Managing Editor
A pro-life group overstepped university policy and stirred mixed emotion on the Drillfield yesterday during an anti-abortion demonstration. They displayed gory posters of aborted fetuses and passed out fliers to those who passed.
?Our goal is strictly the truth ? it?s not a lie,? said Ronald Brock, a pro-life activist. ?It?s pictures, it?s facts ? universities are supposed to be a place of truth. Instead, (students) are being fed lies.
?People with security say we have no right to have these signs on campus, but they?re lying ... We?re not dealing with disrupting classrooms, we?re dealing with public sidewalks ? they?re misusing the authority they?ve been entrusted with.?
Virginia Tech Police Chief Debra Duncan said the group came onto campus grounds without the proper authorization from events planning and had no clearance to display posters on the grounds or to pass out literature about their cause.
?What they?re wanting is attention and they?re getting attention by having the police on the scene,? she said. ?People were upset about the signs and the messages. We got a lot of calls from the community.?
According to the Center for Disease Control, approximately 1.2 million preborn babies are killed because of an abortion each year in America. Eighty-eight percent of those are killed in the first trimester, 120,000 are killed in the second stages of pregnancy and 24,000 are killed in the last three months of the woman?s pregnancy, said the CDC.
Two trucks circled the Drillfield showing pictures of aborted fetuses, the Ten Commandments and a Sept. 11 image of the World Trade Center. Duncan said they were allowed to drive around as long as they did not impede traffic.
Brock said the group chose to display the trade towers on the truck to compare the devastation of the Sept. 11 attacks to the number of babies killed by Americans each day.
?About 2,900 people were killed on Sept. 11,? he said. ?In America, we murder 4,400 innocent children each day. Does anybody care?
?Girls around here are getting abortions and there are scars they?ll live with for the rest of their lives. One day, they?ll have to deal with ?I murdered my baby.??
The Life and Liberty Ministries group consisted of about 20 people including children as young as 10. They heard both praise and ridicule for their efforts.
?I saw one student walk up to one of the young boys and shake his hand,? Brock said. ?Another woman walked by and wasn?t very polite. Her attitude was as bad as some of the vulgar students.?
For 20 minutes while the truck was parked in front of War Memorial Hall, several students made obscene gestures toward the vehicle and a few screamed profanity.
?Ya?ll are sick motherfuckers! Get the fuck out of here!? shouted one student.
Eric Lutjen, a freshman music education major, made a poster reading ?No issue is as simple as black and white ? there?s always gray? and stood facing one of the vehicles.
?They?re free to speak against abortion and I?m free to speak (and say) there?s more than killing involved,? he said. ?In general, I?m opposed to abortion ... but it might be a necessary evil.?
Brock said the group had received mixed responses from the public, but they were not too deterred by the vulgarity.
?It?s persecution,? Brock said. ?But if your faith is not costing you, then you?re not doing (what?s right).
?I?m ashamed of the moral world we?ll turn over to (the next generation) ? I am ashamed. But we care enough to tell them they?ll go to hell if they don?t change.?