By Hilary White
FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia, February 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On one snowy Wednesday this month, a student at the University of Mary Washington was manning a table giving out chocolate bars and a message unlike most seen that day at contemporary university campuses.
On St. Valentine’s Day at the small Fredericksburg, Virginia liberal arts college, a new student group, “Project Plus,” handed out bars of Hershey’s chocolate wrapped in an educational flyer that read, “True Love is worth more than Contraception.”
The other side of the wrapper/flyer read, “It makes sense that condoms are handed out today with nothing more than a tiny chocolate kiss. This reflects how little love you can express while using one. Using contraception tells your lover, ‘I don’t want to share every part of myself with you.’”
The student-led and originated campaign was a response to the annual nation-wide “condom and a kiss” campaign in which college campuses give away a Hershey’s Kiss chocolate and a condom and, in some cases, a “healthy hook-up” kit instructing students to practice “safe sex.” The group’s message and the full-sized chocolate bar emphasized that non-contraceptive sex offers “so much more.”
Although the school had shut down classes due to heavy snowfall, all 360 chocolate bars were handed out.
One of the project’s participants wrote on the weblog “No Room for Contraception,“‘The Great Chocolate Giveaway was a complete success! The Eagle’s Nest’ Cafe was buzzing with talk about contraception, and we had several people sign up for our (soon to come) newsletter, even people who didn’t agree with our message.”
In addition to the chocolate, Project Plus students put up posters and wrote articles in the student newspaper refuting the doctrine of sexual promiscuity and contraceptives and offering an alternative. Project Plus also operates a website and weblog providing more information and links to scientific articles.
The Project Plus weblog explains, “Too often our generation is told that this little pill or device is the ‘wonder pill’ to cure all ills. Advertisements, companies and even our physicians are stuffing the meds down our throats and most of us don’t think twice about just what it is we are putting into our bodies.”
The group’s interest is not limited to hormonal contraceptive and abortifacient drugs, but extends to the dangers of condom use with regards to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the effects of widespread contraceptive use on marriage.
The group’s efforts were met with the hostility commonly met at contemporary university campuses. “Our classmates who opposed us, did so violently and loudly. Nearly all of our posters were torn down within 24 hours of being put up!” For several weeks, the student newspaper carried editorials condemning the action, but with little direct refutation or discussion of the group’s assertions about the medical and psychological and social dangers of birth control.
While opposition continued and was vocal, the publicity garnered the interest of students at other universities who are expanding the project to the University of Kentucky, South Dakota State University and Virginia Polytechnic University.
“All of us feel that the widespread use of such a potent drug in so many women will have, and is already having, a drastic effect on our generation and our world,” reads the group’s online introduction.
Visit the Project Plus website:
https://www.theprojectplus.com/
and Weblog:
https://projectplus.blogspot.com/