Dear Partners and Friends,
This month, we want to share with you some good work being done by others. Our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) has been such a success, others have adopted its use. This is exactly what we hoped and prayed would happen. In fact, equipping and supporting other pro-life groups who are dedicated to doing effective work is one of our most important missions. Thank you for making it all possible through your prayers and gifts.
Replicating GAP in New York
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CBR teaches students how to assert First Amendment rights to reserve prime locations for displaying GAP. |
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CBR is not the only group doing the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP). Yes, we have the signs and we have developed a system of procedures that work, but others are building their own GAP programs. We are doing our part by providing the equipment and the expertise.
Most important outcome. When we take GAP to a university campus, there are several important outcomes we desire: saved lives, changed hearts and minds, souls won for the Kingdom, etc. But if GAP is successful in achieving these positive results, then the most important outcome of GAP has to be—the envelope please—more and more people doing GAP! And that is, in fact, what is happening. People are growing their own GAP programs in North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky, New York, South Dakota, Oregon, California, Ohio, New Jersey, and elsewhere.
It’s a slow process. There are basically two ways for us to establish a GAP program in a new place—either (1) an existing pro-life group adopts GAP as a new project, or (2) a new leader emerges to build his own organization, in some cases a branch office of CBR. A few years ago, we mistakenly imagined that existing pro-life groups would embrace the new methods of public education (i.e., outdoor photographic displays), which are clearly more effective than anything else we had ever seen. Unfortunately, we underestimated the degree to which many pro-life leaders are wedded to the status quo. They view effective public education work as a distraction from—or even detrimental to—the more “mainstream” pro-life activities. Because there are so few pro-life dollars and volunteers to go around, they fear that projects like GAP will take resources away from the less effective projects. There is great irony in this, because our experience shows that doing bold, effective work brings greater resources, not less.
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Even a small display of 4 signs can draw a huge crowd! |
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The times, they are a-changin. But there’s an upside to all of this. We are definitely seeing the emergence of a new generation of pro-life leaders—young, energetic people who will not settle for “mainstream” activities that merely preserve the status quo. More and more, college students are calling CBR and are asking us to bring GAP to their schools. That is why it is so important for us to replicate GAP. In this newsletter, we describe GAP programs being organized and conducted by students at two universities in New York.
GAP at Cornell University
The Cornell Coalition for Life (CCFL) has displayed GAP several times, most recently on October 4, 2004. Paul Ibrahim, President of CCFL, wrote:
GAP at Cornell was a great success! We certainly got mixed reactions from the student body, but on the whole, we changed many hearts. … On campus, the abortion issue had been on the backburner. Now, a couple of months later, our club has tripled in membership … The abortion debate is again a hot topic.
Voices of tolerance. We laugh when radical leftists refer to us as “intolerant bigots” and the like. At Cornell, pro-aborts held a sign in front of the GAP display that read, "Warning: Dangerous Maniacs Ahead." If you don’t have convincing arguments, name-calling is about all you can do.
Myth of back-alley abortions. It’s one of the most common myths about abortion. In a guest column that appeared in the Cornell Sun (the student newspaper), pro-abortion activists Courtney Ritter & May Silverstein wrote:
Making abortion illegal would not make abortion vanish or decrease the demand for it. It would simply push abortions out of the offices of well-trained doctors into precarious locations, leading to the deaths of women who have no other choice except to take matters into their own hands.
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Yankee GAP is much colder than regular GAP, but just as effective! |
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This hasn’t been true for quite some time. In 1960, the American Journal of Public Health quoted Mary Calderone, then Medical Director of Planned Parenthood, as saying that “90% of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians … Abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians.” When abortion is driven underground again, some physicians will perform them illegally, not in back alleys, but in their own back offices.
Amid claims of thousands of women being killed by illegal abortions, the Centers for Disease Control reported only 39 such deaths in 1972, the year before Roe v Wade. Of course this is 39 too many, but today, amid total silence from abortion advocates, many women are being killed by legal abortions. Even though deaths from legal abortions are covered up and exact figures are impossible to obtain, Life Dynamics, Inc. has documented literally hundreds of women killed by legal abortions. In both cases, whether legal or illegal, it is pro-abortion doctors who are killing these women. Not us. Yet, who do they want to blame? You guessed it – pro-lifers! Of course, we oppose killing women, whether legally or illegally.
Stimulating debate. When their arguments fail, pro-aborts often assert that our pictures “shut off debate.” This is never the case; it is always the pro-aborts who run from debate. A truly remarkable rebuttal to this charge played out on the website of the Cornell Sun (www.cornellsun.com). On October 8, CCFL President Paul Ibrahim wrote an article entitled “The War on Life.” A pro-abort writing under the name “Az” responded with a very long posting. Pro-lifer Malkia replied to Az and the exchange went back and forth for a full week. Az didn’t change her mind—at least, not yet—but her final posting revealed an opening mind:
Thank you Malkia for providing me with some facts and figures that help support your views. I did truly find that very helpful. … I do recognize you have a good argument with … I can truly see your point, definitely far more clearly than ever before. I know more people who are pro-choice than I do pro-life people. That is why your responses have been incredibly helpful to me. I have never before been given such thought out tempered explanations from the very few pro-life individuals I've met. I appreciate that tremendously. I cannot say that our dialog made me switch to a "pro-life" stance. That wouldn't really be possible because …
Well, Az, we won’t bet on it! We appreciate your open mind and your willingness to engage in meaningful dialogue.
GAP at SUNY Albany
Whenever the Voice for Life (VFL) puts up their GAP signs at State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany, which they have done on multiple occasions, the uproar is deafening. Pro-aborts routinely demand that the signs be removed. They wish to avoid being offended by truth. It’s all stuff we’ve heard before. We were pleased, however, to learn that the University hosted a “teach-in” to explain to pro-abort students that the First Amendment applies to everyone, not just the political left. In fact, some notable pro-abort faculty at SUNY Albany rose to the defense of VFL’s First Amendment right to display GAP. It’s still America!
Many thanks to the New York State Right to Life Committee, the Capital District Pro-Life Council, and Schenectady Right to Life for their support of GAP at SUNY!
To arrange your automatic monthly bank draft to support our work:
1. Download and print the Electronic Gift Transfer Authorization:
http://www.abortionno.org/...GiftTransferSE.pdf
2. Fill out the form. Make sure you designate the gift for "CBR Southeast"
3. Enclose a voided check or deposit slip bearing the account number of the account we should draft.
4. Mail the Transfer Authorization form and a voided check (or deposit slip) to CBR Southeast, P.O. Box 20115, Knoxville, TN 37940.
Please pray that God will raise up others to help you support this life-saving work!
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