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UCONN Anti Abortion Display Arrests
Two students were arrested Tuesday at the University of Connecticut during a noisy protest of an anti-abortiondisplay.
The pro-choice activists were taken away by police as they tried to prevent a pro-life group from setting up the display, which they say contains graphic images.
Brenna Evelyn Regan, 22, of Redding, and Logan Jacob Place, 21, of Danielson, both seniors, were both charged with second-degree criminal trespass, police said. Each was released on a promise to appear in Superior Court in Rockvilleon May 1.
Regan and Place refused officers' orders to leave and continued to block pro-lifers as they attempted to set up their display, which had been approved by the university, police said. The demonstration was outside the Student Union on Fairfield Way.
The two were part of a group of students that formed Monday night after seeing the first day of the anti-abortion exhibit Monday, said organizer Colin Neary, a senior who also is a student government leader. He said 20 to 30 students were involved in the protest.
Neary said the display included "billboard-sized," side-by-side posters that compared abortion to the Holocaust and the lynching of blacks. Other blown-up photos showed fetuses at various stages of development.
"They're trying to say that abortion is genocide," he said. "I don't see how that is possible."
Holding signs and chanting, the protesters marched around the six pro-lifers and their circular display.
"We don't want them here anymore," said Siobhan O'Malley, a UConn junior who also helped organize the protest.
The display is a traveling mural consisting of a series of 6- by 12-foot photo panels. It is part of the Genocide Awareness Project of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.
Leslie Sneddon, regional director of New England for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, said the response to the display is not unusual.
"We were just at the University of Maine in Portland and the students got together to direct students away from the [display]. This kind of stuff brings people to the exhibit," Sneddon said.
UConn spokesman Michael Kirk said the university wasn't planning to take any further action toward the protesters. He said it's "just an issue of free speech on both sides, which is a hallmark of a college campus."
Fox CT's Al Chaniewski contributed to this story.
Re: UCONN Anti Abortion Display Arrests
We had the Genocide Awareness Project on campus when I was a student here. The Feminist Alliance and the ACLU came to do a silent counter-protest and to offer counseling to students who were affected by the displays. It was heartbreaking to see girls who'd had abortions sobbing because they were being called monsters.
Good for those students for trying to block the display.
or women who have had miscarriages.
But the hell with their feelings. The unborn trump all.
*lurker/UMaine grad student here*
Yes, they were here on campus last week, set up on the mall where you really couldn't avoid them. They drive around in a giant truck that also has graphic, billboard-sized photos of aborted fetuses on it. I've seen protests of this type before, but this one was extraordinarily awful.
I'm pro-choice, and always will be, but I have no problem sitting down and having intelligent, civil discussions with people who feel differently. However, when people use these tactics it makes me conclude that they're complete whackjobs with nothing of value to say. This isn't about promoting discourse, it's about shocking and shaming people.
Also, Leslie Sneddon needs a map. The University of Maine is in Orono, not Portland (those two cities aren't even close together; they're 2.5 hours apart).
In support of Stacey081184.
We just had an anti-abortion group get awarded about 300K due to unlawful arrest/searching during a similar display...
A hilarious facebook argument happened on one of my local Patches...People claiming First Amendment rights, blah blah...aren't these pictures inaccurate depictions though? I couldn't remember where I heard/read that
That's what got me all fired up on this FB Patch article/comments. People were claiming "people NEED to know what abortion looks like" (hence the utter importance of these signs/types of protests) and I wanted to throw it back in their face "what you are seeing and what they are showing is not what is real!"...