January 29, 2015 (CardinalNewmanSociety.org) — The 16th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life, held last weekend by pro-life groups at Georgetown University, was met with protests from the unofficial student group H*yas for Choice, according to The Hoya. Students from the group reportedly gathered in Healy Circle holding signs and yelling chants for eight hours, criticizing the conference and its message which supported Catholic teaching on the dignity of human life.
“I think the conference is a slap in the face to a lot of Georgetown students, so while Georgetown can claim that it is a pro-life university solely based on the fact that it’s a Catholic university, so many of the speakers’ comments go so far beyond that,” said the student vice president of H*yas for Choice.
H*yas for Choice is not recognized by the University, but is permitted in designated free speech zones on campus. Unlike past events, the latest protest went uninterrupted by campus police and protestors reportedly yelled chants throughout the conference such as, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay—Cardinal O’Connor, go away” and “Pro-life, that’s a lie; you don’t care if women die.”
Student protestors complained that the panel “did not function as a debate” and only provided one side of the issue. “While we definitely disagree with everything being said in the conference, the reason why we are protesting and why we continue to express our opinions is because we believe that it is fundamentally unfair that H*yas for Choice is the only viewpoint that is consistently silenced,” the group’s student president said, according to the Hoya.
However, H*yas for Choice partnered with recognized Georgetown groups last year to put on its seventh annual “Choice Week.” Events in the week involved rallying with Planned Parenthood and welcoming visiting speakers from NARAL, the Religious Coalition for Choice, and the Great American Condom Campaign.
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H*yas for Choice has protested other events in the past, including a protest against last year’s Cardinal O’Connor Conference. Additionally, last September, the group staged a silent protest against Georgetown’s decision to award an honorary degree to Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, due to what the group considered to be “controversial opinions” regarding “LGBTQ people and women’s health.”
The Cardinal Newman Society reached out to H*yas for Choice for comment, but a representative of the group declined to speak about the protest.
Reprinted with permission from The Cardinal Newman Society.