It Gets People Talking

We recently heard from our friends at Human Life Alliance about a lively campus-wide conversation that started at Purdue University after the Purdue Students for Life inserted 17,500 copies of HLA’s sleek pro-life publication Trapped… into the student newspaper The Exponent.

It’s interesting to see how very different the types of comments were from the “pro-choice” students compared to those of the pro-life students in the The Exponent‘s letters to the editors section in issues after Trapped… appeared.

One student wrote:

I’m baffled as to why the Exponent would actually insert such trashy propaganda into its pages. … I’m used to finding the weekly Arby’s coupon, or sometimes a Geico ad every day before I rip out the coveted crossword and Sudoku. However, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I found this fodder from humanlife.org in my Exponent. This makes me absolutely sick knowing the Exponent willingly accepted this garbage for an insert. Push your moral propaganda somewhere else; don’t pollute this university with it.

Another said:

The insert in the Exponent on Tuesday was very rude. I cannot believe that the Exponent would show so much disrespect to a woman. It was disgusting and vulgar and I and many of my girlfriends find this insert to be very offensive. … I understand the fact the Exponent does not write the inserts and it is just a way of advertising and a way for them to make money, but I would think that someone with somewhat of a heart and a brain would find this to be a bit much. I can understand doing an article about it with different points of view but the Exponent has taken this way too far. I cannot believe that the Exponent continues to show how women continue to have no rights and how a woman’s rights are not growing.

Still another student wrote:

I’m extremely disappointed in you. In the Tuesday edition of your paper you chose to include an ad by the “human life alliance” which spread propaganda and blatant lies across Purdue campus. The fact that you allowed such rubbish to be circulated with your fine newspaper is a disgrace. … It’s one thing for there to be articles and opinions given by the Pro-Abortion and Anti-Abortion groups, as both sides have some valid arguments.

On this last one, I at least have to give the student credit for having the honesty to use the term “pro-abortion”.

In contrast, notice how much better structured the pro-life students’ arguments were.

See here, here, here, and especially here, where student Jeffrey Williams mocks the outrage of “pro-choice” students upset about the paper’s choice to allow Purdue Students for Life to place copies of Trapped inside it:

How dare you, Purdue Exponent? How dare you distribute an insert that provides contact information for establishments designed to help young pregnant mothers? Surely this encroaches upon the rights of women somehow! I find it abhorrent that this insert provides the testimonies of experts and women who have actually gone through abortions. We’re college students; we can figure it out for ourselves. Didn’t we settle this once and for all on the opinions page a few weeks ago? And how dare they cite their sources!? The Human Life Alliance even had the nerve to bring men into this by telling a father’s side of the story! Since when do men have the right to be informed about decisions regarding their own children? Also, if a woman has the right, no, the obligation, to protect herself by having an abortion, then the press has no right to give accurate descriptions of how this is accomplished, as it is simply too graphic. What Constitutional right does the press have to provide free information designed to help people? Shame on you, Purdue Exponent!

You can start a conversation like the one at Purdue at your school, too. To find out about getting Trapped… inserted in your school paper, contact HLA’s distribution coordinator, Jillian Roemer, by e-mail, or by phone at 651-484-1040.

You can also order copies on their site.

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