Forty-seven members from People for Life assembled outside of Mercyhurst demonstrating against Sister Simone Campbell and her work promoting both President Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

Tim Broderick is the head of Erie People for Life, which is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization “dedicated to advancing true justice by working for the protection of all innocent human lives, whatever the age, race, sex, physical condition, economic status, or place of residence (including the womb),” according to its website.

In a recent interview, Broderick said, “When [Campbell] was asked point-blank at the Democratic Convention ‘Do you think the unborn deserve legal protection?’ And here’s a person who has extensive views on things as complex as the federal budget, the national economy, and she’s not afraid to correct the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, correct the Pope, but when it comes to the question, ‘Should human beings be deliberately killed?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’
“We think this is an opportunity to come out and say that some people still do know that killing is wrong. And it’s wrong not to protect the most defenseless, the most marginalized of all of the people in our human family, and that is, human beings prior to birth.”

He also said that her “Nuns on the Bus” tour around the U.S. on the eve of the 2012 Presidential Election, which campaigned for President Obama, omitted the issue of abortion and human life was “a statement in itself” as to her views.
He also said that she “did a great job whitewashing President Obama’s record on abortion and on human life issues,” making reference to the President’s position that abortion in all forms should be legal and that it should be federally funded. And that she denied “the federal government is pouring massive amounts of money into insurance plans that pay for abortion” under the Affordable Care Act.

However, Broderick’s views are not the only ones at play.
There are also the views of members of the Religious Studies department, who were the ones giving Campbell the award.

Daniel McFee, Ph.D., chair of the department, gave his comments about the protest: “I think that protests are a valuable part of American democracy…it’s an integral part of it.”

Concerning the possibility of dialogue with People for Life and others who disagree with giving Sister Campbell the award:
“I invite dialogue. What I don’t invite are reactionary screeds which are put out either on the Internet or are not based in fact. Or people who are intentionally malicious…and are trying intentionally to score political points.”
Finally, Sister Campbell was willing a comment to the Merciad concerning this issue. She responded to comments saying she was pro-abortion by saying, “I’m pro-life…(but) it’s more than birth. It’s all of life. It’s about nurturing those who are left out, just like Pope Francis said. It’s about proportionality and engaging all.

“What I’m for,” she said, “is that we effectively stop abortions by providing support for pregnant women. That’s where I go. It’s a political choice, how you want to deal with this issue, we are 100 percent on the same page in terms of the value and the dignity of life. What is the political consequence is how do respond to that?

“I want to work to make sure that women don’t have to make those horrible choices. I worked family law for a year and met someone who had to make that choice and it is painful and it was awful. But they were desperate and they had no other recourse in their view…”