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Police officers were called to the Library Quad today as anti-abortion demonstrators set up posters and handed out brochures to students.

The Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust arrived on campus in the morning and set up a table and signs around the quad.

The group was eventually told by campus officials to remain near the University Union. However, several members of the group moved signs displaying mutilated fetuses and images of genocide across the Library Quad.

Demonstrators were then asked to move by Louis Camera, director of Student Activities. Police were called and said that the anti-abortion groups had the right to free speech on campus.

According to Student Activities policy, the distribution of handbills and circulars is limited to the edge of walkways adjacent to the Library Quad, Main Quad and Science Quad.

The group received mixed reactions from students. Though some students listened to the activists, others engaged the anti-abortionists by questioning the group’s motivations.

James Conner, one of the demonstrators, said he sees abortion as a choice, not a right.

“It’s an evil choice because (a woman) murders her children,” Conner said. “A fetus is not part of a woman; it resides in them and it should be afforded the rights of a child.”

The anti-abortionists also made comparisons to the practice of abortions in the U.S. and Hitler’s genocide of Jews.

Ron Sockolov, a junior geography major, argued that the comparison was offensive.

“They would deny the rights of women to choose what they want to do with their body,” Sockolov said. “They are comparing women to Hitler. This is just not the way to change people’s minds.”

Stephanie Whittle, a medical student at UC Davis, came out to support the demonstrators.

“When a woman’s rights infringe on the rights of a child, that is where it has to stop,” Whittle said.

Junior government major Robert Marcelis disagreed, saying that women’s rights should be the highest priority. He also questioned the basis of their argument.

“This is a moral standpoint,” Marcelis said, “and they are trying to make it into a rights issue.”

Derek Fleming can be reached at [email protected]