By Elise Reichard

“The whole point of it is to just talk,” Colette Lanzon, FCRH ’19, said Monday afternoon at the rainy Respect For Life: When Should Human Life Begin demonstration on the McGinley walkway.

Fordham’s Respect for Life (RFL) club kicked off their annual Respect For Life week by displaying posters that members said promoted discussion. The posters included a timeline of events in a person’s life from embryo to fetus, and students were asked to vote when they believe human life begins via sticky notes.

Emily Sayegh, FCRH ’19, an e-board member of the RFL, said the group wanted to create a dialogue rather than just push RFL’s views.

“Our posters do not actually have our convictions on them because we want people to come up to us and question what they believe and then vote,” she said.

The posters were provided by Students For Life of America, a national organization that is not directly affiliated with Fordham’s Respect For Life club but provides RFL with resources for meetings or demonstrations.

Members of the club were quick to explain that RFL is not just a club about abortion. The group also advocates for the rights of refugees and mental health patients, while having an anti-death penalty and euthanasia stance.

“Respect for Life focuses on maintaining human dignity from conception to natural death,” Sayegh said.

Sayegh said since Donald Trump has been elected president, RFL has felt the need to speak up about all of the facets of the club, especially the refugee crisis and the death penalty.

“Trump isn’t pro-life based on anything he has advocated for,” Sayegh said.

Sayegh said Fordham RFL is trying to stray away from other pro-life movements that only protest at abortion clinics.

The demographics of the club are fairly diverse, made up of both women and men, with secular and religious students participating.

Fiona Chen, FCRH ’20, has been involved with the Respect for Life movement since her days at a Catholic high school. While Chen said she was exposed to the right for life movement through a religious lens, she said she believes a person doesn’t have to be religious to be a member of the movement.

“I think that the pro-life issue is not just a religious issue. All human life has value,” Chen said. “It’s not just because I’m Catholic and I have been pro-life.”

While members of the club said they have been pro-life for a variety of situations, previous RFL demonstrations at Fordham have focused on the issue of abortion. Until 2016, Respect for Life week included a memorial for aborted babies on McGinley lawn, dubbed by many students as the “Baby Graveyard.”

Sayegh said RFL decided to discontinue the memorial two years ago because it did not illicit the discussion RFL wanted and upset many pro-choice as well as pro-life students.

Previously, Fordham SAGES (Students For Sex and Gender Equity & Safety) and the Women’s Empowerment club have protested Respect for Life events involving abortion. But this year, members said they were unable to create an official protest in time.

Claire Del Sorbo, FCRH ’19, Women’s Empowerment and SAGES member, gave a statement to the Ram in response to the RFL display, saying she understood that RFL members came from a well-intentioned place, but that she has grievances with the display every year.

“Their choice to align with anti-choice policy makers and religious leaders renders any support they claim to have for women who’ve had abortions invalid,” Del Sorbo said. “Whether or not you think abortion is morally correct, taking away resources like the ones that Planned Parenthood provides accomplishes nothing and ultimately results in more botched procedures and deaths.”

Becca Erwin, FCRH ’18, Women’s Empowerment and SAGES member, has protested the event since they have been at Fordham. Erwin reflected on a conversation they had with a RFL member last year at a protest. A Respect For Life member argued that they were a feminist club because they were fighting for equality and demanded adequate resources for pregnant people so people would never feel pressured to terminate a pregnancy. Erwin disagreed.

“If we are still at a point in society where women aren’t adequately supported to have a child, then someone shouldn’t be advocating for women to still have a child when society hasn’t caught up yet,” Erwin responded.

Ryan Wolf, FCRH ’19, and RFL e-board member said the main purpose of the demonstration was to fight for the dignity of all human life.

“What we’re trying to show is that humanhood equals personhood. Human dignity comes from that moment [conception], and it doesn’t change regardless of development, age, race or anything. We wanted to show that everyone’s equal and everyone has the right to life, and it all starts here,” Wolf said.

As the demonstration went on, through rain and shine, one male student eagerly voted and joked that he wished there were more bloody fetuses on the posters. Members of RFL said that Fordham only allowed for certain posters with approved images to be displayed. About halfway through the demonstration, nearly all of the votes cast declared that human life begins at conception.

Respect For Life week will continue with speaker Kristen Hawkins on Tuesday, a refugee awareness campaign on Wednesday, a “Nukes are Not Pro-Life” display on Thursday and a volunteer trip downtown to Avail, a haven for people who are dealing with “crisis pregnancies” on Friday.