I stood at a public bulletin board before I came home from studying tonight, looking at a flyer which made me scream inside. Hesitantly, I reached to tear it down. Then I pulled my hand back, feeling preemptively guilty for censoring someone else. I stared some more. I decided quickly, reached out, and angrily snatched the flyer off the board. And I walked off without so much as a second glance.
In large letters across the top, the ad says:
"Maybe you didn't choose the abortion...but you can choose to heal."
Then, at the bottom:
"Most abortions involve some form of coercion. 65% suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome. If you are suffering after abortion--whether it happened a few days of a few decades ago--you are not alone. Women of all ages have endured significant, often unthinkable pregnancy-related abuses. Many were coerced, deceptively informed, or even forced into unwanted abortions. Others faced emotional or financial blackmail from loved ones, or further coercion from professionals. Circumstances can vary widely, but women, men and families hurt by abortion need to know that they are not alone, that we care and that healing is possible. Learn more online:
TheUnChoice.com
Unwanted. Unsafe. Unfair."
Let's start with that slogan: "Unwanted. Unsafe. Unfair."
Unwanted? By whom? The women who risk their lives or die every day because they seek to end a pregnancy they cannot carry, or never wanted to carry in the first place?
Unsafe? In the U.S., complications from first-trimester abortions have a death rate of 1/500,000 women per year. Complications from tampon use have a death rate of 1/350,000 women per year. Complications from childbirth kill 1/7700 women every year.
Unfair? Don't get me started.
All this nonsense is superimposed on a variety of quotations (from whom, I do not know) which say things like, "My husband put his fist through the wall and demanded it..." "My boss said, 'You'll lose your job...'" "He said, 'Have an abortion or I'll leave you...'" "He exploded in anger, killing me with his words..."
Do I doubt these things happen? Absolutely not. But maybe--just maybe--abortion is not the greater problem here. Seems first and foremost like the issue at hand is women being denied control, being forced to do things by other people (often men) in their lives, people who feel entitled to have their opinion respected at the cost of a woman's bodily autonomy.
A bit ironic that this organization is decrying the horror of a woman not being allowed a choice, no?
As they say, everyone has the right to his or her own opinion. But that does not mean everyone holds an equally valid opinion. I didn't tear this down just because it was an antichoice ad. I tore it down because it peddles lies, manipulation, and blatant hypocrisy to me under the guise of helping me. I tore it down because it speaks to me as though I were a fragile, helpless flower who would choose abortion only under the violent, threatening gaze of the man or men in my life. I tore it down because it offered me support only under the condition that I regret exercising my right to control my own body.
And I would tear it down again.
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You definitely hit the nail on the head by noting that abortion isn't the problem here. As you said, this type of situation surely happens (women's coersion into obtaining an abortion). I've personally known some women who have had abortions as a result of this type of abusive behaviour. It's awful. It's unfair. And you know what? It's an issue that needs to be addressed.
But another issue also needs to be addressed: Women feeling coerced out of abortions, and feeling pressured to make the opposite choice. Women being coerced into giving birth and raising a child when they aren't ready or capable or willing to do so. So why centre this message (that is, essentially, a message highlighting domestic abuse and violence against women) on one side? I't s a thinly veiled anti-choice argument. After all, it uses the language of choice, but in a way that suggests only one choice is valid - the one they call the "unchoice" is clearly not. They don't even grant it the dignity of being a choice at all.
The problems underlying each of those quotes lie in abuse, power, and patriarchy. Not in abortion. I just checked out their website to try to find a mission statement or something, and while I couldn't find a clear demonstration of the organization's goals, it's not hard to see they don't support legal abortion.
So, in other words, they don't support giving a woman a choice at all. Do they think this abuse and coersion would simply cease if abortion were illegal? That's laughable.
Sounds to me like their heart is in the right place, but they're missing the point entirely--many of their goals I can agree with, but the apparent anti-abortion mindset and the language used bothers me. To pull a quote from South Park, they're doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, as far as I can tell.
I wish SO MUCH there were more programs out there like this one:
http://www.prochoiceresources.org/emerge.php
Abortion can be a really hard choice for some women... and a support group that really does support a woman's reality and a woman's choice is absolutely critical for some of us.
EAMD; You so invested in your position that you would deny counseling services to women who were battered into getting an abortion? That pretty fringe. You could think about posting Kahri's emerge information (or another you would support) so people who need counseling get it.
