The most cowardly way to express one’s disapproval of an issue is through scare tactics, and if there were ever a perfect example of such an assertion, it would be the signs and words of the anti-abortion demonstrators at the Arbor and UCen yesterday and today.

Showing photo-shopped images of mutilated fetuses is a most deplorable way to communicate one’s message. The reason for this, specifically, is because if these demonstrators really cared about stopping abortion, then they would actually try to help women rather than try to guilt them out of terminating unwanted pregnancies.

If the demonstrators really wanted to lessen the frequency of abortions, then they should try to prevent abortions, not make ridiculously large signs designed to frighten women. Why not campaign in the Arbor in favor of making birth control pills, condoms and emergency contraception more readily available and easily accessible to women? That would certainly further their cause.

And if the demonstrators really are “pro-life,” then why haven’t they considered all of the lives involved? Abortion will not stop if it is outlawed. Women will resort to illegal and unsafe back-alley or self-performed abortions in order to terminate unwanted pregnancies, and most will not survive the under-equipped, unsanitary operations. Then, the fetus and mother will die. The anti-abortion protestors assert that fetuses are humans, too, which is debatable, but last time I checked, there is no controversy over whether a fertile woman is really a person or not.

No one is saying the demonstrators don’t have a right to be here – everyone in this country has the right to free speech.

However, the demonstrators shouldn’t hide behind their “Justice for All” and “free counseling for women” signs next to their photos of mutilated fetuses – which were probably mutilated because the abortion was performed illegally in a country where abortion has been outlawed by people like those present on campus today – and try to call it free speech. Just as much as they have the right to come and sensationalize an issue to an unwilling audience, so does a woman have the right not to subject herself and her potential – read: potential – child to a life of misery if that is all she is able to provide.

To the demonstrators: The next time your boyfriend walks out on you, or your parents threaten to disown you, or your friends and community ostracize you, maybe you’ll understand that the right to save your own life is more important than ruining two.

These demonstrators don’t care about women; they don’t even care about fetuses. They just want to scare those of us who may need to have, or have had abortions, into thinking religious organizations, sexist males and insensitive thinkers know better than us on what is right for our bodies, our lives and our futures.

Well, I don’t want to hear it. Get your medieval, ignorant and sexist posters, opinions and scare tactics out of my school, out of my country and away from my body.

Daily Nexus Managing Editor Devon Claire Flannery refused to pay for a staff abortion, dammit!