St. Louis, Mo., Nov 11, 2021 / 17:01 pm (CNA).
A cross-shaped display of flags commemorating the lives lost in abortion was targeted by vandals at Saint Louis University, a Jesuit school, soon after it was set up on campus Monday morning.
The university’s pro-life group, a Students for Life chapter, set up hundreds of small flags in the shape of a cross. Each flag represented over 800 abortions performed last year in the U.S. The group had received the Missouri university’s permission for the display, which they call the Cemetery of the Innocent.
“Within a few hours of it going up, we walked by and someone had torn down the signs we had up alongside it,” Isabelle Hotard, President of Students for Life at St. Louis University, told the CBS affiliate KMOV News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rewjrpvUkI
Another group member found two young women students apparently vandalizing the display and videoed them on his phone. They appeared to tear flags from the cross-shaped display and stomped them into the ground.
The women insulted the group member, contended the display was anti-woman and shamed women for having abortions. It could hurt the feelings of a woman who had had an abortion, one woman said.
Another student tried to say the display would help reach out to those women.
Later, on Monday night, Hotard said she passed by a group of people tearing the flags from the ground. She filmed them on her phone and asked them to leave the flags because she planned to remove the display that night. The group put the display up the next morning.
The group usually sets up the display each October.
“I was very surprised how emboldened people are to trample on other people’s stuff and they truly seem to think we’re in the wrong 100 percent and we’re doing something that hurts other people, and it’s kind of heartbreaking to see people believe that about us, because that’s not what we’re trying to do at all,” Hotard told KMOV News.
Tuesday afternoon saw a crowd of people, both pro-life and pro-abortion rights. They generally engaged in civil conversation.
Some pro-abortion rights students objected that they put up a sign at the display site that was quickly taken down.
One Students for Life group member, Nick Baker, said a woman who had been involved in the vandalism approached him on Wednesday and made harassing comments, Fox News reports.
Lucy Gonzales, the Students for Life Regional Coordinator for Missouri and Arkansas, is an alumna of the university. She said the pro-life student group there is “used to the harassment” and something happened to the display every year she was at the school.
In 2017, a vandal stole over 100 wooden crosses that were part of a similar campus display. The university president sent out a letter condemning the incident.
“I think Catholic universities and Christian universities…we should really be holding them to those pro-life values that they tout in their mission statements,” Gonzales told KMOV.
“The university takes seriously any alleged violation of our community standards, and has policies and processes in place to address concerns when they are reported,” a public relations official at the university said to CNA Nov. 11.
On Monday afternoon, St. Louis University’s Office of Student Responsibility and Community Standards was made aware of possible violations of university community standards “involving a student organization’s approved campus display.” The office is investigating the report.
The university said it had no additional information to provide at present.
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Is history repeating itself?…in Nazis Germany the “Brown Shirts” would attack and destroy anything or anyone who opposed their beliefs? It appears that these “Pro-Choice” students have that same spirit within them.
I agree. Satan is busy in our world. People tend to forget Roe vs Way ruling was based on a fabricated pregnancy. They also ignore the fact they are murdering a pre born baby, someone else’s LIFE, when they abort. A baby is an inconvenience that occurred from them having unprotected sex. It’s horrifying that it is legal. Thousand of people WANT to adopt babies. It’s easier to abort than to give the baby up for adoption. It’s not womens’ healthcare. It’s MURDER.
It’s been sold to the American citizen public. You do not see “undocumented” aliens nor refugees aborting their babies. Only American citizens.
God makes life possible. It is a GIFT from God. If you do not want to have a baby do not have sex. If you do have sex use a couple forms of birth control. Use SELF RESTRAINT. People refuse to acknowledge that one day when they die they will be judged on their actions. Jesus is known to love all his children. Thou shall not kill. Yes abortion IS murder. We are following laws put into place by people who do not follow God. These same people protect puppies, bees, ants, snakes, spiders. Yet kill their own for THEIR convenience. It is GENOCIDE also.
Why is pro abortion considered a right? Why do the angry pro abortion activists face NO LEGAL CHARGES defacing pro-life images? Why are pro-life supporters attacked physically and any signs, displays they have and it’s ok by local laws? If pro-life members did the same they would go to jail. THIS IS SATAN AT WORK. SATAN is the driving force behind pro abortion mentality.