Students create “cemetery for the innocents”
October 3, 2013
By Morgan Eads | News Editor
More than 915 pink crosses were scattered across the lawn between White Hall Classroom Building and the Engineering Complex on Tuesday in what the UK Students for Life call a “cemetery for the innocents.”
Beneath a large, bright pink banner that read “The Planned Parenthood Project,” stood a group who hoped to change students’ opinions on abortion.
President of UK Students for Life, Linda Grijalba, said the purpose of the event was to show students what, in the opinion of the group, is a vast abuse of women and children by Planned Parenthood.
The fliers passed out by the group said Planned Parenthood provides “faulty birth control” and counseling that is “commonly used to steer women towards abortion.”
Grijalba said she believes Planned Parenthood pushes the option of abortion because they make a profit from the procedure.
The campaign will be visiting about 1,000 college campuses around the country, including Western Kentucky University and Northern Kentucky University, said Nathan Croft, a member of Students for Life of America.
“To me it is just a sign that humanity has come to a bad place when people can, and will, kill their own children,” Croft said.
In contrast with the well known Genocide Awareness Project, which features large photographs of aborted babies, this campaign is less controversial, Grijalba said.
“Students are not yelling, they are engaging in dialogue,” Grijalba said.
Some students were not pleased by the campaign, however.
“I think it is pretty crazy. I don’t like it,” German studies junior Lara Peach said.
The size and intensity of the display was troubling, she said.
“It’s kind of in your face,” Peach said. “I don’t like the crosses; it kind of is like scare tactics.”
Gender and woman studies junior Alex Adams, who stood and looked at the crosses with Peach, was not happy with how the banners represented Planned Parenthood.
“People focus too much on Planned Parenthood abortions,” Adams said. “There are a lot of other services at Planned Parenthood.”
It was also the overall message of the display that bothered Adams.
“I personally think people should be able to have abortions,” she said. “It’s no one’s business.”