tweeted “MizzouSFL had their first meeting of the semester last night, so I am not doubting any coincidence.” (This is false and I have no idea where that claim came from).
This is what our chalkings looked like before and after the vandalism:
The messages we wrote are facts, plain and simple. We did not include harsh statements or anything graphic.
As one of our group members, Kristen Wood, said earlier, “the other side should not be trying to silence us just because they can’t win.”
What strikes me the most is that they even destroyed the messages with the local pregnancy help clinic number. Several of these were accompanied with the words “You have options”. If they truly cared about women and true choice, they would allow as many people as possible to see that number and hopefully call it to receive guidance on their options- which means more than just an abortion referral from Planned Parenthood.
