UNI student organizations use chalking as a method of communicating both their beliefs and upcoming events to the student body. While some of these chalkings are to appear without any controversy, others are more provocative. UNI Right to Life, a pro-life organization at UNI, was recently noticed for chalking 3,500 hearts near Maucker Union fountain. Among the hearts, the organization wrote, “Abortion stops 3,500 hearts each day,” a statement which garnered a lot of attention.

Linnea Casey, president of UNI Right to Life, said that the chalking was done about a week after National Pro-Life Chalk Day. This event was started by Students for Life of America, a nationwide pro-life organization. The week delay was due to a scheduling conflict, but Right of Life still wanted to participate. The result was the drawing of 3,500 hearts.

“This is meant to be something to help people think about the practices that are happening in our country, whether or not they agree with those, and just how serious of an issue it is,” said Casey.

Emily Sigwarth, vice president of UNI Right to Life, said the chalking was meant to raise awareness on the issue of abortion in the United States.

“It was more of an eye-opening thing,” said Sigwarth. “It’s shining the light on a situation that people don’t really know about unless they do their own research.”

According to Casey, the concept of the hearts is meant to grab students’ attention as they walk past the chalkings on campus. She said that by drawing something that wasn’t obviously baby-related, students are more inclined to read what the chalking actually says. Casey and Sigwarth both added that hearts are easy to draw, especially when done in the thousands.

“We want to show that we love women and babies,” Casey said. “We’re not out to decrease pregnancy services for women. That is so not our aim.”

“It’s to let women know that we’re here on campus, so if [they] have questions we’re here to help,” Sigwarth said. “We’re not here to shame [you] in your decision.”

Other groups on campus opposed Right to Life’s this chalking and decided to create a chalk response. UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers (UNIFI) teamed up with UNI Students Together for the Advancement of Reproductive Rights (UNI STARR) to create chalkings that opposed Right to Life’s message(s).

Aaron Friel, president of UNIFI, said that he reached out to UNI STARR because UNIFI does not necessarily take a firm stance as either a pro-life or pro-choice organization. Their primary focus, he said, is being a skeptical scientific group, so they decided to stick to the “empirical” aspect of the abortion discussion.

These rebuttal chalkings came as no surprise to Right to Life’s members.

“We knew we were going to get kickback from it,” Sigwarth said.

“When there’s a group on campus that has opposing views to yours, you have to be willing and open to what they have to say as well,” said Casey. “As long as they take ownership of what they’re writing, they have freedom of speech. We just hope that our message will resound with people as well and help them discover truth.”

Together, UNIFI and UNI STARR made chalkings near Right to Life’s. Erin Pearshall, president of UNI STARR, explained why their chalking included the drawing of hundreds of stars.

“Each star represents two women that died by having an illegal abortion before Roe vs. Wade,” Pearshall said. “It’s estimated that there was between 200,000 to 1.2 million illegal abortions each year, and around 5,000 women died annually due to the abortions being unsafe. Even if abortions were illegal, they would still happen. That’s one of the many reasons why we need to keep fighting for reproductive rights and keep abortions safe and legal.”

According to Friel, campus chalkings must be accredited to their respective student organizations or risk being washed off by UNI faculty. He said that some of the immediate chalk responses to Right to Life’s hearts drawing were not made by members of UNIFI or UNI STARR. These responses, between Wright and Sabin, said things such as, “Every abortion is a story; not a statistic” and, “My body my choice.” Because these statements were not signed by any student organization, they were washed off a few days after they appeared.

According to Friel, it is things like comprehensive sex education and access to birth control which ultimately prevent abortion. He cited evidence of Colorado’s implementation of free birth control and sex education that teaches contraceptive use as opposed to abstinence, which led to a 42 percent reduction in abortions over the course of a year.

Some of the pro-choice population on campus took issue with Right to Life’s chalking, because they claimed it to be insensitive towards women who have had abortions.

“From my knowledge,” Pearshall said, “Right to Life failed to state that those hearts also represented abortions from incest, rape, endangerment of the women’s health and those who had abortions because of a miscarriage.”

For those who aren’t sure where they stand on the issue, Friel has a response.

“Even if you’re pro-life or pro-choice I think we can agree that giving people options before the point of even having an abortion is a really good goal to work towards, and that’s what UNIFI’s message is,” Friel said.

Both UNIFI and Right to Life presidents acknowledge that not everyone will align with their beliefs, and encourage open discussion and debate about the issue of abortion.

“This was our intent,” Casey said, “not to change the world, to stop [abortion] from happening, we know that’s not going to happen. We just want people to be aware.”

Friel said that even if UNIFI may oppose certain beliefs of other groups, he respects that they can have a dialogue about controversial topics.

“I enjoy a vibrant debate on campus, event if it means just though chalk,” Friel said. “Having a discussion where people’s ideas are challenged in either direction is definitely the point of a university education.”