(Detra Bell / Fourth Estate)
Ohio organization “Created Equal” hold protest with graphic images of aborted fetuses next to Southside Dining Hall
BY BARRETT BALZER, NEWS EDITOR; DETRA BELL, SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR; KATIE PERSCHAU, CULTURE EDITOR
Graphic images depicting aborted fetuses were presented on a video screen next to Mason’s Southside Dining Hall for several hours last Tuesday, Oct. 7. The organization responsible, “Created Equal,” is run by the organization’s president and founder, Mark Harrington and has a history of “campus outreach, overpass protests, jumbotron TV” and more, according to their website.
“If, at the end of my life, I do not see a long line of youth apologists I have equipped behind me, I will have failed,” wrote Harrington in the website’s ‘about us’ tab.
He was one of several protestors on campus Tuesday. Wilkins Plaza is a common ground for both demonstrations and protests.
“Social reformers will always use images of injustice to make their point, right? I mean, you can’t understand justice without seeing the victims,” Harrington said to Fourth Estate when asked about the graphic images.
Many students had a negative reaction to the sight. Mason junior Armin Yazdani said they were “rather repulsed” by the images.
“I don’t know why they’re allowed to display these graphic violence things on a screen for the whole school to see. They kind of just [put] it on blast, and I think it’s really unfair to a lot of women that might have trauma from this as well,” Yazdani said.
Mason senior Andrew Goff said “I mean, they have a right to be here and I support the right to be here and I support the first amendment or whatever, but it’s just like putting a video of surgery in front of a McDonald’s or something.”
Mason sophomore Nana Danso expressed confusion.
“Genuinely, I am confused. This is, like, the same as if you display someone having a kidney transplant.”
Created Equal, located in Ohio, stopped at Mason in what is the second stop of their Virginia tour. The organization has future plans to stop at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia and James Madison University.
