The abortion movement’s adversarial relationship with free speech
It’s hard to defend the abortion position. Abortion activists on college campuses have resorted to campus censorship against pro-life activists to avoid discussing the touchy subject of human abortion on its merits.
The Wall Street Journal ran a good piece on the subject a few weeks ago by Kristan Hawkins. Ms. Hawkins is president of Students for Life (SFL). Under Ms. Hawkins leadership, SFL has increased the number of campus and high school pro life groups from a few dozen to over twelve-hundred nationally.
Examples of campus censorship
She said pro abortion groups are furiously at work imposing campus censorship on pro-lifer’s free speech, often with the silent consent of the administration.
For example, pro-life groups have come up with a wonderful way to honor the humanity of our aborted brothers and sisters by creating a cemetery of the innocents, as you can see in the video above. Abortion groups regularly deface or destroy these sites, as you can see on the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5NeLyMZUYM
Here’s another desecration committed by abortion proponents:
Pro-life groups often use chalking to convey their pro-life message. As you can see in the video below, abortion proponents don’t like it and try to wash it away out of fear it might save a life.
According to Ms. Hawkins, however, California State University, Fresno, fined one of their professors $17,000 for encouraging pro-abortion students to join him in destroying these pro-life messages. There is hope!
Isn’t it interesting. Chalk messages don’t last. Foot traffic and rain will quickly and naturally erase these messages in short order, usually within a few days. But abortion groups have such little tolerance that they are driven to erase opposing thought before anyone else can be exposed to a fresh perspective.
The pro-life “tax”
Ms. Hawkins said universities sometimes try to impose a “tax” on pro-life groups by sending them a bill for extra security costs. Here’s what happens: abortion groups try to disrupt and threaten violence when pro-life groups bring in a speaker like Alveda King, Reverend Martin Luther King’s niece. At the University of Michigan, the administration sent a bill for $800 to the pro-life group for the cost of security reinforcement to protect against the intolerance of abortion supporters.
Talk about injustice.
Fortunately, the Alliance Defending Freedom intervened on the side of Students for Life with this statement:
“The government may not charge speakers for the security costs by listeners’ response to that speech.”
Campus censorship in Des Moines
Here in Des Moines, Roosevelt High school invited Ms. King to speak a number of years back. Two parents complained because of her pro-life position. The principal quickly caved and disinvited her, denying a pro-life message that many students wanted to hear. Campus censorship takes many forms.
Administrations commonly cancel pro-life events when abortion supporters threaten violence. At Cal State Fullerton, they didn’t cancel a pro-life speaker. Instead, the university forced Students for Life to move the location when Antifa threatened violence if the pro-life event was held.
The threat of violence works.
The university did nothing to hold Antifa responsible. To compound the injustice, they would not allow the pro-lifers to advertise the new date and location of their event. Again, campus censorship takes many forms. At its heart, it is grounded in intolerance and an inability to defend the violence that defines human abortion.
More Iowa examples of campus censorship
David Cordaro, who will speak in October at our “Social Justice Creed” Event, coordinates the upper Midwest region for Students for Life. IFL asked him to what extent anti-life intolerance has affected Iowa. He sent a link to a story out of Hampton, Iowa, where the principal refused to let a respect life group form. Students for Life quickly responded through their legal counsel, the Thomas More Society.
At Lewis Central High School in Council Bluffs, at least they have a pro-life group. The group worked hard to create a display that pointed out that “157 human hearts are taken by abortion every hour.” Anti-life students tore those words off the display, in a common form of campus censorship.
The unspoken ideological litmus test
Perhaps the most extreme form of campus censorship is the unspoken anti-life ideological litmus test placed on employment opportunities. A few years ago at the University of Iowa, a highly qualified female attorney was denied employment by their law school. Why? Because of her previous experience of working for pro life groups. Forty-six out of 50 of the professors in the department were registered Democrats and pro abortion. She would have been that highly rare professor in academia: a Republican … and pro-life.
An associate dean with the university admitted the department blackballed her “because they so despise her politics (and especially her activism about it).”
The university alleged the professor performed poorly in a video-taped job interview with other faculty members. They claimed one of her answers disqualified her from the job, which the conservative professor adamantly denied. The video tape that would prove her point had been ‘accidentally erased.’
The abortion movement’s adversarial relationship with free speech runs deep. The same people who spout words such as inclusion, tolerance, and diversity don’t mean it. Campus censorship of pro-life groups defines a movement that is afraid to publicly defend their deadly position.
[To learn more, be sure to register for our free “Social Justice Creed” Event on October 24th, 2018. David Cordaro from Students for Life will be one of our speakers.]