An open microphone rally pitted pro-choice supporters and anti-abortionists head-to-head in a battle of words and ideologies Wednesday.

Pro-choice supporters rallied at the Martin Luther King Commons to protest government interference in attempting to make abortions illegal.

The noon rally, which drew a crowd of nearly 300 people, lasted an hour and a half and ended with more than 30 students picketing the Newman Foundation Catholic Student Center, 512 Normal Road.

The Newman Center provides space for the NIU Students for Life, a pregnancy counselling center for women. The group offers free pregnancy counselling but does not refer women who seek an abortion to a doctor who might perform one.

While the possibility of “back alley abortions” is a fear many expressed at the rally if anti-abortion legislation is successful, many of the protesting students saw the issue as a violation of civil rights.

“I think it’s an issue of the government telling me what to do with my body,” said NIU senior Dina Burrows.

Barbara Giolitto, chairman of the Rockford Coalition for Choice, attended the rally and asked students to help “counter picket” pro-life supporters at abortion clinics.

“It’s very refreshing to see young people getting stirred up because they are the ones being affected,” she said.

Julie Stege, a founder of the Feminist Front which sponsored the rally, said “our rights are being stripped away one by one,” listing the right to abortion as one of those in danger.

Stege was happy with the turnout and said she was unconcerned with the pro-life supporters that were there.

About 20 pro-life students protested at the rally amidst jeers from pro-choice supporters.

Marcy Reinke, a pregnancy counselor, spoke against abortion. After listening quietly to the majority of her speech, pro-choice students began chanting and demanded that she step down from the microphone.

Reinke said that before considering an abortion, women should consider the possible psychological trauma and physical pain which the process might inflict.

“I find that this group will not listen to the other side of the story,” she said.

While students marched in front of the Newman Center, Feminist Front member Tom Rainey and others hung coat hangers around the church symbolizing the possible dangers of these being used as abortion instruments if anti-abortion legislation is passed.

Protestors at the center chanted, “Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate.”

NIU student-at-large Ruth Parvin said, “To me, pro-choice is pro-life. It’s pro-life in terms of the quality of the life.”