The flier wasn't advertising counseling services, though. I looked up the website being touted in the flier and I couldn't see counseling mentioned anywhere (though I only gave the site a cursory glance because after blatant lies and manipulated statistics, I couldn't stomach any more).
It's basically just an anti-choice website that encourages people to create and post lies about abortion, like the flier the OP mentioned. It's not there to help anyone who might actually be experiencing some trauma from a coerced abortion. It's there to spread misinformation.
First page (before you even enter the site has help & healing, and at the bottom of the page has "or post-abortion counseling referrals, call 1-877-HOPE-4-ME" and a link.
The website is interesting to me because it takes the usual paradigm where choice and life are Manichean opposites and links abortion to the abrogation of choice.
I'm glad you took it down. We shouldn't have to put up with attacks like that as we are walking down the street. Abortion counseling, that is fine. But when the poster starts off with things like "Most abortions involve some form of coercion" ... that crosses a line.
"I'm glad you took it down."
You want to give a medal for this? Pissing all over someone else's free speech rights? This is at a university for crying out loud; its the very foundation of free speech. This behavior can't be encouraged. The mouth is as much a part of the body as the womb. Free speech is as surely sacrosanct as freedom to choose.
Hey guess what? Once you've written your flyer and put it up in a public place, your right to free speech has been exercised. There is no guarantee that it will stay there for any amount of time. The OP didn't infringe on anyone's rights, and it's ridiculous to say that she did.
I suppose that depends on the rules for posting flyers in that particular place. Was it school sanctioned? Probably a better response in the long run would be to design a competing poster and put it up nearby.
So, let's say some Obama activists had gone around tearing down Hillary signs, would that be ok? Because she had already had her chance to speak? Of course it wouldn't be. You have a continuous right to free speech; you aren't limited to just one protest, or march, or ad. After you've had your 15min on the soapbox I don't get to stuff a sock in your mouth.
Moreover there is a private property right here in addition to the free speech right. The school owns the bulletin board, not her. Just like no one has the right to trespass on your lawn & tear down your Clinton/Obama/McCain/Romney sign, no one has the right to do the same just because they attend a school. The US' fairly absolutist approach to free speech is a great strength & differentiator. I'm black but I support the KKK's free speech rights 100%.
So, let's say some Obama activists had gone around tearing down Hillary signs, would that be ok?
Yes, basically. For them to tear it down in a public place (and the first line of the post indicates that this was a public bulletin board) is fine. The right to free speech, in fact, PROTECTS THEM in their ability to do that. Now, if it was the government tearing down posters rather than private citizens, that would be different.
Or to use your speech example: you have the right to give that speech for however long you want, as many times as you want (just as whoever made the poster has the right to make another one and put it up again) but I would also have the right to yell over you, or loudly play music, or do whatever else (so long as it isn't deemed harassment) to make it more difficult for you to be heard. Would it make me kind of an asshole? Absolutely. But nothing I can do as a private citizen with no authority over you would not destroy your right to free speech.
The right to free speech absolutely does not protect you trespassing onto someone's private property and vandalizing their house by destroying signs they had put up on their own home. It protects your right to put up competing signs on public property right nearby, but not to destroy someone else's private property.
I think the distinction you might be trying to make is that if you, a private citizen, do go onto someone's front lawn and steal their stuff, it isn't censorship because you aren't a government agent. So the government is not abrogating that person's right to free speech, sure. But that does NOT mean that you are suddenly allowed to trespass, vandalize, and steal just because someone puts up a sign with a political opinion you don't like. If charges were pressed against you they wouldn't be charges of censorship, but they would still be charges of illegal things like trespassing and vandalism.
The right to free speech absolutely does not protect you trespassing onto someone's private property
Yes, I know. I don't think what I wrote said that it did, but I maybe I wasn't clear enough.
First of all, nothing I said was meant to address property rights. The argument I am making is about freedom of speech, which you interpreted correctly: even if I was to go onto somebody's lawn and steal their private property, I would not be censoring them or restricting their freedom because I do not have the power to do so.
HOWEVER. That is not an analagous situation! The bulletin board in question is not private property, and (once it is posted in public) neither is the flyer! As I originally stated, the person who wrote and posted the flyer has no guarantee how long it will remain there. Obviously it will not stay up forever, so at what point does removing it consititute theft of property? After two days? A week? A month? If a janitor takes it down, are they stealing? When one places something in a public space, it must be with the knowledge that they are taking a risk that it will not remain there.
