By Sahsa Williams
Gaunt bodies piled high during the Holocaust; a child left alone in the Cambodian killing fields; toddler corpses mixed with rubble in Rwanda; and nine-week-old aborted fetus parts wrapped around a dime. The Genocide Awareness Project, GAP, displayed these images in a photo illustration the horrors of abortion near the Life Sciences Building on Oct. 17-18.
GAP visits college campuses all over the country setting up their poster-sized photographs, displayed behind a barricade, to show students pictures of genocide. The group uses the pictures of aborted fetuses to support their claim that abortion is a form of genocide, equivalent to past atrocities such as the lynching of African-Americans and the murdering of Jews in Nazi Germany.
“It’s disgusting comparing abortion to genocide,” sophomore Rachael Ellis said.
The Center for Bio Ethical Reform, which funds GAP, stated on their Web site, “While CBR realizes that each form of genocide differs from the next in terms of method and motivation, there are far more than enough similarities to merit our comparison.”
The anti-abortion group had trucks with similar graphic images circling campus Oct. 5, but the stationary and more prominent location of the display last week drew more attention and protestors. U of L freshman Jennifer Sparks was arrested via citation and charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct Oct. 18. Witnesses say Sparks used a homemade blowtorch from an aerosol can and a lighter to ignite one of GAP’s signs on fire. Sparks did not return calls or e-mails requesting comment.
Campus police said they were patrolling the area the entire time GAP was set up on campus, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
Fletcher Armstrong, southeast director of the Center for Bio Ethical Reform, said that both pro-life and pro-choice students found time to stop and speak with him. He said most students were respectful when discussing opposing opinions, but “there was some yelling.”
“There were a full range of views expressed by students,” Armstrong said. He traveled with GAP to the University of Louisville to help set up the pro-life displays and speak with students and answer any questions.
“Pro-choice people are trying to obscure the facts,” Armstrong said. “We want them to know the truth.”
Cardinals for Life, a pro-life student group on campus, invited GAP to U of L. Bill Norton, a member of Cards for Life who helped organize the event, agrees that abortion is a form of genocide. “College students are the most likely demographic to have an abortion. I feel it’s very important that the campus be made aware that abortion is killing an unborn baby,” he said.
A group of women protesting the display passed out fliers which stated that students did not have to see the graphic images. The flier encouraged students to contact the provost to ask that the group be removed from campus. The university dealt with similar complaints last year with the Ku Klux Klan appearing several times on campus. At that time, the university decided that it cannot legally prevent controversial groups from coming to campus.
“On this campus, I see a lot of people talking about everybody should have freedom of speech, but when something like this happens, those are the same people passing out fliers saying the exhibit should not be on campus,” U of L student Sherah Israel said.
Norton said that GAP, which last visited U of L in 2002, will probably not return next year because they don’t have time to tour every campus in the region each year. He said Cards for Life has other pro-life events planned for this year.
