This past Wednesday, Bobcats for Life and Created Equal held a peaceful pro-life demonstration. The goal was to open up the conversation about abortion. I expected that at an institution dedicated to higher education, there would be a lot of mature dialogues. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Within my few years of pro-life activism, I have never seen such crudeness, vulgarity and hatefulness. You’d think I would feel that after all of the hate that we got that I’d feel that Wednesday was a defeat. I don’t one bit.

There were people at this event who were on the fence about the abortion issue. That may have been the first time they had to even think about where they stood on abortion. They saw both sides here, which I’m grateful for. They saw the pro-life side, which was trying to have an open discussion and was very respectful. They also got to see the pro-choice side, which was screaming insults, telling me that my mother should have killed me and blocking intellectual dialogue. Those uncivil people will be the what those on the fence think about when they think of the pro-choice movement.