Although they did not always agree, about 45 students gathered Monday to debate the morality of abortion at a discussion hosted by the Women’s Resource Center and co-sponsored by BU Right to Life and Voices for Choice.
The discussion was organized to promote a true discourse surrounding the issue of choice and develop an understanding of pro-choice and pro-life viewpoints on abortion, Women’s Resource Center Events Coordinator Sarah Sullivan said.
VOX President Emily Partridge, a pro-choice panelist, and BURTL President Elise Kulik, a pro-life panelist, said getting information out to the public regarding the debate surrounding abortion was a large part of the discussion.
‘I think it was effective, not necessarily in either side swaying people, but in getting information out there and educating people and establishing that yes, there is some common ground,’ Kulik said.
Partridge said she agreed.
‘There are fundamental issues that are probably never going to be agreed upon between the two sides,’ Partridge said. ‘[But] there are things like education and having the correct information out there that the two sides can agree upon,’
When asked about the issue of funding for abortion clinics, pro-life representatives said they did not agree with their taxes going toward a resource they did not support.
In response, pro-choice representatives said funding should still be available to these clinics, otherwise low-income women would not have access to abortion options.
‘I do not support the war in Iraq, but our money goes to that right now,’ Women’s Resource Center Co-president, Liz Metzger, a pro-choice panelist, said. ‘I think that regardless of your stance on many things, you are going to run into issues when you do not agree with where the federal government is spending its money.’
Both sides said sexual education should include in-depth information on contraceptives, as well as abstinence.
Although pro-life representatives said emergency contraceptive and sexual health information should be available to the public, they did not necessarily condone its use.
‘Life begins at conception,’ Kulik said.
Kulik said pro-life advocates are against birth control, because it affects a woman’s natural ability to create a child.
Both parties strongly disagreed on when life begins. Partridge said a child only truly exists when it’s born, however she said pro-choice opinion is not uniform.
School of Management junior Floyd Anderson, a pro-life activist, said the beginning of life starts much earlier than a baby’s first breath out of the womb.
‘The exit of the vagina is just an arbitrary cut-off for me because it’s an on-going process the whole way through,’ Anderson said. ‘You are not just slapping on an arm and a leg, you are giving nutrients, and the nutrients are becoming a person.’
Floyd said the discussion was a waste of time because it failed to address when a human is a human. However, College of Arts Sciences junior Yekaterina Blinova said the discussion fairly represented both sides.
‘It is also an achievement. . . to have a discussion that is not imposing to either side,’ Blinova said.
However, Blinova said certain changes could have improved the event.
‘Definitely an hour and a half was not enough, and maybe BU should do this on a larger scale . . . not just the Women’s Center sponsoring it, but maybe a university-wide event,’ Blinova said.
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