Suburban schools in Maryland targeted by anti-abortion activists meet: mothers

They pounced upon hearing them, seizing anything they could use as a shield.

“Random things from the normal, mobile mother,” said one of the crusader mothers. “Yoga blankets, oversized jackets, beach towels”—anything to hide the distorted, bloody images that anti-abortion protesters have been waving in the faces of children outside their schools in Maryland.

“It felt like an assault on our school,” said Jennifer Dominic, mother of 17-year-old twins at Wild Lake High School in Columbia, Maryland. “High school students are carrying so much these days that it wasn’t entirely appropriate for these protesters to target a high school campus.”

These are the tactics of an anti-selection group that has been hitting high school and middle school campuses — yes, middle school — with their graphic images of fetuses as the nation prepares for the Supreme Court’s abolition. Raw vs. Wade.

This group calls itself “Created Equal”. They are from Ohio and wear body cameras to record children and parents who provoke them. They are careful to stand on public sidewalks and make sure they are within sight of children walking to and from class.

How interested are the anti-abortion protesters in children?

Their move in suburban Maryland this week came on the eve of Oklahoma’s passage of the nation’s strictest abortion law on Thursday — Any abortion is prohibited, Starting with fertilization.

Where are the Pearls now, who abstained from rainbow-flagged and candle-carrying protesters marching in front of the stately homes of Supreme Court justices after the leaked ruling? The Howard County kids don’t have a battalion of Kevlar-covered cops to protect them on their way to Algebra II.

Although I’m not sure the protests in the homes of Supreme Court justices are productive, it is surprising to hear these criticisms when anti-abortion protesters have been practicing guerrilla tactics, shock value, and acts of emotional abuse for years.

“Images of dismembered children welcomed students across buses and in cars as well as pedestrians coming from every direction,” said Amy Brooks, an English teacher and parents at Oakland Mills High School, where protests disrupted classes on Wednesday.

“As a parent, I texted our family chat and informed everyone, and told them to ignore the protesters. After school, we had a questioning of information about pizza and both of our high school students were not affected by the shock tactics used,” she wrote in a Facebook post describing the incident.

“As a teacher, I opened each class with a space to share feelings about the situation,” she wrote. The schedules had to be adjusted that day because the brawl canceled some exams and launched emergency training at the school.

Calvin Ball, the Howard County Executive, weighed in when the first set of protests against schools erupted earlier this month.

“I am disgusted by the tactics of anti-abortion opponents who deliberately and unnecessarily subject our students to graphic images with intent to shock,” Ball said in a statement posted to Facebook. “While I respect the rights of those who want to express their opinions on important topics, the scenes we saw today at Wild Lake High School, Middle School and Howard Community College are not designed to inform. They are designed to drive the wedges in our community, and we should not let that happen.”

The group has posted videos on social media, and is part of a growing subculture of Gonzo, conservative protesters who have questionable ties to the facts.

A similar group operating in suburban Philadelphia in 2017 pushed then-assistant principal Zach Roof to try to protect his students from posters. He argued with the protesters to the point of obnoxious anger and lost his job.

Teachers and parents said protesters in Howard County sparked a lot of discussion.

Brooks said that she and the students realized the “inappropriate way” in which Towers used First Amendment freedom “while waiting to separate children from their parents as they entered a public school space they were required to attend.”

In every class that day, Brooks answered questions from her students about protesting (again, not about abortion).

Demonstrators in the homes of Supreme Court justices are misleading.

They discussed the use of graphic images – such as mass graves in the Holocaust or lynching.

But the kids told her these pictures were about history and they came with context. In class after class, the children said the photos of the protesters were out of context and could not be compared.

Nothing in these tactics is pro-baby or pro-life.

It aims to incite, not educate.

Then again, the discussions by teachers and students about freedom of expression, protest, and the way to make a point clear had some value.

And when these parents came with their car blankets and umbrellas, they showed the children the difference between protest and assault.