A Catholic university in Kansas canceled a campus event with a pro-abortion judge this week after pro-lifers launched an online protest, the Wichita Eagle reports.
Recently, Newman University’s history club invited Kansas Supreme Court Justice Carol Beier to speak and answer questions as part of a larger Constitution Day event on campus, according to the report. Beier was asked to talk about her role as a judge, the state constitution, the judicial system and law school, not abortion; however, her public role and her rulings on the court have been highly influential in abortion cases in Kansas.
In 2010, Kansasans for Life described Beier this way: “The abortion industry has no better ally than Justice Beier …” She sided with the abortion giant Planned Parenthood in three separate rulings, insuring that “abortion businesses remain above investigation and prosecution,” the state pro-life group wrote.
Pro-lifers who learned about the university’s invitation to Beier launched a social media in protest, saying her rulings on abortion went against Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life. The university responded this week by canceling the talk, according to the local report.
Kimberly Long, vice president and provost at the university, said they canceled because they were worried about Beier’s safety. She said some of the messages she received from protesters concerned her.
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“There were no specific threats of violence, but … I found some of the things being said were quite unsettling,” Long said. “I decided it was in the best interests of good operations of the university to cancel the event.
“We worried about safety of students, and about perhaps having a guest on campus not be treated right. I hope that our civic discourse here would be respectful to all persons in the future. I felt the behaviors in some of the messages to me were not respectful,” she continued.
Pro-lifers posted several messages on the university’s Facebook page, asking that the event be canceled.
“Such a shame that a professed Catholic university is hosting such a controversial public official who firmly avows that the right to abort a child – the 3rd trimester of all times – should be legal,” Christi Hoskins Weber wrote.
“Absolutely disgusted that my alma mater, Newman University, is hosting pro-abortion Kansas Supreme Court Justice Carol Beier to speak this Friday on campus for Constitution Day,” another person who identified as a former Newman student wrote.
The university provost declined to share the content of the “unsettling” messages she received with the local newspaper.
Some Catholic universities have been straying from their religious teachings about the sanctity of human life by inviting and honoring pro-abortion activists. The University of Notre Dame recently faced criticism for honoring pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden with one of its top awards.
