Ripon College Days

When I woke up earlier this week, the last thing I was expecting was to have my eyes attacked by the ground upon which I was walking. As I quickly rushed to my anthropology class, the last thing on my mind was the reproductive choices of women. I was shocked when I got outside and saw the somewhat ineloquently worded reasons for why abortion is "mean."

While I do believe in freedom of speech and am willing to fight 'til the end for it, I will say that this was tactless on many levels. I personally think it is fine to hand out pamphlets and even talk to people about the tough issues facing America, but forcing one opinion in the sights of people as they are scuttling to class is a complete disregard for personal choice. If one is handing out pamphlets people can choose to say no. I, for one, was not given the choice to just ignore the sidewalk comments.

I would have been fine with the sidewalk chalkings if they had been sponsored by a group and the group had gone through the proper channels. However, since the chalking happened in the dead of night, it shows some form of realization from the author that this may not be the most appropriate of choices to be making.

The one thing that I do want to stress is that, as a student body, we have no right to bash the author of these comments behind their back. In the last week I have heard more mean comments about the author then I would ever care to share. Yes, he expressed himself in a rather colorful way, but at the same time what gives us the right to go behind his back and talk smack? If you felt angry or betrayed about it, then why don't you do something about it and actually talk about why this was so startling and offensive?

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