April 12, 2024/Midnight  

Erie Pa., – This is my last perspective for the Gannon Knight and as Spring Commencement is right around the corner. I wanted to use this perspective to explain life as a young woman attending a Catholic University. 

This past week there was a display put together by Knights for Life along A.J.’s Way demonstrating the large number of abortions that happen across the world. This demonstration was a pro-life public display where female students, faculty and staff walk by regularly.  

As a woman seeing two male students discussing and producing this display bothered not only myself, but other female students walking through the display as well. The matter of a woman’s bodily autonomy being belittled by men who do not understand the experience of womanhood is degrading.  

To be required to walk through the display can be hard for students, faculty, or staff who may have needed an abortion procedure for a plethora of reasons.  

Matters of sexual assault, ectopic or dangerous pregnancies and ill-prepared parents are only some of the reasons that abortion is an option. The over-crowded foster-care system is not the answer to forced births from unwanted pregnancies. 

The current threat of school violence in the United States is yet another reason women who are pregnant may not feel safe bringing an innocent child into this world.  

The right to choose is a means to give women the right to decide what happens with their bodies including the ability to have children.  

Knights for Life’s display about abortions was disrespectful to the women of the Gannon Community who have had their rights taken away.  

By removing the ability for women to decide their own fates the safety and health care for women who need abortions for their own wellbeing is compromised.  

This being said, I live in Pennsylvania where the right to choose is still available. My right to choose is enforced by the government in my state, but as a private institution Gannon is allowed to display anti-abortion symbolism without a pro-choice perspective on campus. 

The removal of Roe V. Wade took away the rights of women across the states putting the lives of women in the hands of government officials.  

Florida has placed abortion on the ballots for the 2024 Election as is their right. This is not the case for other states however where women still don’t have access essential healthcare. 

Without a Knights for Choice club a large population of Gannon’s community is underrepresented and overlooked. 

A man, a government, or a religious group should not be allowed to tell me how I should treat my body.