By Drew Danko
Online Editor
Photo by Drew Danko
Students were greeted by anti-abortion protesters Tuesday morning as they entered the parking lot. The protesters, who represented Aurora’s chapter of Abolish Human Abortion, aimed to educate students about the organization’s opposition toward abortion and stood alongside Eola Road, next to the school’s marquee.
“Statistically, at the high school age, 20 percent of teenagers between the ages of 17 and 25 will abort a child,” protester Troy Buccini said.
Some students felt it was inappropriate to display such graphic images in front of a high school at 7:00 am. “I just think it’s gross. I didn’t need to see those pictures. You can learn about abortion in many different ways, and I didn’t need to see it in such a graphic form,” senior Mackenzie Green said.
The protesters believed the signs were appropriate for school grounds, and they explained that they aimed to educate. “We’re not protesting, we’re handing out literature to tell you the truth about abortion. There is actually salvation in Jesus Christ for the sin of abortion. We want to let people know that they don’t have to abort their child,” Buccini added. Protesters are allowed to freely gather on the public sidewalk in front of the school.
Posters the protesters held read “57 million murdered,” a fetus in the womb reading “we’ve all been here,” and “every infant, toddler, adolescent, teenager, adult, and elderly human being went through the fetal stage of development.”
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Being a public high school, junior John Schuler was bothered by the fact protesters did not respect the diversity and different opinions within our community. “Some people might not share the same views. Being a public high school, we stress to our teachers not to share religious beliefs and political views. The protesters coming here and showing those pictures, it just wasn’t fair to people who don’t share the same views,” Schuler said.
In addition to students, Green was concerned that drivers on Eola could have easily been affected and bothered by the graphic images. “It’s a public road, there are going to be a lot of little children driving through there too. You don’t want a four-year-old seeing that,” Green added.
Anonymous • Jan 8, 2016 at 9:54 am
Did anyone else notice that all of the protesters in the picture are men, yet the people who actually have to go through the pregnancy and a possible abortion are women??
Campbell berg • Dec 11, 2015 at 8:13 am
I think it’s just…. weird.
anonymous • Dec 8, 2015 at 8:09 pm
So anyone can have whatever their personal opinions and beliefs are, but if someone believes abortion is wrong, then they get judged and criticized for it?
Anonymous commenter • Dec 6, 2015 at 3:34 am
There are many girls at Metea that have had an abortion and seeing a sign first thing in the morning saying, “prosecute abortion, abortion is first degree murder” is not exactly welcoming. We don’t know whether a girl had been raped or has health issues where she cannot deliver a baby safely. This is why nobody is in a place to judge what a girl/women does with HER body. School is supposed to be a place where students feel safe and free of judgement and protesting here about such a sensitive topic is very inappropriate.
Zach • Dec 7, 2015 at 6:57 pm
So school must be a place where one is comfortable uh? Free of judgement, except where your criticizing these protesters and judging them. By the way I’m tired of rape being used as a acceptable time for abortion to be done. Despite the trauma of rape, getting an abortion because of that still makes one selfish.
anonymous • Dec 8, 2015 at 8:05 pm
^ So no one should judge what others personal beliefs are, but if people believe that abortion is wrong, then they should get judged and criticized for it?
anonymous • Dec 8, 2015 at 8:07 pm
^ So people can have their own personal opinions and beliefs, but if someone believes abortion is wrong, then they get judged and criticized for it?
Anonymous • Dec 18, 2015 at 12:41 pm
The amount of ignorance presented in you comment is disgusting. Abortion is a legal right and it is not selfish. The protestors set themselves up for judgement by protesting irrelevant crap on a public street. A student should never be judged on having control over her own body.
Libertarian • Dec 2, 2015 at 12:58 pm
lol who cares if they are protesting, Its their freedom to do that, yea they look stupid, but who seriously cares. Its them who’s out there standing in the cold.
Jack Heerhold • Dec 1, 2015 at 10:26 pm
First off, lets look at the facts of Planned Parenthood and abortion. Planned Parenthood is 100% not funded by the tax payers money. PP is a leading provider of high quality affordable health care for men, women, and adolescents. And only 3% of the work PP does is Abortions. Its not just abortions. And the cut off for a safe and legal abortion is 20 weeks. The fetus is only the size of a banana. There is a HUGE misconception that abortion is the murder of a person. “Personhood at conception is a religious belief, not a provable biological fact. Religious communities have differing ideas on the definition of “person” or when abortion is morally justified…” Said The Pro-Choice Action Network. There is no biological fact that human life beings at conception. That is just influenced on you of religious belief and philosophies you choice to carry. People have a right to have there own opinions but can we look at Planned Parenthood not as an abortion factory but as leading healthcare provider that offers affordable healthcare for everyone.
Killian • Dec 1, 2015 at 12:12 pm
It’s the parent’s choice if they want to abort, and I’m sure we’ve had the “birds and the bees” talk from our parents and have asked what to do if we don’t want a child. Plus, those images are graphic and disturbing for school grounds. If they wanted to “educate” us, then they should have signed up to visit health classes instead of “educating” everyone who happens to see.
Owen Pacheco • Dec 1, 2015 at 11:12 am
lemme guess… they’re voting for trump?
