(Prolifer)ations 5/1/08
by by Jivin J
A great number of people, both those who support and those who oppose abortion, have been offended by the notion of Shvarts’ project. By ignoring, censoring or banning images such as Schvarts’, we elevate abortion to pure theory while divorcing it from its practice.
The photos, videos and blood of Schvarts’ claimed project are needed to construct opinions about abortion, fertility, art and free speech at their most extreme limits. Rejecting reality for the sake of comfort leads us to ignorance (three cheers for the Ivy League, Yale). So, pro-lifers, pro-choicers and anyone not yet aligned: If you can’t handle the image, confront the issue behind it….
If Saporta argued that a fetus shouldn’t have the right to life because it’s part of the mother’s body until the umbilical cord is cut, or if she argued that she just didn’t believe a fetus should have the right to life until it emerged from its mother’s body, then I might be able to respect her argument (even if I disagreed with it). But what angers me so much, is that Saporta is saying that she’s not willing to even consider the rights of the fetus because all she can care about is the right of a woman to have an abortion.
[HT: ProWomanProLife]

By the way, these 2120 legalized murders do not include the about 900 “termination without request or consent” non voluntary euthanasia deaths that Dutch studies have reported doctors commit each year with nary a significant legal or professional consequence to the death doctors, and which are not counted as official cases of euthanasia in Dutch death bean counting. And, if the manner of keeping statistics is consistent with previous years, they don’t include
assisted suicides, which generally number about 500 per year.
[Drawing courtesy of World-Faiths.com]

” If you can’t handle the image, confront the issue behind it…”
Can we take this to mean that Matt Hathaway would also support the use of images of abortion from other, known-to-be-real abortions in addition to a questionable project promoted by an art student for publicity, in order to confront the issue behind them?
One could say that images of abortion (especially first trimester) such as those presented on college campuses by the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) are needed to construct opinions about abortion at its most typical.
The Schvartz project did raise questions about why people feel the way they do about abortion, but it had so little to do with the practice of abortion that ignoring or censoring it wouldn’t pull the practice any further from the debate. Fake blood between sheets of plastic doesn’t have much to do with real tissue removed by doctors in a sterile facility. And whatever a woman’s reasons for wanting to terminate her pregnancy, chances are it’s usually NOT because she’s a sensationalist student trying to get media coverage under the mask of “provoking thought.” The Schvartz project and the practice of abortion are two very different things.
Jill, If you shift the order of these stories there may be more responses. The condensed version looks like just another Yale artwork story. Just a thought:)
I agree with Jivin J. This “exhibit” is something that ought to be protected as free speech. If we cannot handle such an extreme dose of reality, then perhaps we ought to look into what it is about that reality that is so disturbing to us.
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Testaroo #2.