The College Fix

Catherine Short, the mother of two young women who protested abortion at UCSB recently where a feminist professor, upset by the protest, pushed and scratched her 16-year-old daughter, is calling for civility as the public debate surrounding the incident – which has gained national attention – unfolds.

Short, legal director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, issued the following statement on behalf of her family:

In early March 2014, my daughters Joan and Thrin, along with several friends, went to the University of California at Santa Barbara to conduct a pro-life outreach. While there, they were accosted by UCSB professor Mireille Miller-Young.

We are confident that the legal process will establish, without room for doubt or equivocation, that Miller-Young was the aggressor throughout her encounter with the pro-lifers. The pro-life speakers did not taunt, provoke, or incite either Miller-Young or anyone else, as some have suggested. On the contrary, they made every effort to meet her provocations, taunts, mockery, and profanity with calm and reason, trying to move her into a more productive channel of discourse. She rebuffed these attempts and deliberately chose instead to engage in the conduct that led to the District Attorney charging her with theft, battery, and vandalism.

Unfortunately, along with the expressions of support we have received, we have become aware of individuals engaging in ad hominem attacks against Miller-Young. We do not condone this, and we ask that such attacks stop. As my daughters tell people they meet on campuses, let’s keep to the topic and have a reasonable, productive conversation. What Miller-Young did, what she has said and written, what she teaches and publishes, UCSB’s response, and appropriate sanctions for her actions have a place in the conversation. Comments on her personal appearance and threats against her person do not.

Finally, we encourage UCSB Vice-Chancellor Michael Young to observe a pro-life outreach, whether conducted by my daughters and their friends, a Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust campus team, Justice for All, Project Truth, or UCSB’s own pro-life organization. If he does, he will not see any pro-life person provoking, taunting, or peddling hate and intolerance, as he described in an e-mail to UCSB students following the incident. What he will see is individuals trying to reach the minds and win the hearts of others by employing facts, reason, discussion, and persuasion – exactly the type of exchange of ideas that he said is fundamental to the mission of [the] university.

Life Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens, committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms.

Related:

Administrator Speaks Out On Feminist Professor Who Battered Prolife Teen

UPDATE: Feminist Professor Who Attacked Pro-Life Student Charged With Criminal Battery

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