By Andrew Greiner
News Editor

Nel Lair made the hour-long train trip from Aurora, Ill., to Chicago in hopes of joining a pro-life demonstration on Columbia’s campus. Unfortunately for Lair, he was the only pro-life supporter in attendance at what was supposed to be a pro-life demonstration.

The Pro-Life Action League, a Chicago-based anti-abortion organization, promoted a stop on its Face the Truth Tour on its website. The protest was slated for May 5 at the corner of Harrison Street and Michigan Avenue, outside the Alexandroff Campus Center, 600 S. Michigan Ave., at 9 a.m, but no one from the Pro-Life Action League showed up.

“They must have had a higher calling, a higher purpose,” Lair said about the organization.

What was slated as a pro-life demonstration turned out to be a pro-choice counter demonstration.

Dozens of college students showed up armed with pro-choice banners, signs and literature, from Columbia and other area schools, intent on creating a counter-demonstration.

Mark Kelly, vice president of Student Affairs at Columbia, said he thinks it is great that students exercised their democratic right to assemble.

With no representation from the PLAL, pro-choice demonstrators, with the exception of Lair, made up the entire protest. Some of the demonstrators questioned why PLAL balked on their scheduled demonstration.

“I think it shows that they’re not quite as sure of their views as they say,” said Alicia Rosenthal, a junior film and video major at Columbia. “If I had their views, I’d be unsure of myself too.”

“What does it say about their message that they can’t confront our message?” said Lila Trickle, a junior marketing communications major at Columbia and an active member of On The Ground, a student activist group on campus that was instrumental in organizing the counter-protest.

Eric Scheidler, the communications director for PLAL, said his group “pulled a fast one” on Columbia students.

Scheidler said that PLAL didn’t show up because it wanted to avoid violent “pro-abortion” protesters. The PLAL avoidance of Columbia may have been due to a recent demonstration the group staged on University of Illinois at Chicago’s campus April 7, where the group encountered some violence.

According to reports from the PLAL website, the demonstration ended when members of PLAL were doused with black ink by counter-protesters at the event.

“They were hostile. They were screaming and yelling. They were a violent vicious group of terrorists,” Scheidler said. “We are not in the business of dealing with terrorists.”

But the pro-choice protesters at the Columbia demonstration said they were not bent on violence; they only wanted to counter the pro-life message.

“A woman is worth more than just a clump of cells, and the central issue here is liberating women,” said Simone Alred, of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.

“It is important to be here because in the last year there has been legislation eroding away at abortion laws,” said Sarah Macaraeg, a student from UIC who was at the protest. “Who has the right to tell anyone what to do with their bodies? If you are against abortion, don’t have one.”

The PLAL national director, Joe Scheidler, recently won an appeal in the Supreme Court, which overturned a racketeering conviction. National Organization for Women Inc. vs. Scheidler has been working its way through America’s court system since 1986.

There were about 40 people at the protest outside the Alexandroff Campus Building. The crowd included student activists, curious passers-by and the Radical Cheerleaders, who added some colorful pro-choice cheers to the demonstration.

Columbia was to be one of the first stops on the PLAL Face the Truth Tour scheduled for May 5. The tour was slated to move north on Wabash Avenue to Roosevelt University. An official from Roosevelt said she was unsure if PLAL showed up, but there were some protesters.

Scheidler said he could not reveal future destinations for the Face the Truth Tour.

Lair said he would try to make his way to Roosevelt in case the PLAL group showed up there. Liar said the trip was worth it regardless of the protest.

“At least it’s a sunny day in Chicago, and that’s just OK,” Lair said, from his quiet position on the fringe of the impromptu pro-choice demonstration.