WE’RE NOT SHAMING! Respect for Life fires back at SAGE RAGE

The pro-life and pro-choice groups are battling it out.

SAGES, a rogue student coalition that started at Rose Hill last semester to fight for sex and gender equality on campus, says it will protest Respect for Life‘s annual “Memorial of the Innocents” demonstration.

The demonstration — which consists of 2,900 small white flags posted on the McGinley Center Lawn, representing the 2,900 abortions that are performed in the United States every day — will be held April 28 and 29.

SAGES “will be standing in solidarity with students who have experienced abortion against the disrespectful ‘baby graveyard’ that happens on McGinley lawn every year,” according to an email sent by the group to student volunteers. (Organizers have advertised an incorrect date for the demonstration.)

SAGES said it will flyer and do a banner drop, advocating birth control. It is unclear whether their protest plans have been approved by administrators.

But Respect for Life — a longtime club at Fordham, devoted to respecting human life from conception until death — told Fordham Daily it does not have an official stance on birth control, as beliefs vary among members of the club.

“The event is not at all designed to shame women who have had abortions in the past, but to spark dialogue and express solidarity with both victims of abortion — the pre-born victims — and the women who must bear the trauma of abortion and need healing,” the group said in a statement.

In fact, Respect for Life said Fordham should do a better job of helping students who become pregnant.

“We hope that women in the Fordham community might eventually receive better support and not feel pressured by grossly unfair circumstances to choose abortion.”

Ultimately, Respect for Life said the purpose of the annual demonstration is to speak on behalf of those who cannot.

“The pre-born cannot protest, vote, or say anything at all, and so we are compelled by our sense of justice and human solidarity to advocate on their behalf.”

“We want our advocacy to as sensitive as possible to our fellow students.”

SAGES raised eyebrows last semester by distributing birth control in secret and tangling with Christopher Rodgers, dean of students at Rose Hill, on social media.