SFLA’s sidewalk chalk messaging was destroyed by staff members at the University of New Mexico (UNM) on October 8. A Facebook video shows the staff members pouring buckets of water on the chalk before sweeping it away.
University of New Mexico Staff Vandalize Pro-Life Students' Chalking
BREAKING NEWS: Pro-life students' chalking at the University of New Mexico was vandalized by campus staff! More details to come soon.
Posted by Students for Life of America on Thursday, October 8, 2020
The students chalked life-affirming messages such as “UNM deserves better than Abortion” and “You don’t need Abortion. UNM SFL can Help” outside the Student Health and Counseling Center (SHAC), a campus medical center that does abortion referrals. Soon, three staff members from the center silently approached them carrying brooms and buckets of water and began wiping out the chalk.
“We’re out here and people are removing our chalk encouraging women that they do not need abortion, they deserve better than abortion,” a student recording the incident says. “We have every legal right to be here and they are going against it.”
The staffers respond saying “this is SHAC, this is a health center” to which the students reiterated that they had a permit to chalk there and that the space was public property. A staff member smiled and waved to a student’s camera while continuing to pour water over the messages. They continued until they erased all of the messages within the portico outside the center.
As a public school, UNM is supposed to remain viewpoint neutral. These students had every right to be there, even complying with the process of obtaining a permit. This recent attack reflects on UNM’s intolerance of pro-life views.
Meanwhile, they actively promote abortion by running a “Center for Reproductive Health” advertising abortion up until 23 weeks of pregnancy on its website. Labeled under “Pregnancy Options Counseling” the center calls abortion “services” part of “comprehensive reproductive health care” and offers medical abortions through 10 weeks, and surgical abortions through 23 weeks, adding that they include “terminations for genetic indications.” The university also has promoted abortionists as heroes through placing a “Heroes Work Here” banner outside the facility.
Students shouldn’t be inundated with pro-abortion views at a university that accepts American tax dollars. Nevertheless, it’s become commonplace for pro-life views to be silenced while the university does nothing or encourages attacks on pro-life demonstrations. In this case, our tax dollars were used to silence peaceful pro-life students’ freedom of speech while paying the salaries of school-employed abortionists.
