Abortion Activist Defends Destroying Pro-Life Signs: “I Was Engaging My Rage”

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Apr 7, 2017   |   11:25AM   |   Austin, Texas

A Texas State University student caught on video destroying a pro-life display defended his behavior Thursday and said he hopes he “inspires” others.

On Monday, a video posted online by a “progressive” student named Emma Brockway showed a student punching and kicking down pro-life signs and screaming profanities at an older pro-lifer on campus, Campus Reform reported.

Ian Ramos admitted to the violence on Thursday. A history and government student who is studying “nonviolent social resistance,” Ramos said he is tired of putting up with the pro-lifers on campus.

Ramos told The Tab: “I engaged my rage, and maybe it wasn’t the most constructive way to do it, but I’m sick and tired of being subjected to this ignorance. These anti-abortion activists come onto our campus every semester using their distorted imagery of aborted fetuses to try to shock us into being pro-life? They try and provoke us emotionally and what do they expect?”

The video on Monday showed the young man removing his backpack and putting down a bouquet of flowers before he began destroying the pro-life display signs set up by Created Equal.

“Get the f— out of here with this b—!” he screamed at an older pro-lifer. “This is f— b—! Get this s— out of here!”

On Thursday, Ramos said he would not hesitate to do the same thing again, and he hopes his actions inspire others. He also described himself as a reasonable, intellectual person.

“So yeah, I hope I was able to inspire a few of you all out there. I don’t know – speak up, wake up. Engage the opposition,” he said. “… I am a tolerant person and I believe in tolerance, but I don’t have to be tolerant to bigots.”

He told The Daily Caller that he “kind of” regrets his anger, and the pro-life group had a right to display its signs.

“But I think we’re living in a really critical time right now and it’s our job as intellectual beings to engage with things that are wrong,” he said. “… [The pro-lifer is] a provocateur; he’s trying to arouse emotionally and then from there he wants to start some sort of intellectual discussion that’s going to bring us over to his side.”

Ramos also told The Tab that he “didn’t really want” to engage in a constructive dialogue with the pro-lifers. He said abortion is a settled “human right” and should not be up for discussion.

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“At the end of the day, I think it’s not a conversation that we really need to be engaging in.”

Some students and campus groups supported the violence.

“I was shocked, but I have to admit I admire him in some ways because I think he did what we were all wanting to do,” Brockway said earlier this week. “I am a supporter of free speech, but again, I think everyone was secretly wanting to do what he did.”

The Pan African Action Committee, a official campus group, also applauded the violence on social media with raised fist emojis.

One of the few student leaders who openly denounced the violence was Colton Duncan, the student body vice president.

“It is very unfortunate to see radicalism, in whatever form it may come, whether it’s disgustingly racist flyers posted on campus, radical speakers funded and sponsored by the University, or the vandalization of property,” Duncan told Campus Reform.

University officials said they are investigating the incident as a matter of criminal mischief.

College campuses seem to be becoming increasingly hostile toward pro-lifers. Pro-life displays frequently are vandalized, and pro-life student clubs sometimes are denied official status or funding. In some cases, liberals and abortion activists have praised the violence.

In March, a pro-life student display at the University of Colorado at Boulder also was vandalized.

Last October, pro-abortion feminists vandalized another student pro-life display at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, LifeNews reported. The university’s student Democrats club later praised the feminists’ actions.

In March, a pro-life student club sought legal help after Kutztown University officials in Pennsylvania scrubbed their chalked pro-life messages from the campus sidewalks. The college permitted other groups to write chalk messages on the sidewalk.

And in January, pro-life students filed a lawsuit against Queens College in New York after it denied their Students for Life club official recognition.

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