An Anti-Abortion Group Visits Campus

On Tuesday, April 26th, an anti-abortion group called Created Equal visited the Frostburg State campus to exercise their right to free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which also prohibits public universities from restricting speech based on its content.  

The demonstrators from Created Equal were spread out around the clock tower, approaching students to share their opinions and beliefs. They had GOPro cameras attached to their chest which was recording throughout their time on the campus. There were multiple pictures of fetuses on large display spread across areas of the clock tower along with a jumbo-tron display of a video playing on loop. 

Not long after, Frostburg State students created a counter-protest and exercised their rights as well. Students came out with posters, speakers blaring music, and some were also giving out handouts on abortion facts, there were also different chants going on such as “My body my choice” and “My p***y my choice”. This counter-protest created a lot of discussions between Frostburg State students and the representatives of Created Equal, students questioned them, others had discussions on their personal stance, while some solely expressed their beliefs or opinions.  

Interview with Mark Harrington at the scene of protest. 

In an interview with Mark Harrington, the founder of Created Equal, he stated that they “travel to universities to simulate debate on abortion.” He also mentioned that the choosing of a school is random. 

How successful has this been for your organization? “Well, we measure success by, our people talking about abortion, you’re (interviewer) talking to me, they’re talking to one another, it may not be the most productive, you might say well nobody is changing anybody’s mind well, I mean that’s your opinion”. 

A student chimed in on the interview and told Harrington, “Based off these posters, it does not look like you want to have a discussion, it looks like you want to shame women into feeling bad and not have any abortions” to which Harrington replied, “Am I doing that? No, am I willing to talk to you? Yes, so that’s the question, are we willing? Yes. The pictures are the bad cop, it’s a technique, it images injustices that’s always been used to dramatize the evil historically, social reformist have always done it, because the pictures speak louder than the words and you can understand whatever it is by looking at it compared to me telling you for two hours what it is, that’s the point, it sets the conversation, gives a foundation”. 

Can you summarize your stance on abortion? “We are anti-abortion because we believe abortion kills an unborn baby”. 

This event angered a lot of students, the majority were not happy with the organization and what they set out to do. Here are a couple of student interviews live from the scene on how they felt about the protest: 

“I feel like it’s disrespectful, I feel like a lot of people didn’t ask for this, people are just trying to go to class and then they see these crazy false videos talking about abortion, trying to take their rights away and you know it’s hurtful” I heard what they were saying, basically they said we’re going to hell, a lot of them said that” – Junior, Darryl Jeffries 

“I love the student involvement that I’m seeing, I love that we outnumbered these stupid pro-life protesters by like ten to one, I’m here with my girlfriend and we have a pro-abortion sign because we really, really hate what these people came here to say today, we love pro-choice, we love women’s ability to do what is right for their own body, it’s my body my choice.” – Sophomore, Ryan Hoskinson 

Others felt discriminated against and overall dissatisfaction with the school itself. 

“I feel like Frostburg State University is really letting down the women and letting down the African American Community, not only are these people here harassing on campus, they are being racist to us, Mark Harrington was the one that said I don’t understand why you Black people get so worked up over racism, so, not only are we battling men telling women about their bodies, now we’re battling a white man disrespecting us African Americans in our community. This is f*****g Brownsville, you people turned this s**t into Cumberland, this was originally Brownsville and I stand on that s**t, this was a Black area, and you people came and turned it into Whitesville, no no no no no, we’re taking it back, we’re done!”.  – Anonymous  

On what the students at Frostburg deemed harassment, Freshman Lorena Pintar said “I was walking to my dorm when somebody approached me and started yelling at me, they said ‘look what you’re doing, look at those pictures, those poor babies’ and I responded, ‘Leave me alone please’ and kept walking.” 

In response to the incident, a support group and open forum was hosted the next day at the clock tower by Frostburg State Pi Lambda Phi Chapter along with C.A.P.S and Brady Health. Safe sex kits were handed out and a banner to write down support phrases or drawings.