Activism would benefit Poets

Issue 17, letter to the editor, Mark Hardie, opinion, pro-life, Opinion - By on Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 04:41

Let us imagine a college of listless nothingness.

Imagine all of the students of Whitter College standing motionless on campus in dead silence. Now, imagine Whittier College professors and staff members standing silently in their offices with their mouths forcibly taped shut—neither moving nor speaking. Imagine the entire college campus as a bastion of silent indifference. Imagine a college in which ideas are no longer freely exchanged, in which lessons are no longer learned, and in which the numbing status quo is no longer challenged by inquisitive and curious minds.

Unfortunately, a pervasive cloud of silence and inaction currently permeates the liberal arts campus of Whittier College on the important issue of life.

Less than one mile from the college, on Greenleaf Avenue, there is a clinic that provides abortion services. The clinic is operated by Planned Parenthood. Each morning, a faithful group of people pray in front of the building holding signs supporting the pro-life movement. However, no one from Whittier College is present at the daily prayer and protest vigils; not one student, not one professor, not one staff member. Does the college community care about the right to life?

This begs the question as to why the Whittier College community has remained silent on the issue of abortion. With a Planned Parenthood clinic so close to the campus, one would expect both pro-life and pro-choice students to make their voices heard on this sharply divisive issue. In a college that was founded in 1887 to promote the free exchange of ideas, one would expect students to rise up on both sides of the hotly debated abortion issue.

Instead of a well-reasoned debate on the issue of abortion, we are met with an unrelenting and pervasive silence. The student newspaper, Quaker Campus, has not interviewed members of the prayer and protest group praying in front of the abortion clinic. There has been no protest of the presence of an abortion clinic situated so close to a college campus. No one has questioned whether the location of this clinic is detrimental to the mission and goals of a Quaker-founded liberal arts college. While college students prepare for exams, the life of unborn children hangs in the balance.

As a resident of Whittier and a supporter of the free exchange of ideas, I would like to issue forth a clarion call to action for college students, professors, and staff on the issue of abortion. Each day, there is a vigorous debate raging within a stone’s throw of the college. At issue is the fundamental questions of where life begins and how might our nation’s laws be altered protect the rights of unborn children.

This debate is too important to the values of our society for the college community to remain silent. The right to life is a basic human right that touches all of humanity; rich and poor, black, brown and white, believer and atheist, educated and uneducated. Engaging in this debate will enrich and ennoble each of us as we protect the sanctity of human life.

I humbly challenge the community of Whittier College to join us on weekday mornings in front of Planned Parenthood. Let voices of the college community be heard on the issue of abortion. At the heart of the debate, lies the life of unborn children.

Mark Hardie, a resident of Whittier, earned a BA from UC Riverside and a law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law.