Lauren Roberts: Tritons Together

I was startled by the warnings of graphic genocidal images as I approached Library Walk last Tuesday. I wondered in my head whether or not it would cover Darfur, Rwanda, or Armenians in Turkey. I was shocked to walk closer and see that it was not Genocide awareness, but a pro-life organization equating abortion to genocide.

I would also like to clarify that I myself am pro-choice, but I am not vehemently against pro-life organizations and supporters. My largest problem with the display was the ways in which AbortionNO attempted to persuade our collegiate audience.

Oxford Dictionaries defines genocide as: “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially of a particular ethnic group or nation.’ They define abortion as: ‘the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.” The display sequenced pictures of Holocaust victims, victims of lynchings in the US, and aborted fetuses. In my belief equating the two as the same is not only a fallacy, but is disrespectful to any survivor of genocide or any person who has made the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

This was not the only fallacy displayed on the demonstration. One panel read “I CAN’T BREATHE,” a reference to Eric Garner’s death in New York and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. This struck me as extremely disrespectful because it attempted to re-appropriate the struggle of Black Lives Matter to mean the struggle of the unborn.

Furthermore, there were a set of “statistics” that concluded that “Abortions suppress the black electorate.” It attempted to prove this point with racialized statistics that implied that black women get the largest percentage of abortions, and are therefore affecting their own electorate. This coincides with the historical use of racial science which was deployed in order to maintain racial hierarchy and continue the “otherization” of non-whites, which I will not stand for. In my belief, marginalizing the group you are attempting to persuade is not the way to get a point across. Nor is racism a tool for education and persuasion.

Another panel stated that the survivors and victims of sexual assault and rape are committing “honor killings,” when they terminate the pregnancy. This statement was accompanied by an image of a woman in a hijab, further discriminating against underrepresented populations while also promoting undertones of Islamaphobia. This statement also served to trigger and attack the survivors of sexual assault and rape, which is up to one-fourth of our total campus population.

It is my belief that we do not deserve to feel unsafe on our own campus. This is why I was one of the womxn who helped organize action following the discovery of the demonstration. I would like to thank Jenny Woo, Manoli Guellermoprieto, and Erin McMullen for their help, organization, and determination. I would also like to thank the Women’s Center and their interns as well as all of the people who came to have dialogue and stand in solidarity at the protest. The goal of the protest was to flex our right to free speech and to engage in dialogue from both sides in order to help UCSD students make an informed decision about this complicated pro-life/pro-choice debate.

Lauren Roberts is currently a UCSD Student and an AS Campus Wide Senator.