Alex Pedersen

There has been a buzz, pardon the pun, around campus recently about a potential new recognized student organization which advocates pro-life legislation and action.

            In the Feb. 18 issue of The Bulletin, Lauren Walbridge wrote a story on Students for Life and their struggle for RSO status. They are hoping to get the three things they need to gain status, which are enough signatures to fill a petition, an advisor and approval from ASG.

            I respect their beliefs and fully support their vying for RSO status and would even agree with giving them allocation money, but I think they are outright wrong. If you believe that abortion is wrong, then don’t get an abortion. But it is arrogant to try to take away free choice based on a religious belief and, in this Midwest hotbed of heaven-hungry activity, we must keep that in mind at all times.

            I understand that being pro-life is typically a religious belief and those are hard to change, but I find it wrong in any situation to justify forcing others to do or not do things based on a belief that they may not share.

            Back to Students for Life, I will give a hearty thumbs-up to any group trying to become an RSO because it increases cohesion in our university. Like-minded people tend to gravitate towards each other anyway, and by allowing them to meet on campus and have a more official, professional setting, it allows students to find more interests that maybe they didn’t know they had, meet new friends and practice group communication skills they will undoubtedly have to use in the future.

            As for funding, that is for ASG to decide. I think that every group should receive equal funding, regardless of their goals. Every student organization, even RSO’s that are based around a hobby, is persuasive in nature: they try to get you to join whatever they are doing, attend their events etc.

            We shouldn’t tell ASG to cut funding from one organization because they have a religious message if we have another that is based on a political view, culture, or hobby. As long as it is for learning purposes, ASG should allocate money to it properly because that’s what the money is there for.

            I can understand the pro-life argument, that it should be a higher power’s choice when, where and how each person should die. That from the moment of conception or heart-beating or whatever you define it as, it is a living creature and should be treated as such.

            But there are many instances that this ideal does not quite work in. Should a woman be allowed to abort a child if she was raped? What if having the child could endanger the mother’s life? What if the child would die in a short amount of time anyway? These are finer points which are not addressed with a simple, “abortion is wrong,” outlook.

            If one argues any of these by saying, “God planned for this child to be in the woman, rape (or what have you) aside,” then it could easily be retorted by proposing that God then planned for the woman to have an abortion. This gets into the free will argument, and, again, I’m not trying to argue religious beliefs in this.

            There is also the outlook that abortion is torturous for the fetus but, given the choice, I would much rather be an aborted fetus and have a few minutes of pain than something that is a socially acceptable tortured creature, such as a veal calf.

            And say pro-life legislation was passed, what would happen? Women won’t stop getting abortions if they choose to have one. How many fatalities would back-alley abortions cause?           What would be the punishment of those caught receiving an illegal abortion?

            The issue raises a lot of questions, but I think that the viewpoint that abortion is downright immoral is far from a proper one for a civilized society to have.

            So, Students for Life, I dig your fight and I wish you the best of luck, but I think you need to separate yourself from your religious ideals for a moment and ponder what this could mean for women and society altogether.

Send article as PDF to