Example: say my neighbor puts a sofa out on the sidewalk the night before bulky waste day. Instead of waiting for it to be picked up the next morning, I decide I want the sofa and take it to my house. Does that mean I stole the sofa?I have done exactly the same thing that EAMD did: removing property from a public place prior to the time when its owner expected it to be removed.
HOWEVER. That is not an analagous situation! The bulletin board in question is not private property, and (once it is posted in public) neither is the flyer!
Actually, if it's on the university's campus, it is private property, so to speak - in that it's the property of the university, not the public at large. Like a university building or the university grounds themselves, the university is empowered to set up regulations governing the use of that bulletin board. Based on what rules the university has, the person who originally posted the flyer might have violated them or the person who posted this entry might have violated them by tearing the poster down. Without more details about the university in question and their bulletin board policy we have no way of knowing.
That being said, there's a larger question at work here about the right to freedom of speech. I'm one of those who thinks that such a right should be all but inviolate, and that the proper response to offensive speech isn't to silence that speech but to speak against it - to provide truth to counter lies, to provide love to counter hate. Regardless of whether or not the author of this entry was "within the rules" to tear down the flyer, I'd argue that he/she was engaged in an act of silencing, and that such an act wasn't an appropriate response to the situation.
Actually some places have really weird rules about taking other people's trash, but that's besides the point.
You are not the government so you aren't officially censoring someone, but that doesn't make it in any way right or legal to stop them from expressing their opinion.
Freedom of speech is often more than just a law, its an ideal that many Americans take very seriously. I also personally think its a good policy to fight misinformation with better information and rational discussion.
Right, and the other point was that usually official university bulletin boards are not considered public property.
If this flyer was just randomly taped to a tree out on a public street, I'd be more inclined to say that it wasn't breaking any rules to tear it down.
But if its on a university bulletin board, either it was breaking rules by being there in the first place, or it was allowed to be there and tearing it down was breaking rules. A university isn't a totally public free for all.
Oh Jesus, I just wrote out a really long response that didn't post for some reason. But here's the gist of it:
I know you can't trespass/ steal/ etc. However, that is not an analagous sitution to the one discussed in the original post. EAMD did not trespass or vandalize, and if you think her removal of the flyer from A PUBLIC SPACE constituted theft, than so does someone picking up a dollar in the street. Whoever posted the flyer had to accept that it would be removed eventually, and couldn't possibly put a real timeframe on when that would happen. So the private property argument is not really relevent here.
Also, everything I said before this post had nothing to do with property rights. I was only talking about freedom of speech, and you interpreted my argument correctly.
The difference is that if that flyer was officially accepted by the university res life or whoever runs the bulletin board, there probably was a reasonable expectation that it would stay up for a set amount of time, and the bulletin board is private property. If it was randomly taped to a tree on public property, I'd agree with you about there being no reasonable expectation that it would stay there.
RIGHT ON!
Thank you for expressing these thoughts. I am from a university in Victoria, BC that has an anti-choice group on campus. For the last year and a half we (the board of directors) have been denying this club student funding based on their actions and on their anti-choice stance. It has generated a lot of discussion, most of which I find to be not all that constructive. The issue often digresses into one of freedom of speech and women are left out of the debate entirely. This group was putting up posters from "Feminists for Life," (such a co-optation of feminism!) Many women were concerned and removed the posters, submitted complaints and our anti-choice club lost their funding. These posters often come in the form of ambient violence where the combination of image and text create an unnecessarily hostile and intimidating environment. Women should not have to be intimidated and told that they are murdering "children" just because they choose to seek out abortions. I fully support you ripping this poster down. And your actions should not be minsconstrued as a violation of freedom of speech and expression; I see your actions as contributing to ensuring that women are not receiving false anti-choice rhetoric on abortion that only errodes a womans right to choose. cheers!
"And your actions should not be minsconstrued as a violation of freedom of speech and expression;"
And by that logic, a pro-lifer who takes down a pro-choice poster would be perfectly justified because their actions would be saving a cuddly-wuddly fetus from a horrible death.
Seriously, you're on the university board?
"I see your actions as contributing to ensuring that women are not receiving false anti-choice rhetoric on abortion that only errodes a womans right to choose."
Women are not stupid. As the original post here proves, we are, in fact, capable of acquiring information, analyzing it critically, and deciding that we disagree. Women are not so easily brainwashed that we must unquestioningly absorb as truth anything and everything that we read. Shocking, I know. Take deep breaths and sit down for awhile if you experience dizziness resulting from this sudden revelation. Maybe try some peppermint tea.
