Purdue staff member calls pro-life students ‘vile, racist idiots’

Members of a Students for Life group at Purdue University are facing an aggressive backlash on campus for distributing pro-life flyers and chalking “all lives matter” on sidewalks.

The group, known as “Purdue Students for Life,” created flyers containing the slogan “hands up, don’t abort,” appropriating the rhetoric of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which regularly chants the phrase “hands up, don’t shoot” during protests in honor of Michael Brown, who allegedly had his hands up when he was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

“Black children are an endangered race,” the flyer also stated.

Purdue Students for Life told Campus Reform the purpose of the flyer was to show that Planned Parenthood clinics are disproportionately built in dominantly black neighborhoods.

“The goal of doing this is really to bring to light…how specifically the African-American community, minorities in general, are being targeted by Planned Parenthood and being exploited in the name of empowering women,” group member Kevin Lasher told The Indianapolis Star.

The flyer also listed a website called “TooManyAborted.com,” which was founded by Ryan Bomberger, an African-American pro-life advocate who coined the phrases listed on the group’s flyer. His company has been endorsed by Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, as well as former Planned Parenthood board member La Verne Tolbert.

“Abortion is a human tragedy no matter the race, but nowhere in America is it more prevalent than in the Black community, where nearly 40 percent of all pregnancies end in induced abortion. In order to cherish and protect the beautiful potential of human life, this powerful campaign exposes an industry that profits from deception and destruction,” Bomberger’s website states.

The message, however, was poorly received at Purdue, where many students are calling the pro-life demonstration an act of racism. The group’s Facebook page is now filled with aggressive comments from students and faculty at Purdue.

“Hypocritical delusional ignorant cunts. Drink bleach,” one person wrote on the group’s Facebook page.

In another post, the president of the pro-life club was called “human garbage” and encouraged to leave Purdue’s campus out of embarrassment.

“The club is run by an 18 year old white freshman. You can’t expect much. Maybe by the time she graduates she’ll have opened her tiny little brain,” one commenter observed.

“She’s either gonna be so embarrassed she has to move or continue to be this kind of human garbage,” another replied, suggesting it would be unsafe for the president of the club to remain on campus.

In another series of posts on the group’s page, Jamie Newman, an employee of the university who works in the Visual and Performing Arts Department, called members of the pro-life group “vile, racist idiots, who richly deserve all the opprobrium that will be heaped on [them] as a result of this unbelievably thoughtless, stupid escapade.”

“And that you should have pulled this stunt at the beginning of Black History Month suggests you are either epically clueless or profoundly malicious. So, which is is [sic] – embarrassingly dumb or simply evil?” Newman went on to write.

One commenter attempted to reply to Newman, explaining that Planned Parenthood’s tactics could potentially be considered genocidal or racist.

“Oh, bullshit. If you seriously think that black women voluntarily terminating their own pregnancies is evidence of genocide and racism, then you’re just an idiot who doesn’t understand the meaning of those terms,” Newman wrote in response, adding, “if you were the least bit oriented to reality, and not mired in the delusional swamp of your monomaniacal obsession with fetuses, you’d know this.”

Others have compared the pro-life group to both the KKK and ISIS. A graduate of Purdue, Joe Fowler, said the group deserves to be treated poorly and then proceeded to call members “hot garbage.”

Members of Purdue Students for Life told Campus Reform they find the comments disturbing and are concerned for their safety on campus. They did, however, say they will continue to stage pro-life demonstrations on campus throughout the month.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowski