Academic Plaza will be dotted with 897 pink crosses Thursday representing the lives prevented due to abortion each day at Planned Parenthood in the United States.
The display is part of a cross-country bus tour that stops at several college campuses called the “Planned Parenthood Project.”
“It creates a whole lot of discussion,” Pro-Life Aggie president and management junior Ashley Reed said. “We hope pro-life people come to our display, but we also want to reach people past that. I hope that it starts a lot of dialogue, and I hope that it gets [students] interested in what’s going on with Planned Parenthood.”
Pro-Life Aggies do an event similar to the Planned Parenthood Project every year, but this is the first time the demonstration will be in conjunction with a larger organization — Students for Life of America, Reed said.
Pro-Life Aggies officer and philosophy senior Carly Burke said some people may be hesitant to dismiss Planned Parenthood altogether because of the other services they offer.
“[The Planned Parenthood Project is] necessary because a lot of people just blindly support Planned Parenthood,” Burke said. “A lot of people who might be on the fence about abortion feel like [Planned Parenthood] is necessary, just because of the health care they provide, and we really want to show students that’s not the case, that there are so many pregnancy resources out there.”
Burke said members of Pro-Life Aggies have undergone training regarding how to start conversations with passersby, as well as how to handle potential protestors.
“We’re trying to prepare ourselves for any protestors we might have,” Burke said. “There are several other Texas schools hosting the Planned Parenthood Project in the next week or two, and I know that some of them have fliers posted around campus from the protestors there, warning students about the, ‘lies that the pro-life groups are going to be telling regarding Planned Parenthood.’”
Feminists for Reproductive Equity and Education, FREE, is one such group that plans to protest the event. FREE president and psychology senior Laura Reid said the information presented by Pro-Life Aggies is not founded in fact.
“They base their entire campaign off of fear, and pretend [there are] moral problems that aren’t moral problems because there was no wrongdoing in the first place,” Reid said. “I understand that people have different opinions on things like abortion and fetal tissue donation, but those practices are protected by law. It’s unacceptable to use falsified information to take people’s health care away.”
The group plans to be on location during the display to offer bystanders its viewpoint, said Reid.
“We will be protesting because the Planned Parenthood Project is spreading false information in hopes of ending legal services,” Reid said. “We will be on location with signs and with sheets of information that have correct information on them about things that Planned Parenthood offers as services and our posters will hold messages with things that we believe in.”