Ripon College Days

"They Don't Have a Choice, So We Won't Have a Voice."

That was the message carried by the dark blue and green shirts worn by many Ripon College students Monday, Feb. 13. In the preceding weeks, I sat at the entrance to the commons with other volunteers to sign up our classmates to wear those shirts, and on the 13th, I wore one myself as part of Ripon College Right to Life's Day of Silence.

The idea behind the Day of Silence is simple enough. Those who accept the legality and legitimacy of abortion argue that it is a matter of choice; namely, the woman's. To that, those of us who are pro-life say that the 46 million babies who have been aborted since Roe v. Wade were never given a choice. If you consider it, it is a fairly neutral message, if it is possible to be neutral on the hot-button issue of abortion. The shirts don't make any explicit comment on government policy or any kind of judgment call. All they say is that in an abortion, no choice is given to the child growing inside the mother's womb. In memory of those silent victims of abortion, we chose to surrender our voices for a day and be silent ourselves.

That being said, it is hard to weigh in on the abortion issue in America without stirring up controversy. By wearing the shirt and surrendering your voice, you are making a powerful statement that is certain to be unpopular with some of your classmates. At times it is possible to feel like you are wearing large bull's eyes on your front and back. You can walk into a room where you are the only person in a Day of Silence shirt and wonder whether those around you actually support you, think you are foolish or misguided, resent you or simply don't care one way or another. On the other hand, every time you spot someone else who is wearing the shirt, it encourages you that others have made the same commitment to a cause you believe is right and that you aren't alone.

Then there is the matter of staying silent. Not being a very talkative person and already having the 2005 Day of Silence under my belt, it did not seem like too big a sacrifice for me. In fact, I couldn't help but wonder if most of my classmates might feel I was doing everyone a favor by going through the day without talking. Still, there is that awkward feeling because you consciously know you are not supposed to speak, like having your hands full and all of a sudden realizing you have to scratch your nose. For me, the trickiest part of the Day of Silence was showing people everyday courtesy. What do you do when someone holds a door for you or greets you and they don't catch your reaction? When I got my usual "Hello" from one of our cleaning ladies, I made a point of making sure she saw me smile and wave back. Then she wanted to know if I had a sore throat, so I indicated the message on the front and back of my shirt. If anything, being silent for a day will make you admire (or envy) those who have mastered sign language.

On the whole, there was not much of a backlash to the Day of Silence. Overall, I'd say the vast majority of Ripon College students respect free expression and sincerely-held beliefs and that this was borne out on the 13th. It struck a little close to home when my roommate informed me Sunday night that, because he was so opposed to what I was doing, "I will not be speaking to you tomorrow; I will ignore you. You will essentially not exist tomorrow." I was a bit taken aback by that, but in the big scheme of things, people have been subjected to much worse for acting on their convictions than simply being ignored. Besides, the beauty of the Day of Silence is that you can't be silenced if you have already surrendered your voice.

Ultimately, the Day of Silence isn't about the shirts or not talking for the day; it's about remembering the victims of abortion. What struck me most was how much I have learned since last year's Day of Silence, thanks in large part to Ripon College Right to Life. My stance on abortion was always a no-brainer for me; as both a Catholic and a social and political conservative, it would be harder to explain if I wasn't pro-life. I've never had a problem accepting that life begins at conception and that "choice" doesn't preclude the baby's right to live. Since becoming part of Ripon's pro-life movement, I've learned things like the fact that a child in the womb can feel pain at just 20 weeks' development (even something as slight as a hair drawn across the palm), facts that have helped me understand better than ever why I believe what I believe.

Perhaps now you have some idea of what I was thinking that day, even though I was silent.

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