The anti-abortion group, Created Equal, based in Columbus, Ohio was seen on campus passing out flyers and placing photo stands with graphic pictures of aborted fetuses on April 12.

This ignited a counter-protest by several NEIU students, organized in the Pedroso Center after hearing about the group’s intentions of spreading anti-abortion ideals to others. Many of those students felt that the abortion group was sending out the wrong message to the community and decided to act.

There was no notification to the university prior Created Equal’s visit. The organization had their photos displayed for most of the morning until around 2 p.m.

Mone’leeke Anderson, one of the students who coordinated the counter-protest said, “The pictures on the lawn were unsettling! Why should we have to walk out from our safe space to come in contact with those images? So we decided to counter-protest to ensure that our campus is a safe space.”

The national anti-abortion group called Created Equal lead a spring campus tour traveling to 24 college campuses in six states to display large signs depicting the abortion process in an attempt to engage students in conversation.

National Director of Created Equal Mark Harrington, said, “A preborn child is no less human than a born child. Thus, to treat the preborn in a way we’d never treat a born human is discrimination.”

“Abortion is an act of ageism that is killing our future. College students deserve to see the victims of this injustice and to know the science and reasoning behind defending the preborn. This is critical, as their age group is having more abortions than any other age,” Harrington said.

Sam Riley, the content manager and field captain from Created Equal said that they coordinated the anti-abortion protest by sending an email to the Chief of Police John Escalante, Legal Affairs and General Counsel and Dean of Students Matt Specht. Most universities are public domain, meaning that groups like Created Equal are allowed to protest on site.

“With any public university, you’re allowed to have free speech activities,” Riley said. “I have a hard time seeing how it’s acceptable to take a human life in today’s society, so it’s something that I’ve always been passionate about. Our ultimate goal is to end the intentional killing of human beings, so we oppose abortion.”

Justin Rumley, a student from the Moody Bible Institute, volunteered for the protest when he heard that Created Equal was coming to Chicago.

“We look at these images and say ‘those are human feet, those are some hands.’ If you want to say it’s just a blob of cells, then you and me are a blob of cells,” Rumley said.

NEIU student Marco Mendoza said, “This whole demonstration is as useful as a screen door on a submarine. One of the (members) pulled me over and asked me ‘Would you kill a child?’ And it got to the point where the man who was speaking to me asked me ‘If abortion is okay then is slavery okay?’ They’re not giving cohesive arguments. They’re making inaccurate comparisons. They’re really here to spout their ideological nonsense.”

“They were not respectful when they argued. To argue intelligently, you talk about your side, give the facts as to why you think you’re right, and you let someone form an opinion based on those facts. But they don’t do that, they try to indoctrinate you,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza expressed his disgust at the graphic pictures of abortion that the group was found handing out on campus, such as half-dead infants and severed fetus limbs.

Anderson said, “We decided to find a space to vent, coordinate and speak to someone who was understanding of our concerns. Of course, we found all of those things inside of the Pedroso Center.”Anderson continued, “We collectively made posters, bounced ideas off each other and headed out chanting—letting the anti-abortion group know that people with uteruses have a right to choose what they do with their bodies. I think regardless of the argument, we should assist in providing resources and information on safe options. Vulgar pictures on our campus did not aide to those safe options.”