These Flags Represent

Reflections on the Cemetery of the Innocents

By Jacob A. Weatherly

It’s 10 A.M. on Monday, October 6, 2008. I’m standing on the lawn in front of the Science Center, holding a sign with Harvard Right to Life President Mary Anne Marks while one of our Vice Presidents, Roger Waite, retrieves a mallet. One hundred forty American flags flutter in the breeze around my feet. Roger arrives with the mallet and pounds some stakes into the ground. Mary Anne and Roger leave for class, and I sit on the stone benches to watch the display. 

On his way to class, a student reads the sign, makes a face, and moves on. He wasn’t expecting to read this message: “One hundred forty abortions occur per hour in the United States. These flags represent the lives lost.”

A tour group stops at the bench where I’m sitting. Some members take a picture of the display. A girl approaches me and asks how I got into Harvard. That’s what matters: admission to Harvard. 

Twelve hours later, I’m at my desk in my dorm. My roommate asks what I did today. I told him I watched the abortion display for Harvard Right to Life.

“You’re part of that?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I respond.

“But if it’s a life, then why is there no funeral?” he inquires.

No funeral? Weren’t the flags the gravestones, and the lawn the cemetery? 

That student who grimaced at our sign probably also thought I was wasting my time. But the next day, a colleague from Lesley University with a big blue rolling suitcase comes to relieve me. She’s different from the girl yesterday. She doesn’t go to school here, but she doesn’t think we’re wasting our time. The display matters to her.

And it mattered to Mary Anne, Roger, me. But did we make a difference? I think so. All those students who thought abortions are merely choices by women in control of their own bodies were confronted with their absurdity of their claim. Those flags represented the lives lost.