Anti-abortion demonstration sparks campus counter-protest

Warning: Graphic posters from the anti-abortion protest Wednesday contained in the post below.

Student counter-protests were met with police intervention during Wednesday’s anti-abortion demonstration in the Idaho Student Union Building Plaza.

The demonstration, organized by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), featured signage depicting graphic images of seemingly aborted fetuses with captions such as “American Killing Fields” and “The Body Inside Your Body Is Not Your Body.”

The counter-protest efforts were organized earlier in the week on various social media outlets. Protesters gathered at the plaza throughout the day to circle the demonstration, holding signs and chanting in unison while feminist music blared on speakers in the background.

The images depicted on the CBR signs offended people, said Lauren Grove, UI student and counter-protester.

“I just really want to show our side, which is pro-choice,” Grove said. “It seems like these posters are viewing all of our counter-points as if they don’t make any sense. It’s kind of fear-mongering and it leaves people with horrible images to think about, and that might resemble guilt, when they really have nothing to feel guilty about.”

CBR representatives wearing body cameras occupied the plaza behind a police barricade that was created after student-protestor, David Catts, stole a CBR sign and removed it from the premises. Police seized the sign and returned it to the CBR group without arresting Catts, then constructed and monitored a metal barrier between the counter-protesters and the CBR group.

The group continued to hand out anti-abortion information pamphlets and field questions to passersby.

“The message we’re trying to convey is that the preborn are human, fully human, not potential humans, but actual humans, and that abortion is an act of violence that kills those human beings,” said Kevin Olivier, CBR Director of Operations.

The CBR, founded in 1990, is an educational, privately funded corporation with its headquarters in Lake Forest, Ca., according to its website.

This post has been edited to add photos of the protesters’ display.

Ellen Dennis can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @edennis37