Last Monday, Northwestern University Students for Life (NSFL) set up a powerful display to mark the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions. Here’s a sample of what it looked like: 
The NSFL members put up 3,700 American flags in memory of the 3,700 babies who are killed by abortion every day in the U. S. The flags were placed along a one-mile stretch of Sheridan Road, a major street that runs through the school’s Evanston, IL campus. Nikolia Rallis, one of the NSFL officers, contacted our office a few months ago about how to do a display like this. When she told me they wanted to set up that many flags, I said that it might be hard to deal with such a large number, and instead suggested that it might be easier to set up 370, and have some sort of sign that says “Each flag represents 10 babies…” I’m sure you can imagine, then, why I’m so amazed at their display. In an article in The Daily Northwestern, NSFL president Mike Breidenbach was quoted as saying:
(We wanted) to make sure that when people go to class, they stop and pause on Sheridan Road and think about the implication of 3,700 unborn children being aborted every day… It’s not just a distant headline that you see in a newspaper, but it affects people on a daily basis at NU and in the Evanston community. We think that the least we can do is raise awareness – hope that one sign, one flag can change one’s mind.
The article quoted another Northwestern student, Alex Jarrell, who was “disappointed” at the pro-life students’ use of American flags to commemorate the victims of abortion:
“They make anti-abortion seem more patriotic than pro-abortion,” he said.
Some people who didn’t like the display couldn’t resist the desire to vandalize it: several of the flags were broken, stepped on, or stolen. Our friend Mr. Jarrell’s words are worth repeating:
“They make anti-abortion seem more patriotic than pro-abortion,” he said.
Bingo. It reminds me of the treatment we got when we conducted a Face the Truth Tour at Northwestern three years ago. Nathaniel Zebrowski and Porsha Reed, two of the other officers in NSFL, also had a guest column (“Today, 3,700 More Abortions Across Americaâ€) in last Monday’s Daily Northwestern. Check it out here.
