By The Editorial Board
Every year, Fordham’s Respect for Life group sets up thousands of small, white flags on the grass in front of the McGinley Center. It is part of the annual Respect for Life Week, a national initiative. Similar flags are stuck into the ground all over the country.
Respect for Life calls the display a “Memorial of the Innocents.” The white flags, which will be arranged on the McGinley lawn in the shape of a cross, are meant to symbolize the 2,900 abortions that reportedly happen every day in the United States.
In response to this display, which will go up on McGinley lawn the morning of March 27 and remain there all day, student group SAGES (Students for Sex and Gender Equity and Safety Coalition) is holding a protest. They have said they will be “engaging with our fellow students in dialogue throughout the demonstration and welcome all discussion.” They have also said they will bring a banner and flyers.
The Fordham Ram does not take a position on the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate. We, however, do take a position on disrespect, and in that regard, we condemn the actions of both Respect for Life and SAGES.
Respect for Life is completely within its rights to memorialize so-called “innocents” as a result of terminated pregnancies. But those rights do not extend to publicly disrespecting those who choose to have abortions.
By tallying aborted fetuses, declaring them innocents and memorializing them, Respect for Life trivializes the difficult decision women face in choosing to have an abortion. They portray abortion as a crime, and at that, one born out of, at best, ignorance or, at worst, cruelty.
If the memorial sought to inform or further the discussion surrounding abortion in a respectful way, holding it on McGinley lawn might be legitimate. However, regardless of Respect for Life’s intentions, the display does not do that. Rather, its primary function is to shock passersby. Each year it inevitably upsets more people than it informs.
Holding a demonstration with that effect in a space as public and heavily trafficked as McGinley lawn is inappropriate, because while Respect for Life has the right to create a “Memorial of the Innocents,” the Fordham community also has the right to choose whether or not they view that memorial. By placing it in an area that students would be hard-pressed to avoid, Respect for Life is compromising that right.
The Fordham Ram supports Respect for Life’s freedom to hold their memorial, but we ask the group to reconsider the location. It could be held just as effectively in a specific area where one can make a conscious choice to see the memorial like a gallery or a multi-purpose space.
As well, SAGES — a group that has repeatedly advocated for free speech — is compromising part of its own mission by protesting Respect for Life’s “baby graveyard.” They have written that “no one should feel silenced or traumatized by this disgraceful demonstration,” yet they seek to silence those whose views do not align with their own.
If SAGES were advocating for a change in the memorial’s location, or an adjustment of the language used, it would be one thing, but they are not. They are standing in direct opposition to the very belief behind the memorial. That crosses the line from activism to censorship.
No matter how well-intentioned or sincere both Respect for Life and SAGES are in their activism, both are overlooking a vital component of civilized discourse: respect.
We at The Fordham Ram implore the groups to rethink not their positions, but their acts of disrespect against members of our community who have views different from their own.