Then again, I suspect you already knew everything I just told you, Brodie. So I can only conclude that your true motivation is simply silencing those with whose viewpoint you vehemently disagree. Careful, Brodie. By silencing others, you risk one day having your own words repressed.
The sound of true "ambient violence" is silence.
I, like Brodie, live in Canada. And I imagine a lot of the people posting live in the states. I've lived in both countries, and it's really interesting to see how both countries deal with free speech vs hate speech differently.
In the states, somehow people can say whatever racist, homophobic, misogynistic things they want, wherever they want all in the name of free speech.
In Canada, that is hate propaganda and is not tolerated.
Canada and the US both have legal protection for freedom of speech (the charter of rights and freedoms and the first amendment respectively)
Yet in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1990 that a limitation of free expression is justified in a democratic society. The court stated that since hate propaganda harms us all, then stopping its spread helps people from different backgrounds to live together — and may even reduce violence in Canada. Thus making willfully promoting hatred illegal in Canada.
This makes a big difference in promoting a safer, more respectful society.
key words: "public bulletin board". emphasis on the public part. free speech fail!
there was nothing stopping you from putting up your own poster in response, after all.
The old phrase springs to mine: You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
Yeah. If I had time, I'd try to put up a poster with good sources disproving the "facts" in the original poster.
mind, rather, durn it.
I'm amazed that the concept of free speech automatically trumps any issue, no matter how horrible it may be.
"Well the KKK, even if it is horrible, has a right to make it seem as though minorities are subhuman because it's freedom of speech, period."
Seriously, stop hiding behind your self-righteous freedom of speech excuse because that's all it is. It's you wanting to look better than someone else who actually took action; trying to be above that. There is nothing to be above. If someone put a poster up in your neighborhood saying "I believe that (your mom's name here) is a dirty filthy slut. She needs a good spankin." then you would leave it up because that is their right to say something like that? Doubtful.
Some things are more important than respecting someone's right to say whatever they want, imo. Say what you want, "Well that just encourages censorship and it won't be long until it's a slippery slope to that!" but I believe that some people should not use their mouths if they are only going to stir up hate and lies.
This exact same line of thinking has led to the silencing of women for centuries.
Putting up a sign saying your mom is a slut is totally different because that is slander which is a legal issue. You can sue them for that.
Freedom of speech around politics, facts and opinions must be absolute. But remember there are laws against spreading hate and hate crimes and there are laws against slander. So almost anything you can think of that is truly offensive would not be permitted anyways. But you cannot stop the spread of political ideas no matter how repugnant. That is the road to a much worse world then we already have.
"It's you wanting to look better than someone else who actually took action"
Sure, the OP took action: a quick and easy act of destruction. I don't see that as much of a challenge. I'd be impressed if she had actually done something constructive, rather than destructive: for example, putting up her own poster in response to the other poster. That would contribute to a discussion, rather than just shutting it down.
"some people should not use their mouths if they are only going to stir up hate and lies."
Who gets to decide what constitutes hate and lies? What if that all-powerful Someone ends up being wrong? It wasn't too long ago that the majority of people in the US would have firmly believed that any non-Christian belief system consisted of "hate and lies". Good thing we had the First Amendment back then, hmmm? Free speech is incredibly powerful; it is both weapon and shield, and when you attempt to prise it from the hands of others you inevitably loosen your own grasp on it as well. Don't be so quick to cast free speech aside, maidensnowflake; as intelligent beings, our right to express our thoughts to other intelligent beings is our first defense and our last resort, and you never know when you might need it.
If you are convinced of the truthfulness of your beliefs, there is no reason to be afraid of freedom of speech. Trust in your fellow human beings to see what is right. Not all of them maybe, and not right away. But truth will win out, in the end.
"If someone put a poster up in your neighborhood saying "I believe that (your mom's name here) is a dirty filthy slut. She needs a good spankin." then you would leave it up because that is their right to say something like that? Doubtful."
There is a difference between an opinion and slander.
I'm amazed that the concept of free speech automatically trumps any issue, no matter how horrible it may be.
That's how rights work. If someone has a right to something, like people have to free speech, that right trumps other concerns.
"Well the KKK, even if it is horrible, has a right to make it seem as though minorities are subhuman because it's freedom of speech, period."
