Pro-life advocates are no strangers to discrimination, destruction of our property, occasional physical violence, and other mistreatment… unfortunately. And, during an outreach event in Chicago, some members of SFLA’s young adult chapter Chicago Pro-Life Future, had an up-close and personal experience with someone who preferred destruction over dialogue.
You can watch the video below…
The vice president of Chicago Pro-Life Future, Chris Iverson, shared the following:
“My wife (Emily Iverson) and I arrived on the pedestrian overpass near the Gladstone Metro Station around 1:30 pm on Friday, 5/8/2020. This is in the northwest corner of the city of Chicago. We put up our blue and white pro-life bridge signs that reads, “Abortion takes a human life.” These signs are made of vinyl and they are 5 feet tall and 9 feet wide. They are attached to a PVC frame that is 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide. We also added some smaller signs that say “Honk against abortion.”
Our friend Danniel Pribble arrived around 2:00 pm. Our plan was to have a two hour pro-life bridge. We felt this was a good time for it since some restrictions related to COVID-19 are loosening up and traffic is starting to pick up as a result. We only had three people on the bridge to mitigate any concerns from law enforcement about social distancing.
Around 2:15 pm, Emily noticed a young woman acting strangely. The young woman walked over, asked me what the sign said, and began to challenge our pro-life position. We discussed abortion at length. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she took it upon herself to start taking down our sign.
She got up on the concrete ledge over three lanes of highway traffic to wrestle the vinyl sign off of our PVC frame. My wife called the police and handed the phone to me. Emily and our friend Daniel defended our signs and other materials from the pro-choice woman who was intent on taking them down, stealing them, and otherwise disrupting our peaceful display.
I provided the 911 operator with a description of the young woman, but we had difficulty hearing each other on the phone and the 911 operator had a hard time identifying our location. I had to provide a street address that was close, but not exactly where we were located. The police never made it to the bridge. If they had made it to the bridge after the young woman left, I suspect the police wouldn’t have been able to find and arrest her.
After the pro-choice vandal left, we put the sign back up and continued our pro-life bridge. The sign was damaged, but it’s still usable. It will just need to be replaced sooner than it would have been. She didn’t steal anything either. Her attack on our peaceful display was mostly ineffective. Her disruption didn’t significantly reduce the number of people who saw our message. Still, we have a few ideas on how to prevent this in the future.”
