Freedom of decency

One of the first things we associate with America is freedom of speech.
Always a blessing but often a curse, the limits of the freedom of speech are tested on a daily basis, from everyday American households to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Frequently, legal rulings designed to limit free speech are founded on a common-sense approach to defending decency.

The dispute currently raging about a graphic anti-abortion display at Florida Gulf Coast University is no exception.

On Feb. 11, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, an anti-abortion organization with a reputation for extreme methods, put up a display in the middle of FGCU’s campus featuring shockingly violent and disturbing images and associations.

The exhibit, entitled “The Genocide Awareness Project,” included photos of late-term abortions and deceased fetuses.

Although those images were turning heads and stomachs, most students took the most offense to the comparison of abortion to the Holocaust or violence toward Native
Americans  in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It’s difficult to select a starting point in mourning the ironically violent, graphic nature of anti-abortion protests, so let’s start with the Holocaust and “Trail of Tears” analogy .
The decision to terminate a pregnancy, especially when it threatens the life of the mother or was conceived violently, has absolutely nothing in common with the horrific mass genocide of entire races.

Of all the associations manipulated by anti-abortion protestors, invoking historical tragedies to demonize women who have had abortions by comparing them to the perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity is the most despicable I’ve seen.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform has a right to enter a public university campus and express its opinions. But, like the Westboro Baptist Church and other groups who employ graphic images and malicious slogans in an attempt to offend passersby into changing their minds, the students of FGCU have every right to tell them “Enough is enough.”

It wasn’t long before speaker Judy Minahan’s presentation devolved into a one-sided shouting match with the enraged students, and a petition was circulated to limit the content they could display on campus.

I find it incredibly generous that the petition doesn’t call for the CBER’s total removal
from campus. They simply ask that the disturbing images be turned inward — toward the main campus green and away from the sidewalks — and that speakers not use
microphones.

This will allow students a choice — they can walk through the exhibit and approach the presenters if they like, but those who don’t won’t be bombarded by the images and messages on their way to class.

I applaud the students of FGCU for taking an active role in controlling what they choose to hear and see without limiting the rights of fear-mongers whose tactics deserve to be nixed.

In addition to the rights enumerated in our founding documents, an understood right resides — freedom of decency. FGCU has embodied the beauty of free speech in America by countering vulgar rhetoric with decorum and democracy.

May the rest of the nation follow suit.

­— sbkiseel@indiana.edu