By Amanda Maile and Laura Sanicola

Amid a slew of Fordham students waiting on line for Under The Tent tickets outside of the McGinley Center on Wednesday, Fordham’s pro-life student organization was arranging white flags in the shape of a heart on the adjacent lawn.  The nearly 3,000 flags, arranged in a shape of the heart, represented the average number of abortions that occur each day in the United States.

Fordham’s Respect for Life club called the event a “Memorial of the Innocents,” a change from its former name “Cemetery of the Innocents,” which drew criticism in previous years from the Fordham Women’s Empowerment organization.

“We realized from feedback from other people and from further discernment on the event itself that the name laid guilt on others and also denies the fact that people do survive from abortions,” said Respect for Life member Catherine Ashur, FCRH ’17. “We changed it to ‘Memorial of the Innocents’ to better encompass our intention to memorialize those who are forgotten and to remember the women who have gone through this.”

In previous years, Respect for Life members organized the flags in the shape of a cross and stood next to the display.

Members of Students for Sex and Gender Equality and Safety Coalition (SAGES) did not find the name change to alter the nature of the event. The group protested the demonstration for the second year in a row on the grounds that it stigmatizes students who have had abortions.

“Memorial of the Innocents’ clearly is a very provocative term,” said longtime SAGES activist Monica Cruz, FCRH ‘16.  “Having all of these signs up can be very traumatizing and…at a university that claims to care for the whole person, I think that we should take a stance that is to stand with women regardless of religious difference or ideological differences.”

SAGES members held a poster reading “1 in 3” to illustrate that one in three women have an abortion, a statistic first reported by the Guttmacher Institute in 2011.

The protest was not the first that has occurred alongside Under the Tent sales, which typically draw thousands of students of students waiting for hours for coveted tickets. Last year, Fordham adjunct faculty protested low wages earned by adjuncts at Fordham and nationwide.

Respect for Life member Brandon Miraz, FCRH ‘17, said that the timing of their memorial was a fortunate coincidence of sorts.

“We are happy that everyone’s out here, because everyone’s going to see it that’s in line,” Miraz said.

According to Ashur, the event is organized each year to gain awareness of post-abortive women and children and to provide support.

“We are here to talk to women and anyone who has any questions about the event, and if someone is going through difficulties, we want to let them know we are here for them,” Ashur said. “We hope that students will pause for a moment and think about the reality of the number of abortions that happen and it will be a call to action to support those who are post-abortive.”

However, Cruz thinks it is the wrong approach. She recommended the club hold meeting or invite speakers to the university, which she said would be less obtrusive to student life.

“[They should] not do something where it’s in everyone’s faces, and right in front of the McGinley Center in which a lot of students have no choice walking in and out of day-to-day,” Cruz said.

“Cemetary of the Innocent” movements similarly took place at Georgetown and Penn State within the past year.

-Erin Shanahan contributed reporting

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Ashur as a Christian Life community leader.