By Shahbaz Syed
Editor, the Gauntlet,
Recently there has been a vast debate regarding pro-life and pro-choice around campus. To be opinionated in relation to a particular issue is human nature. But to have rational reasoning as per your argument is what separates intellectuals from the remainder of society. The pro-life club, sponsored by the university administration demonstrated a strong lack of logic this past week. Many people on campus were offended by this graphic display, but for the wrong reasons. The offense comes not in the graphic display itself, but in the lack of sound arguments used by the pro-life club to justify their display. Comparing the slaughter of innocent civilians to an aborted fetus is a serious scientific misrepresentation. Being a biological sciences student, I had to examine this from a scientific perspective. Pain sensory in humans is located in the cerebral cortex; this particular area of the brain isn’t matured until late in development. Similarly, a fetus is incapable of rational thought and does not respond to external stimuli. To claim that individuals subject to torture were in the same position is ludicrous. Not only is it disgraceful and derogatory, but it is an insult to anybody with a shred of intellectual ability. While the pro-life club was allowed to put up this display, and had the right to implement the use of free-speech, it must be employed with caution. The use of false logic and non-comparable phenomena is an insult to the academia at this institute, and leads the thought process of the pro-life club, as well as the administration to be held in contempt. Regardless of the issue at hand, logic should always prevail, which sadly was not the case here.