Abortion protests at my college

Yes. You heard me correctly. A group of people came to my college today, a place with many 16-18 year old boys and girls, and held up pictures of aborted babies and told us abortion is wrong.

This actually happened and I had no idea how to respond. I was shocked that these people had the audacity to impose these opinions of theirs on us. That being said, I had a conversation with one of these people and we shared our opinions in a polite way. I don’t feel as if I’ve made a difference since I probably did nothing to change her point of view, and she definitely did nothing to change mine.

The only things that I learnt from this protest were:
1) How to have an argument without raising my voice and shouting and how that helps get your point across more effectively
2) How mad I am

I’m very very mad. They didn’t know our stories or anything that we’d been through and yet they showed us these horrific images in an attempt to emotionally blackmail us and I just feel the need to summarise their arguments against abortion to summarise our main points against it

- "Babies born with disabilities may have a worse quality of life but does that mean a bad quality of life is a life not worth living?"
Of course that’s not what it means! But if you can spare the suffering, and if the mother thinks it would bring suffering on her, then why shouldn’t she get an abortion.

- "The mothers quality of life won’t significantly decrease if she had that baby."How would you know? It may do, depending on her situation, and if she has the ability to have a better quality of life, then why shouldn’t she take it? How can anyone have the right to say that another person has to sacrifice their quality of life?

- "The baby is just a child." Potentially, so is the woman. In a teenage pregnancy, the mother would just be a child. So who do you pick? The child who is already existing, already living and has already established a life for herself, or the child that is currently growing inside of her with nothing? The baby has no life, and nothing to lose, whereas the woman has everything to lose.

- "Can you pick one human being over the other?"Imagine there was an accident in the ninth month of pregnancy and the doctor’s could only save either the mother or the child. Who would you pick? Would you not pick the mother? The woman with a life, friends and family, or the baby? How would you tell her family that you saved the baby because you believe abortion is wrong, and you allowed the woman to die.
Effectively the same thing happens if someone stops an abortion. You let the baby live, but the woman has to live with this feeling inside of her, and maybe she’s physically alive, but how alive is she emotionally?

I’m pro choice and have been ever since the moment I sat down and really thought about it (I must have been 13 or 14).  But of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just feel as if sometimes there is a way to express your opinion, and this was not the way.

They don’t know who’s had abortions or miscarriages or who’s in that situation themselves right now and to show these pictures was tactless. It was emotional blackmail and abuse. To come to a college with 16-18 year old’s who are only just growing up (let’s face it, we’re still kids really), and who only started to understanding situations like these in the past few years, was tactless.

This whole protest was tactless, and I can guarantee you that none of those people had ever been in that situation where they've had to consider having an abortion (especially since some of them were men).

I am really very mad at these people but it gave me a sense of hope:
People from college came in groups and started arguing with the protesters. Everyone was respectful and no fights broke out, as far as I’m aware; it was mostly just conversation. The majority of the college heard about this and argued against it. (We also had a fair few laughs. I remember one guy standing next to me saying “so do you think it all starts with ejaculation then”…. I didn't hear the rest of his point since I was laughing so hard.)

No matter what our government says, our future is in safe hands because the majority of 16-18 year old’s have more sense than these adults who run our country, and we are not scared to stand our ground.
We are not scared to fight.

And we will fight.