For College seniors Tracey Gilbert and Amma Asare, seeing anti-abortion protesters on Locust Walk was a bonding experience.
Both students have had abortions, and their reactions to the protest brought the pair together. On Saturday, Gilbert and Asare shared their experiences at a conference about reproductive rights in College Hall.
The pair, both members of the Excelano Project -- a Penn spoken-word group -- delivered a poetic piece which discussed the societal condemnation women face after having an abortion.
The poem was entitled "Pro-Life" and consisted of Gilbert and Asare trading lines such as "Freedom is never wrong/ Choices that are illusions are never right."
Both had put careful thought into the poem.
"It was the hardest piece to write," Gilbert said. "We wanted to deconstruct the dichotomy between terms such as 'pro-choice' or 'pro-life.' The poem was a good way to do that."
The audience responded enthusiastically to the piece and asked several questions regarding the authors' personal lives and about abortion itself.
Gilbert responded by describing her experience at the abortion clinic.
"All the women who were having an abortion were gathered in one room," Gilbert said. "Our boyfriends and mothers waited outside. We had nothing to do, so one by one, each of us shared our story."
She said some of the other girls reported having been raped, while others' condoms had broken.
The audience was impressed by the authors' eloquence and zeal in delivering the piece.
"It was amazing and passionate," College senior Sarah Gudis said. "This really helps open the silence surrounding the issue and the personal struggles that go into decisions regarding pregnancy and abortion."
Gilbert and Asare's performance was a main feature of the conference "Moving Beyond the Rhetoric" which began at 11:30 a.m. and lasted into the late afternoon.
Other speakers included representatives of Penn Medical Students for Choice, Penn Medical Students for Life and local health officials who provided information on emergency contraception.
About 30 people attended the conference, most of them women eager to learn about the issue.
"People brought a lot of energy to this event," College sophomore and organizer Jillian Budd said.
Women in Thought, which hosted the event, hoped to help Penn students expand their understanding of reproductive rights.
"There are so many problems in today's society," Gilbert said. "Abortion simply isn't accessible and isn't affordable to lower-income women. There is one clinic in all of Mississippi. There's definitely something wrong with that."
