More than 15 Dartmouth students and professors traveled to Concord over the weekend to act as a pro-choice contingent in the midst of a pro-life rally.
"We weren't really sure what to expect," said Deb Baltzer '95, who heads Dartmouth's student pro-choice group. "We were really nervous, especially in the wake of what has happened recently."
The New Hampshire Right to Life Committee staged a rally at the statehouse Saturday afternoon to mark the 22nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.
Conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan spoke to about 300 anti-abortion activists at the rally, calling on Congress to recognize the unborn as human beings.
Buchanan said that in addition to the Republican's Contract with America, the Republican-run Congress should adopt "a new contract with America's unborn," according to the Associated Press.
Baltzer said she did not hear Buchanan speak because he was inside the statehouse and "we didn't want to add to their numbers." Instead, Baltzer said the pro-choice group stood nearby with signs.
After the speech, abortion protesters marched from the Statehouse to the Concord Feminist Health Center.
"We stood outside the clinic," Baltzer said. "There was no sort of confrontation at all."
English Professor Lynda Boose said the pro-life march included people with strollers holding children with signs saying, "I'm glad my mother didn't murder me," and signs displaying pictures of aborted fetuses and the caption "visualize abortion."
Boose said she attended the rally because it is important to protect the rights of younger women, not because she is personally concerned with reproductive rights issues.
"If we had not been there, the rally would have gone uncontested," she said. "There is a wonderful saying from the 60s, ... 'If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.' "