Am I supposed to find that statement problematic somehow? Yes, the KKK is a terrible, hateful, awful group, and yes, they do have the right to free speech. The alternative - in which certain political or social opinions are considered outside the bounds of free speech - is much worse, in my opinion.
Seriously, stop hiding behind your self-righteous freedom of speech excuse because that's all it is. It's you wanting to look better than someone else who actually took action; trying to be above that.
So nice that you can figure out others' motivations so easily. Is there anything else you'd like to tell the commenters here about themselves?
If someone put a poster up in your neighborhood saying "I believe that (your mom's name here) is a dirty filthy slut. She needs a good spankin." then you would leave it up because that is their right to say something like that? Doubtful.
As several other commenters have pointed out, there's a difference between free speech on a political issue and slander (or, since it's in print, libel).
Some things are more important than respecting someone's right to say whatever they want, imo. Say what you want, "Well that just encourages censorship and it won't be long until it's a slippery slope to that!" but I believe that some people should not use their mouths if they are only going to stir up hate and lies.
Who do you think should get to decide what's considered acceptable speech, and what's considered "hate and lies," such that it's completely acceptable to silence the latter? What arbiter would you put up as the ultimate decision-making power deciding what opinions are okay and which should be silenced? How would you prevent that person from abusing his/her power?
>> I'm amazed that the concept of free speech automatically trumps any issue, no matter how horrible it may be. -- "Well the KKK, even if it is horrible, has a right to make it seem as though minorities are subhuman because it's freedom of speech, period."
I understand the position that KKK opinions are unacceptable. I suppose the real question raised by this is, who decides what is acceptable? You? Me? The majority? Congress? The Supreme Court? The President?
If the majority voted, I'd bet progressive opinions and radical philosophies are silenced more than Christians, pro-lifers, etc. Ditto on Congress, the Court, or the Executive deciding. If we allow certain opinions/ philosophies to be deemed unacceptable, we very well may suffer more casualties than our opponents.
kbz
While I understand your feelings I can't possibly commend you for tearing down someone else sign. That's a clear infringement on freedom of speech. If someone did that to a poster we put up I would be livid, and rightly so.
A better solution would be to put up your own sign that counters their's right beside it.
And ideally, that hypothetical pro-choice poster wouldn't have any extra apostrophes in it. ;)
I understand where you are coming from. The anti-choice sentiment on my campus is alarming (especially because most of the women who seek out abortions on campus have to do that because they have been the victim of sexual assault). I hate it. There is at least one antiabortion protest every month on my campus. At the same time, I think what you did was wrong. You silenced a group of people. Whether or not you agree with what they are saying and what they are doing you do not have the right to take away their freedom of speech, because if we can say that we can take away theirs they can turn around and say they can take away ours. Who do you think is going to win that argument? The crazy baby killing hairy man hating lesbian feminists or the mild mannered church going right wing rich white man? I think I know the answer to that. Therefore, like it or not the best thing that we can do is to leave up their comments, but put up our own as well.
EAMD did not infringe upon anyone's free speech. The act of free speech was the placing of the flier on the bulletin board. Whoever placed it there was not prevented from doing so. Once a flier is placed, it is not an infringement of free speech to take it down, especially if it's a public place. If that were the case, all fliers put up on bulletin boards everywhere would be protected and would never be taken down.
Again, the act of free speech was the placing of the flier. Once that's done without obstacle, free speech has been exercised. There are no rules and laws that state just how long words are required to remain in public places.
(And yes, I'd argue this even if someone was going around and taking down pro-choice fliers, too.)
My goodness, I'm glad someone understands that!
Again, the act of free speech was the placing of the flier. Once that's done without obstacle, free speech has been exercised.
That's actually a really interesting point, though I'm not entirely sure how it would play out if broadly applied. Isn't it basically like saying "yes, you have the right to freedom of speech, but we are going to drastically limit your ability to reach an audience"?
I can see that approach being used to very effectively ghettoize protected speech that is deemed problematic. Making the assumption that once something has been placed (however briefly) into the public arena that the requirements of free speech are now satisfied seems to me to be somewhat shortsighted.
How is this different from, for example, banning copies of "Full Frontal Feminism" from a library and then claiming "what? That's not an infringement of free speech; you had your say, we're just stopping it now."
In both cases the real result is a deliberate intent to limit the public's exposure to a protected form of speech; this seems to me to violate the underlying principles of free speech even if it can be twisted to conform to the letter of the law.
