In light of the “Canisius Cupcake Wars” published a few months ago, Brianna Nosal and I want to give the opinion of Canisius’ pro-choice students who attended the Plan B event. We would like to mention that while I have been awarded for my abortion activism on campus, the Canisius University Griffin Newspaper is still as conservative as can be, quietly tiptoeing around donors in order to keep alumni and the President (Steve Stoute) happy and on their side.

Brianna would like to emphasize that she attended both events (unlike Ryan) and that having an accurate representation of what happened is important to her, especially after Ryan Harrington took the time to bash our peaceful protest amongst the campus community.

To set the record straight, no “war” is happening, a peaceful protest without slander, negativity, or any violence seems perfectly okay to us and all the other students involved. In debates, people are going to feel uncomfortable and that is the reality of the situation. We shouldn’t be asked to tone it down because someone is uncomfortable. We are uncomfortable. Yet, here we stand advocating for what we believe in.

We live in a world where politics are an inevitable discussion, especially when it comes to having a say in what women are able to do with their bodies. A statement was made about politics and what we were doing as being portrayed as having a “poisonous impact on our community” and to make it clear, having an opinion does not make anything “poisonous,” uninformed articles do. Telling one side of the story is where the poison begins, and it is where false perceptions are made. We are deeply disappointed in the staff at The Griffin for only showing one side of the opinion, and refusing to be open to the other side of this dialogue.

To quote Jennifer Page’s response to Harrington’s article, “There is no truce when one club wants to take people’s bodily autonomy away” … “Also, it seems deceptive for SFL to just hand out free cupcakes without telling students they are an anti-choice club promoting shame and stigma surrounding abortion” (Jennifer Page – Queen City Feminist).

On the day of the event, students approached us with SFL’s cupcakes asking for information about what we were doing. During our explanation, they asked why free cupcakes were being handed out, and to keep transparency a priority, we explained the “Everyone deserves a birthday” event and how it was a pro-life expression. These students became promptly frustrated and wanted to dispose of the cupcakes. They expressed anger and frustration that they were uninformed about what their event was about and said if they had known they would not have taken a cupcake. These same students were some of the students who stopped by and wanted to participate in future events with us. 

To say that we were being unkind in any way is not only false but beyond inaccurate. Everything we stand for is about being kind to one another, and most importantly allowing people to have a choice in what they do with their bodies. To make a claim that there was a lack of civil behavior is also incorrect.

We stood peacefully outside and spoke with students and professors handing out information, pins, and Plan B’s. Only one person came over and spoke to us and wrote an article, the other article was speculation and assumptions since they did not actually come to speak to us and get educated on what was being done. 

Canisius University clearly has a need for events such as ours, as we ran out of Plan B in under an hour, giving out approximately 50 boxes of Plan B, 75 pro-choice buttons, and 90 informational flyers.

Rebecca has now hosted three Free Plan B events on the public sidewalk just off of Canisius and has handed out hundreds of boxes of Plan B, alongside informational flyers and free swag for students and professors who were interested. The first event was very successful, receiving a Gender Studies award for our activism. The second event had triple the amount of participants but ended in Harrington’s hurtful article being published. The third event ended up getting shut down by campus police, as someone called them saying there was “an unsanctioned political event on campus property” … even though we were on a public sidewalk on Main Street in Buffalo.

As we saw during these events (and many other instances before), Canisius has an issue regarding “free speech” and “open dialogue.” A university should support the rights of all students to think deeply about their ethical views and to fight for them, and yet, Canisius doesn’t allow this for their students, nor their faculty. Faculty members (such as the one listed in the photo above) showed their support by stopping by, verbally supporting us, and hanging our informational flyers in their offices, which can be risky at an institution like Canisius where they have fired faculty for having any opposing opinion.

Our group believes that we ought to have “open dialogue” (not “war”) when it comes to students’ opinions. If SFL can hand out cupcakes outside of the library, pro-choice students ought to have that same right, giving out information about women’s reproductive rights, even if they oppose the Catholic Church. If Canisius is in fact where leaders are made, why are there people trying to silence the students trying to make a difference and lead?