'Cletus the Fetus' to return home after EWU abduction of protest prop

An Eastern Washington University student stole a small, faux fetus from an anti-abortion group visiting campus on Monday.

"Another day, another fetal model stolen from one of our Students for Life tables," the group's President, Kristan Hawkins, posted on social media, alongside a missing poster of the fetus. "We affectionately called him Cletus."

Students for Life of America is a national organization that "trains and mobilizes this generation of pro-life leaders to impact public policy and influence key elections in order to limit & abolish abortion in America," per their website.

Hawkins visited Eastern Washington University as part of a spring campus tour, where she tabled at various higher education institutions with a backdrop reading "abortion is human sacrifice, change my mind."

Eastern has had a Students for Life club active on social media since 2021.

Cletus's Monday abduction was not his first, Hawkins wrote online.

After filing a report with the EWU Police Department, which posted a video of the theft on Facebook, the would-be kidnapper came forward and surrendered the plastic prop to the department on Thursday.

EWU detective Robert Schmitter said that Hawkins declined to press charges on the student. Police referred them to the university's student responsibilities department.

"Eastern Washington University is a public campus where free speech and expression occurs routinely and without incident," EWU spokesman Linn Parish said in an email. "The sequence of events at Monday's gathering appears to be an isolated situation that was resolved quickly."

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This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 7:06 PM.