Denzel Brown • Dec 1, 2015 at 7:37 am
Know yourself know your worth
anonymous • Nov 30, 2015 at 3:22 pm
If they don’t want people to see those disturbing images, then how come they approve of innocent children ending up like that? If they support abortion, why does seeing it make them so angry?
anonymous's replier • Dec 3, 2015 at 9:37 am
Maybe “they” support abortion as a right, but don’t want something to happen to a pregnancy of their own. Maybe “they” do not support abortion, but those pictures and those reasons disturb them anyway. Perhaps “they” support everything about abortion, but just don’t like gore. It’d be the same if you supported colonoscopies to prevent colon cancer, but an opposing group didn’t, so they decided to show a graphic image of a colonoscopy to “educate” you about what colonoscopies do to people. Also, as a side note (I recommend you Google this whether you believe me or not) abortions are, statistically, have the same risk that a colonoscopy does–that is to say, a very low risk.
Kate • Nov 30, 2015 at 2:12 pm
I personally wasn’t at school that day (I was sick), but many other students saw this. As many know, this school has a Pre-School program, and I see parents with young children every day in the Freshman House, enrolling their son/daughter. Hundreds, if not thousands of people drive through the intersection every day, with people of all ages. Showing like this is just not good, especially on a public road. In my opinion, this is equivalent (in inappropriateness) to showing a cow’s heart in front of a daycare. These protesters decided to show such graphic images without hesitation.
I agree with the protesters that people should be educated about this, but instead, make ads online or at least take the pictures off the boards and go somewhere else.
Allison M • Nov 30, 2015 at 8:29 am
You guys act like we dont see photos like this in health class
anonymous • Nov 30, 2015 at 1:04 pm
^
Generic Commenter • Nov 27, 2015 at 9:39 am
Eh, they mean well. You’ll have to remember that they genuinely believe abortion is killing a baby. For them, the real tragedy is sitting by and letting people go uninformed about such a horrendous act.
If you knew that everyone was sick and you had a cure, you wouldn’t sit in your house and flip channels; your conscience just wouldn’t allow it. Now I’m NOT saying that I think they’re right (and I’m not saying I don’t think they’re right), but I’m saying you need to look at it from another point of view before bringing the hammer of judgement upon them
Am I saying that standing in front of a school with graphic pictures is the best way to convince teens that abortion is wrong? Nah. But we should try to walk a mile in their shoes before we antagonize them.
Other generic commenter • Nov 30, 2015 at 11:45 am
I’m a bit concerned that you can relate people that support abortion with people that are sick. Maybe you weren’t trying to make that connection but it definitely came out as such.
other other generic commenter • Dec 3, 2015 at 9:30 am
I think he meant that people who support abortion aren’t sick, but have the same perspective as someone who thought that a lot of people were sick. People who support abortion want to stop abortion because they think its bad, and the person who thought that everyone was sick with the hypothetical illness would want to stop that hypothetical illness, because it’s bad.
Anonymous commenter • Dec 6, 2015 at 3:19 am
The “graphic” pictures weren’t the problem in this situation. One of the signs implied that abortion is “first degree murder” and girls who do that should be prosecuted. The problem is that there are many young girls who had an abortion at Metea and seeing that sign is enotionally heartbreaking. Imagine being a pregnant 14-15 year old and being called a murderer because you chose to have an abortion. School is supposed to be a safe place that is free of judgement and what these people were protesting was crossing many ethical boundaries. They don’t know the situation in which a girl chooses to have an abortion: maybe she was raped or had a health condition. The point is, it isn’t anyone’s place to judge what a girl does with her body. Abortion is a legal right and is not a murderous choice.
Michael Young • Nov 25, 2015 at 9:26 pm
Those images are doctored and do not represent what the fetus actually looks like. Using deception does not provide a convincing arguement nor does pushing religious beliefs.
DiGiorgio • Nov 24, 2015 at 5:02 pm
I don’t think the article is liberally biased, as the article makes an attempt to tell both sides of the story with interviews from both parties. The article also uses a poll to gage audience reaction. In the short amount of time Metea Media had to write, edit and publish, it does a fair job of reporting the facts.
Zach • Nov 24, 2015 at 5:16 pm
Maybe you’re right about that, but , where was this other side in the article. One of my main problems was use of only a few negative opinions from some students to signify some kind of school wide opinion, but perhaps that was just due to a short time frame. Also, maybe this was due to my not actually seeing the protesters beyond this picture, but since when did the picture of a fetus become a shocking image according to one student.
Person Who Replies to Comments • Dec 3, 2015 at 9:27 am
The comments from the students weren’t necessarily negative against the protest itself. They were pointing flaws out in the protester’s tactics and how those flaws, not necessarily the protests themselves, were not helping Metea students. For example, when Mackenzie Green pointed out that the signs were “gross”, she also said that another method to learn about abortion may have been more acceptable. Also, the fetal pictures may not have disturbed a lot of people, but even if they disturbed only 10% of the school, that’s still a potential 400 people offended. Does this mean that they were entirely in the wrong? No. Does it mean that what they did was okay? Also no. I would also like to add that, in my personal opinion, that protesting abortion using Jesus Christ (and, I’d assume, Christianity in general) as a reason in a very diverse school was, like the article suggested, inappropriate.
Zach • Nov 24, 2015 at 4:52 pm
Of course the article had to be negative about the protests, the liberal bias shows again. Notice how all the student comments were against the protest, so much for the school being a place of diverse opinions.
Anonymous • Dec 15, 2015 at 1:25 pm
Is it a bias that 77% share the views against these protesters? I would be surprised if the article was conservative with the majority of students being liberal. It wouldn’t be a correct demonstration of what we stand for.