At the entrance to Commons on the afternoon of May 8th, 2024, a pro-life advocate and pro-choice protesters were gathered to express their beliefs as students passed by. After the pro-life table was set up, several students decided to make signs and lead a counter demonstration.

Rachel Nesmitch, the pro-life advocate representing Students For Life, arrived at Salisbury University around 11 p.m. to begin tabling. Her main priorities were to discuss abortion extremism and gauge interest in re-starting an SU club.

“We used to have a students for life group on campus, and it fizzled out a few years ago because people graduated, and so we’re here today partially just to have a conversation with students about the reproductive freedom amendment that we’re going to be voting on in  November in Maryland.” she said.

Nesmitch experienced some backlash from students, including insults and a few visceral emotional responses. However, she noticed that students were predominantly neutral to her message.

“I want to have civil conversation and discord around a very divisive issue, and changing hearts and minds is always our end goal because we want abortion to be illegal [in] America, but particularly we want people, if they’re voting or haven’t considered what the reproductive amendment is about, to consider that before going to the polls as well.”

Ben O’Brien, an SU freshman majoring in Political Science, saw the signs at the table as he was leaving the Commons in the afternoon. He messaged friends and acquaintances to let them know, encouraging them to join him in a counter demonstration.

“With pro-life groups, they tend to use a lot of scare or shock value tactics within their messaging to get people to look at their stuff, and it was very clear that’s what was happening there,” he said. “I didn’t feel like it was promoting a healthy campus environment, so I texted a couple club group chats to see if anyone would be willing to join me in a counter-protest.”

“I really just wanted to make sure that their messages didn’t cause any students to walk away feeling unsafe or negativley affected, I think our campus should be a safe place for all students and I didn’t think them being here was upholding that value.”

O’Brien purchased posters at the SU bookstore and handed them out after meeting with three other students to design the posters with sharpie markers. By 12:30 p.m. the group had finished making the posters and went to stand in front of the pro-life billboards.

Over the course of two hours, several students came out to join the growing gathering that had formed at the Commons entrance. Members of the LGBTQ+ alliance club and FLARE club came to join the counter-protest.

“The fact that they were able to get a table here as non-SU students for a topic as visceral as anti-abortion seems like there was some sort of failure within the administration,” O’Brien. “I was happy to see the support of fellow students and surprised at the amount of people we were able to gather.”

Levi, an SU freshman majoring in Environmental Studies, had an insightful and nuanced conversation with Nesmitch, the pro-life advocate.

“So I personally am pro-choice and I’ve been meaning to engage with somebody whose pro-life for a long time, because I have thoughts about the opinion, and I have a lot of just general questions about the movement,” he said. “A lot of the people that I’ve engaged with on both sides of the argument are not willing to look at it with nuance and are not willing to be civil about it.”

“At this table I was able to find someone who was very well educated, very intelligent, and able to look at this from a civil and nuanced perspective, and I think it’s interesting talking about people with different ideological perspectives who are still able to reason it out and talk to in an equal manner.”

During the event, members of the pro-life and pro-choice groups remained respectful and cordial with one another. Tensions only arose when an outside agitator began to cause commotion with students who were counter demonstrating, though the situation was promptly handled by administration.

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Contributors: ALEXIS ALLEN, COLIN McEVERS

Featured image courtest of Alexis Allen