A Video from TFP about the Anti-Abortion Demonstration outside Servo Goes Viral

By Katie Oglesby, Editor-in-Chief

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) protestors outside Servo on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022 (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian)

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) protestors outside Servo on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022 (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian)

On Oct. 25, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) held an anti-abortion protest outside of Servo. In response, students led an impromptu counter-protest. 

On Saturday, the TFP posted a video—with now over 15,000 views—to their YouTube channel alleging that at this protest students “attacked” their member holding the “Smile! You survived abortion!” sign. 

In the video description, they say that the demonstration was “day two of their week-long pro-life caravan dedicated to our Lady of Mt. Carmel.”

The video includes interactions with students at the protest, including members of Phi Delta Theta (PDT) who were outside Servo at the same time advertising their haunted mansion philanthropy event.

The description of the video says that students at the counter-protest said statements like “You should all have been aborted!” and “I am pro-murder” to TFP members at the protest.

“The other side certainly thinks that we’re effective,” one TFP representative said in the video. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be out here today.”

In the video, they show a student trying to take the sign away from the TFP protester. They filmed the student running away from the scene as well. 

According to earlier reporting from The Gettysburgian, Campus Safety and the Gettysburg Police Department were both at the scene to separate the two groups.

Students provide counter-protest against The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) outside Servo on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. One student holds a pro-choice Marty Qually sign (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian).

Students provide counter-protest against The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) outside Servo on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. One student holds a pro-choice Marty Qually sign (Photo Will Oehler/The Gettysburgian).

Simon Taylor ’26, one of the students talking to the TFP in the video said, “I feel like [the TFP] painted themselves in a way that made them look like non-aggressors but in reality, the words and signs they had were very aggressive and displayed harmful language. I thought the students’ protest against them was very peaceful and brought the campus together more.”

Taylor stood by the statements he made that TFP recorded, saying, “Being pro-choice doesn’t mean you have to agree on a personal level with abortion, but you give women the bodily autonomy they deserve to be able to make the decision if they want to have a kid or not on their own.”

Author: Katie Oglesby

Katie Oglesby ‘23 serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the Gettysburgian. She has previously served as Magazine Editor, News Editor, Assistant News Editor, and Staff Writer. She is an English with a writing concentration and political science major, hailing from San Diego, California, but now living in rural North Carolina. On campus, Katie works at the CUB information desk, is an Eisenhower Institute Fielding Fellow, and serves as co-service vice president for the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. She spent a semester abroad in Bath, England studying British literature and politics, and spent this past summer interning with the Winston-Salem Journal in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She can usually be found perusing books in the Musselman Library browsing room.

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2 Comments

  1. Only the best and brightest students at Gettysburg. Not an embarrassment at all.

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  2. Words aren’t violence. Shoving and stealing signs are violence. That student should be ashamed of himself.

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