Genocide is the systematic and deliberate slaughter of a specific race, nationality or culture. This term applies to what happened in the concentration camps in Hitler's Germany, as well as to the slaughter of non-Arabic people of Darfur, Sudan, by the militant government. It does not apply, however, to abortion. No matter how you feel about the issue of abortion, everyone should be able to agree that it is not, at least, a genocide.
No mother is going to get an abortion because she doesn't want to propagate her own race or religion. Abortions are considered and undergone for many different reasons, but genocide is not something that is considered.
For the anti-abortion protesters to have pictures of Darfur and of the Holocaust on the Plaza of the Americas, likening the two to abortion, is shameful. By calling abortion a genocide, they are purposely misleading students who walk through the plaza every day. If I didn't know anything about the actual definition of genocide, I would be influenced by their lies. I would think to myself, my God, we have a genocide going on in our country; we have to do something about that.
But choosing to have an abortion is not a choice for genocide. Period.
Every time we have events like these on campus, I think about what visitors would think about our school. Since the beginning of the semester, we have seen both this display and an increase in the number of "Islam is of the Devil" protesters on our campus. If I was an incoming freshman, I don't know if I would accept admission into the school if I saw these displays of intolerance on campus.
There is absolutely no need for the flagrant display of lies on our campus. At least the "Islam is of the Devil" people, at their core, preach love and acceptance of Jesus Christ. That is no different from any other Christian group on the planet. They grab attention by having an extremist expression of intolerance and ignorance on their T-shirts. The abortion protesters are just stepping it up a notch. An empty saying like "Islam is of the Devil" can only accomplish so much. When you put up pictures on aborted fetuses on campus and equate it to the actual genocides in Darfur and Europe, you grab even more attention. But you should also be ashamed of yourself for blatantly lying.
As a Catholic, I'm upset and offended by the billboards. As a person with pro-choice beliefs, I'm angry at being compared to the Nazis. The anti-abortionists could have had a meaningful debate on our campus about what they believe, but they, instead, chose to go for the low route and lie about abortion. So, congratulations protesters, you got us talking about abortion again but only about how ridiculous your display is.
Paul Murty is an English sophomore.
