Another student abortion activist tried to destroy a college pro-life display Wednesday in Washington state.
Washington State University Students for Life set up the display this week to raise awareness about the number of babies killed in abortions every day, the Daily Evergreen student newspaper reports. The “Cemetery of the Innocents” display included 300 pink crosses, each representing the lives of 10 babies who are aborted every day in the United States.
On Wednesday, a pro-abortion student tore the crosses out of the ground twice and later admitted to his actions, according to the report.
Student Keaton Aspell told the newspaper that he felt disgusted when he walked out of class on Wednesday and saw the pro-life display. He said he pulled out the crosses and threw away the display signs, and then posted about it on social media.
Pro-life students set up the display again, but Aspell later came back, according to the report. When Aspell began tearing down the display again, the pro-life students called the campus police, the report states.
One of the pro-life students took a video of the incident. Watch it here:
WSU student @keaton_EH caught on camera destroying a pro-life demonstration today on campus. His name is Keaton Aspell. @WSUPOLICE pic.twitter.com/cn4akkedlk
— James Allsup (@realJamesAllsup) April 13, 2017
Nicole Manzione, a pro-life club member, told the newspaper that she tried talking with Aspell, but he would not stop.
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“We tried to have a good conversation with him, calm and civil, and he just kept taking them down no matter what we said,” Manzione said.
Aspell said the display was disgusting and divisive, and a lot of people supported his actions on social media.
“… they are just pushing their religious agenda and it really made me angry,” he said of the pro-life students.
Trisha Mallett, the WSU Students for Life club president, said the display was not religious and their club is not either. The crosses were chosen to look like a cemetery, she told the newspaper.
The report does not indicate if the police or college are investigating the matter. College administrators said the pro-life club had their permission to set up the display.
Katie Lodjic, Northwest Regional Coordinator for Students for Life of America, said the goal of the display was to help educate students with the hope of sparing some from the pain of abortion.
“Hosting displays like a cemetery of the innocents is used as a tool to create dialogue on campus and bring awareness to the thousands of innocent human lives that are lost every day due to abortion,” Lodjic told LifeNews. “We need more displays like this on campuses so that women can learn about the reality of abortion, before making the abortion decision.”
Lodjic said the WSU pro-life club has been doing a lot to support pregnant and parenting students on campus, too, by hosting diaper drives and collecting baby items for local families.
College campuses seem to be becoming increasingly hostile toward pro-life individuals. 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.
Last week, a similar incident occurred at Texas State University when a student was caught on video vandalizing a pro-life display. Student Ian Ramos later admitted that he punched and kicked down the pro-life signs and yelled profanities at an older pro-lifer who was standing there.
Ramos defended his actions in an interview with The Tab: “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. … I am a tolerant person and I believe in tolerance, but I don’t have to be tolerant to bigots.”
Texas State officials said they are investigating the incident as a matter of criminal mischief.
In March, a pro-life student display at the University of Colorado at Boulder also was vandalized.
Also 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.
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.
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.
