Speech and video at club meeting declared offensive by protesters

By DENISE RENFROW (journalism major), DEVA GATICA (psychology major) and CODY SHAW (music major)

Guest Writers

GUEST COLUMN

On Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2001, well known anti-choice activist Paul deParrie spoke in Room 1001 from noon to 1p.m. here at Mt. Hood Community College. Paul deParrie is a notorious anti-abortion activist with a lengthy criminal record, including everything from trespassing and contempt of court to stalking. Posters placed around Mt. Hood Community College were vague about the origin of or purpose for deParrie’s visit, and were mysteriously removed two days before the scheduled event.

Members of the Pride Students’ Alliance and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, within 24 hours, organized a peaceful protest including 20 students and faculty holding and wearing signs of protest.

The event began with a brief video showing horrific footage of aborted fetuses in various settings such as garbage cans and lying in pools of uterine waste with tiny limbs being pulled apart and displayed by nameless persons. There was also a claim that if we, the viewers, find the video so unpalatable then we should not allow the events depicted to go on in this country. The video was blatant propaganda with footage of unknown origin showing graphic things such as the developed eyeball of a fetus sliding around in a pool of medical waste and primarily third trimester abortion remains. The video failed to mention that 0.04% of surgical abortions are third trimester (Planned Parenthood).

deParrie’s accusation is that the Church and Christians are to blame for the continuation of legal abortions. In Internet articles deParrie calls clinics that perform abortions “abortuaries” and “mills” citing the “abortion industry” as being hand in hand with the Church. deParrie shared a convoluted story about cornhusks falling for three days from the skies in Wichita, Kansas after some intense prayer sessions by himself and others in many states.

Among the things mentioned were secular humanism and President George W. Bush’s tolerance for “Cutting up little babies and making them into medicine for adults,” referring to stem cell research. Echoing the Reverend Jerry Falwell’s infamous statements concerning the unspeakable terrorists acts on the American people deParrie blatantly spoke of the “coincidence” of the 9-11 attacks on America having happened only three days after President Bush made his statement in support of stem cell research.

The whole session was a call-to-arms for apathetic Christians to get up and do something about the continued practice of legal abortion. It was no mystery to us that after making such statements, deParrie spoke about the terrible attitude of the Church and their intolerance of his radical anti-abortion tactics.

Ezekiel chapter 9 was read out of a King James Bible to reinforce the “dangers” of remaining tolerant and inactive towards the crimes of humanity being committed as “4,000 babies are murdered every day.” The passage that was read actually depicts the slaughter of idolaters brought on by the vengeance of the Old Testament God.

A wild looking Paul deParrie pranced around the room with strong convictions and harsh words. He did, however, attempt to ignore the protesters who sat quietly and intently wearing pro-choice signs and labels. After offering to answer questions deParrie remained in the room for only a minute and then vanished as enigmatically as the cornhusks fell from the Wichita sky. This left both Pro-Life and Pro

Choice attendees wishing the presentation had offered a forum for debate. Though deParrie’s message was riddled with ignorant rantings, he managed to motivate student organizations to find peaceful solutions by beginning to coordinate a debate forum.