I think it depends on the situation of the exact bulletin board. Usually on college campuses someone has to approve a poster and put it up officially and then no one else is supposed to take it down or put another one on top until the official person in charge of that bulletin board does it or approves it. Then the people in charge have an obligation to be fair (just as the library staff do).
But if this is a truly public free for all bulletin board, then maybe it is acceptable to take down a poster or put a new one on top of it-- but then you can't get mad when someone does the same thing to your poster, or simply replaces the one you took down. (This situation would be more like a pile of "take a book, leave a book" in a coffee shop than like a library).
In any case, I think a better response in the long run would be to design a better poster and put it up nearby. Or even put a sign commenting on the issues with this poster and attach it to the bottom or side so people can see your commentary.
I'd hope most college students are intelligent enough not to believe everything a random poster insinuates without thinking about it themselves.
that's not the way bulletin boards on campus work though. Anything that is going to be posted on the doors of the dorms or on bulletin boards at the dorms must be approved by res life. Anything that is going to be posted on the walls of a specific building must be approved by the head of the department that is in a given area of that building. That is the way it works. Therefore, it is not okay to tear something down even if you do not agree with it. This is a form of restriction of free speech. Ever hear of the quote I disagree with what you are saying but I will defend to the death your right to say it? The fact of the matter is that if we allow and can justify taking down those posters because we do not like what is on them, then the other side is going to be able to limit our right to protest their insanity and because we allowed it in the first place its going to be very easy for them to defend their decisions. Now think about it, if it was a prochoice message and a prolifer tore it down, the entirety of this site would be fuming. We can't have it both ways people its just not possible.
Um, that would be why my first paragraph says that most bulletin boards on campus have to be approved by someone at the campus and that in that case it is not appropriate to tear things off of them.
My guess is that the bulletin board in question follows those rules, but without having been there I can't say for sure that the OP's college doesn't also have a free for all bulletin board. That's why I discussed both cases, but I clearly said at the top that most college boards work in the way you're describing, so... I'm getting the impression you did not read my post before responding to it. I also did not say anything against free speech-- in my opinion it was silly to tear down the poster and it would have been better to put up a competing poster with facts and sources (like I said already).
Actually, I've been through the process of getting a flier approved for campus bulletin boards. I seriously doubt that this flier had any approval, considering the lies, misrepresentation of statistics, and lack of a substantive help organization to actually help the women it's reported to help ("Go to this website to find a phone number for a different organization to get the help this flier addresses.")
Just because it was on a campus bulletin board doesn't mean it had approval to be there.
I see this more akin to a person preaching on a soap box in a public place. Sure, they can preach there all they want, but if they leave a voice recording to be preaching there all the time, it's not infringing upon their free speech if someone turns it off.
Maybe the OP should ask the university-- it may have been against the rules for the flyer to be there in the first place, but it doesn't sound like she knows in the original post whether or not it was allowed/supposed to be there.
Those are the same tactics that are used in the sex-work issue. They use stats from studies with unpublished methodologies like: "85% of prostitute/clients reported history of sexual abuse in childhood; 70% reported incest, 52% of the women stated that pornography played a role in teaching them what was expected of them as prostitutes. 30% reported that their pimps regularly exposed them to pornography in order to indoctrinate them... and so on and so forth and on and on. And everyone believes it, lots of people here believe it, even though the research has been discredited many times over. It's all the same, scare tactics used by groups opposed to women having a choice.
I bet their definition of coercion likely includes situations that cause you to make those decisions such as a poor economy or not having a job.
I think tearing down the flier was a mistake. Not only was it disrepectful of of others' right to express an opinion that differs from yours, and of university property, it was also patronizing the women you claim to be trying to help. Instead of "protecting" them from information you deem unfit, I would suggest putting up your own flier nearby which informs people of other alternatives. Make the information available and trust women to make their own choices.
We need to combat information with more information.
Many years ago I was a students union exec and societies day was a big day for new and existing students. This was Ireland and abortion (even abortion information) was illegal. SPUC, the society for the protection of the unborn child, was in full force complete with graphic posters of bloodied fetuses. I knew some of the women walking by had made a covert, illegal journey to England without friend or family to have an abortion and this bombardment with horrendus imagery was more than some of them could handle. The Catholic guilt was already enough.
I shut SPUC down on the grounds of their incitement to hatred. By the time the dust settled the soc. day was over.
I have never regretted it.
I would have taken it down as well. I like your style :)