Unpermitted activists at UP

By Kate Peifer Staff Writer peifer14@up.edu

On Sept. 13, two anti-abortion demonstrators affiliated with an organization known for displaying graphic images of aborted fetuses were asked to leave campus for not receiving authorization to leaflet, as required by UP's Sales and Solicitation Policy.

When a public safety officer approached the men outside the Pilot House, they were passing out leaflets and one held a sign with a photo of a fetus, purportedly after an abortion.

"It's like seeing pictures from Auschwitz," said one of the demonstrators, who would identify himself only as Jeremy. "Babies are dying and we want people to get involved."

Jeremy and second demonstrator Dan Holman are members of the Missionaries to the Preborn, an anti-abortion group based in Milwaukee, Wis.

According to the group's website, it is "a last line of defense on behalf of those babies taken into America's abortion clinics. We will speak up for our preborn neighbor, and offer help to the mothers and fathers who bring their sons and daughters to these death camps."

Holman, a prominent anti-abortion activist from Iowa who demonstrates around the country, was interviewed by CNN in 2009 after Kansas doctor George Tiller, who performed late pregnancy abortions at a women's clinic, was shot and killed.

According to a transcript of the interview, Holman believes the shooter did what Kansas's law should have done.

"I don't advocate it, I don't support it. But I don't condemn it, and I believe that what he did was justifiable," Holman said.

Holman, who identifies himself as a Christian, rejects the term "pro-life" and says he is "anti-aborticide." He believes the Catholic approach to opposing abortion is flawed.

"Protestants should rethink the Catholic ‘Culture of Life' foundation as it is fundamentally unsound," he wrote on the "Army of God" website. "It opposes the death penalty and accepts unbiblical presuppositions…"

Soon after the demonstration began at UP, Public Safety Officer Manu Jauregui asked the two men to lower the sign and cease distribution of the brochures. Jauregui escorted Holman to Waldschmidt.

One of the protestors told The Beacon he thought it was a speech issue.

"We've been to PSU, the Courthouse at Pioneer Square, but I have never been to this campus," Jeremy said.

Unlike the campus of Portland State University and Pioneer Courthouse Square, UP's campus is private property, so the University has no obligation to allow off-campus groups to demonstrate or solicit.

After Jauregui and Holman returned from Waldschmidt, Holman and Jeremy, along with Jeremy's three young sons, were asked to leave UP's property and were escorted to their van on Willamette Boulevard. The van displayed photos of what appeared to be full-term aborted fetuses.

According to Harold Burke-Sivers, director of Public Safety, the two men had not received permission from the Office of Student Activities to display signs or distribute literature.

"It doesn't matter if they were trying to sell Girl Scout cookies," Burke-Sivers said. "Anyone who wants to post or hand out flyers needs to get permission through Student Activities or Marketing and Communications."

Neither Holman nor Jeremy sought permission to distribute their literature or display their signs after they were asked to leave campus, according to Burke-Sivers.

Junior Antje Morris, one of many passersby who witnessed the demonstration, spoke with Jeremy about abortion.

"I believe women should have the choice to do what they want with their own body," Morris said.

Another student, junior Janie Oliphant, was walking to the Pilot House when she saw the demonstration.

"I think everyone is entitled to have their own opinion, but I'm not a fan of scaring people into changing their views, nor do I think its right to involve children in such a controversial demonstration," Oliphant said.

Voice for Life, an anti-abortion student group in Campus Ministry, was not a part of the demonstration and does not support that graphic approach Jeremy and Holman took, according to senior nursing student and President of Voice for Life Ann Cowan.

"It was a concern that we would be affiliated with them," Cowan said. "Although we are aware of the reality of the pictures, we go about it more peacefully."

There is not an official abortion rights group at UP. However, according to Cowan, Voice for Life is considering holding a discussion board about the issue of abortion.

"What we want is a mutual understanding that both sides are trying to help men and women," Cowan said. "The difference is merely scientific."