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After Legal Battle, University of Houston Allows Anti-Abortion Exhibit

Officials at the University of Houston granted permission to the anti-abortion campus group Pro-Life Cougars to erect a display in a well-traveled part of campus featuring graphic pictures of fetuses and other anti-choice materials, the Houston Chronicle reports. This decision follows a yearlong battle to restrict the exhibit to one of the four designated “free speech zones” of the campus. The Pro-Life Cougars sued the campus to be allowed to set up the display in a more visible part of campus. The legal battle over the graphic exhibit, owned by the anti-abortion group Justice For All, ended when a three-judge panel of the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the university’s request to postpone the exhibit, and university officials agreed to give the group use of the well-traveled Butler Plaza.

Several members of the National Organization for Women’s student group passed out purple ribbons near the display as a show of support for reproductive rights. One of the students told the Chronicle that she found it hypocritical that the group fought so hard for their right to free speech “yet they are protesting the freedom to have an abortion.”

Sources:

Houston Chronicle 9/3/02; Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report 8/22/02, 9/5/02

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