What We Witnessed on The NKU Campus

Recently, I and my eldest son and daughter traveled to Nothern Kentucky University to serve with the Center For Bio-Ethical Reform to persuade students about the evils of abortion. Our strategy is to use graphic images of historical genocides and the arguments used to justify them and place them alongside vivid pictures of abortions and their corresponding justifications. This tactic is effective and explosive, as you can imagine. Here are a few of our interactions from our day on campus.

Google Search Confusion

Parading in front of our Genocide Awareness Display on the campus of Northern Kentucky University was an effeminate man with long, bleached blonde hair. He was clearly confused about his sexual identity, but he was also confused about the usefulness of the Google search engine. He would not engage with us about our display, which graphically demonstrates that abortion is another form of genocide. We tried to talk with him several times, but he wouldn't let us finish a single sentence. As other students walked by, he would say, "Donate to Planned Parenthood because they are doing a lot more than these people," as he gestured at our display. While his antics were actually helping us by drawing the student's attention to our pictures, his conceit and arrogance were getting on my nerves. I tried to provoke him into a dialogue. "So, you support Planned Parenthood so that they can do more of this?" I said as I pointed at the pictures. He replied with as much feminine sass as he could muster, "Did you do your own research? Or did somebody else do it for you?" And without waiting for my reply, he added, "No, you didn't do your own research." Then he pointed at my two children who were with me and said, "Do your own research on Google kids..." A moment later, another student walked by, and he once again told them to donate to Planned Parenthood. I reminded him that Planned Parenthood produces our pictures (meaning that our photographs would not exist without abortions.) He turned around and said, "Those pictures are fake! You can find them on Google stock images!" "So," I said, "You can't trust Google after all?!"

A Denial That Pointed to the Truth

A heavy-set, young white male student stood a few feet away from our display. With his bleached hair combed to one side of his face, he gave an audible breath of incredulous-ness as he stared at the photos. "What do you think of these pictures?" I asked him. "You don't want to know what I think." He said. "Why not?" I replied. He suggested something to the effect that he didn't want to have a public argument, but then he said, "Well, first off, these pictures aren't real. You got them off the internet. No parent or doctor would allow pictures of their abortions!" Once again, I asked, "Why not? We take pictures of livers and various organs for educational purposes. Why wouldn't we take a picture of abortion for educational purposes? And why would we bother to spend money, time, and energy to create fake photos of a medical procedure we randomly chose to oppose? That is not logical." The student then looked at his phone and excused himself to his class with one final statement over his shoulder, "You can't compare abortion to Hitler!" As he walked away, it dawned on me that this student's denial of the authenticity of our pictures is an admission of the evil they portray. To admit the images are authentic is to lose the argument. A picture paints a thousand words. Look at the images of the Holocaust and look a the photos of abortions, and they tell the same story.

An Unthinking Christian and an Unfinished Debate

A young white man in a black leather jacket walked by our graphic display of abortion imagery. Naturally, he looked disturbed and a bit angry. I noticed the large cross necklace he was wearing, so I said, "Are you a Christian?" "Yes," he answered, still a bit perturbed. "But I don't agree with this..." he said as he gestured toward our images, "You guys are preaching hate." "Really?" I said, "What here is hateful?" At this point, I think the young man realized that he hadn't really looked at our signs yet. "I'm sorry, he said; maybe I am assuming that you guys are with another group that has been on campus." "I am pro-life," he said, "but who am I to tell other people what they can and can't do?" "Would you have a problem with my decision to kill that man over there?" I asked and pointed to another man on campus. He shrugged his shoulders and said (a bit sheepishly), "no." I responded, "I thought you said that you are a Christian? Doesn't the Bible say 'Thou Shalt Not Kill?'" "Yes," he retorted but doesn't it also say that you should stone a person for mixing two different kinds of cloth?" "Yes," I hesitantly replied, unsure of the precise accuracy of that statement. "So, you can't cherry-pick what you discard and what you don't." He pressed. I think he then realized that he was sawing off the branch he claimed to sit on as a Christian. We talked a little bit further, and then he excused himself to go to a class. We never concluded our conversation.

Was it productive to talk to this young man even though I didn't "get anywhere" with him? Yes, absolutely. The longer we talk with students, the more they have to think logically about the subject of abortion. And the more a person thinks logically about the subject of abortion, the more undeniable its evil nature will be.

Missed Opportunities

Unlike many campuses we have been on, the Northern Kentucky University assigned teachers and faculty members to watch the students and us and ensure nobody got out of hand. I appreciate that gesture of goodwill, but I am not naive about some of the faculty members' attitudes toward us and our display.

One faculty member was not for us and our message. I overheard her tell a student, "Just let them do their ridiculous display..." I thought, "I should go talk to her," but I never did. Later, she was relieved by another faculty member. This second teacher or facilitator was a tall black man with a smile that I couldn't quite figure out. He wasn't hostile, but I didn't think he was friendly either. As the day was getting on, I went over and talked to him. I asked him about his role on the campus, and when I found out that he had a Master's degree in "Educational foundations and systems" or something like that, I asked him what he thought about Critical Race Theory. Not surprisingly, he told me that he taught CRT and believed that having "uncomfortable conversations" about race, culture, etc., were necessary.

I don't know why my mind wasn't sharp enough at this point of the day. Maybe I was tired and lazy at the end of the day, or I was just eager to appear friendly and conversational as a white guy initiating this conversation with a black man, but I missed a golden opportunity. I should have asked this man what he thought of our signs and if he considered the subject of abortion to be one of those "uncomfortable conversations" that we need to have? I also wish that I had asked him if he knew the outright racist origins of Planned Parenthood through the white supremacist founder, Margret Sanger. I regret these missed opportunities. Thankfully, as long as the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform continues to host these Genocide Awareness Projects, there will be more opportunities in the days ahead. And there is nothing to stop me from talking to my neighbor about the truth of abortion, life, death, and all the big questions of life. There are opportunities everywhere!