See the photos

The University of Florida was the next stop for the giant, horrifying, abortion pictures of The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP). But as we were preparing for the trip, CBR was still receiving gratifying reports on the impact of our earlier visit to Penn State. A few months after our time in Pennsylvania, PSU student newspaper columnist Peter Buck wrote an editorial which crowned us First Amendment champions for the zeal with which we exercised our free speech rights on behalf of the unborn – notwithstanding stiff competition from "pot protesters" and demonstrators representing the "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community." I think he meant it as a compliment.

As you read this newsletter, we hope you will compliment our work by supporting us with your time and money. By God's grace, we are doing some of the most important projects in the pro-life movement, but we can't do them alone.

More importantly, Carol Phillips, who directs the crisis pregnancy center (CPC) just off the campus in State College, PA, wrote the following:

I wanted to let you know that we had a client come to us … for a pregnancy test. Her test was positive and she was leaning toward aborting her child because she was afraid pregnancy would destroy the relationship she had with the baby's father. …[W]hen we called to check on her she said she had decided to carry her child. Many months later she told me that she had seen the GAP display on campus during the time she was deciding whether or not to carry her child. She said the pictures had a profound impact on her [emphasis added].

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Other points of interest concerning GAP were: 1) we had an approximate 60% increase in the number of clients during the months of May, June and July … compared to the previous year; 2) we had three calls for post-abortion counseling the week following GAP and had only two during the entire previous year.

STOPPING THE DENIAL

The fact that GAP saves babies by stimulating visits to crisis pregnancy centers is not news, but it is encouraging. Traditionally, only a small percentage of the pregnant women who visit crisis pregnancy centers are actually considering abortion. Most of the women leaning toward abortion go to abortion clinics instead of crisis pregnancy centers because they want help getting out of crisis pregnancies, not help getting through them. GAP changes the minds of many abortion-prone pregnant women by visually force-feeding facts which compel the conclusion that abortion is an act of violence which kills a baby. We assume that many have the conscience required to care about this now irrefutable fact, but even if none did, we would be no less obligated to expose this evil.

Our pictures prove that even an embryo is as much a baby as a full-term fetus. They also prove that a suction abortion is as savage an act of violence as any partial-birth abortion. This is important because a recent Wirthlin poll found that 53% of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal after a baby's heart begins to beat and 61% think it should be against the law after brain waves develop. These numbers reveal extensive public ignorance of the fact that a baby's heart begins to beat after 21 days and brain waves are measurable by 43 days. Since few abortions occur prior to 43 days, abortion could be effectively outlawed if these Americans were convinced that the embryo and early fetus were not mere blobs of tissue (this is crucial because 90% of abortions occur in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy). And that is what our pictures prove. But the importance of this achievement is an issue over which there is much difference of opinion in the pro-life movement.

CareNet, a nationwide consortium of crisis pregnancy centers, is promoting a nationwide billboard campaign which offers free pregnancy tests. It recently placed magazine ads which solicit money to fund this billboard project. The ads assert that "Most mothers give up their babies to abortionists because they don't know help is available at a nearby crisis pregnancy center." But the Family Research Council (FRC), a spin-off of Focus on the Family, has a different view. FRC has commissioned another Wirthlin study which finds that among American women of child-bearing age, fully two-thirds have already heard of crisis pregnancy centers (contrary to CareNet's belief, Wirthlin says women do "know that help is available") and half even know whether there is a center in their area. That doesn't mean there is no merit in further raising the already high public awareness of CPCs. But an even more important priority should be the goal of humanizing the early unborn baby and re-stigmatizing his slaughter.

CBR CONTROVERSIAL?

And that is exactly what we did at The University of Florida. UF Law Student Katrina Jiménez and Tim McMillan, President of Collegians for Life, sponsored our visit. It was funded by South County People for Life (Venice, FL) which is headed by Sister Judith Delany and Sister Elizabeth Gorvin. These are wonderful folks who are spiritual giants. They needed to be.

The Monday, January 11^th issue of The Independent Florida Alligator, The University of Florida's campus newspaper, carried a front page story entitled "Anti-abortion group brings controversy to UF." The lead paragraph read as follows:

A controversial anti-abortion group will make radical comparisons between abortion, the Holocaust and the civil rights movement today through Thursday at the Plaza of the Americas – a message that has been met with opposition or violence at four other U.S. universities.

That the press would describe us as a "controversial" anti-abortion group suggests that most other anti-abortion groups are not controversial. This, tragically, is true. Most pro-life groups are so desperate to avoid "controversy" that they work nearly as hard as Planned Parenthood to cover up the evidence that abortion is indefensible. They say pictures don't work (despite overwhelming experiential and historical proof that for many, they are the only thing which does work) but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are actually trying to avoid persecution. We are losing this battle precisely because the culture isn't sufficiently "troubled" by abortion. Most Americans are so confused about who the first trimester baby is and what suction abortion does to him that they think linking abortion with the Holocaust is a "radical comparison." This isn't the fault of students. It is the fault of a timid, irresolute, pro-life leadership that has taken our movement over a cliff.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST CBR

But our work at UF was not without risk. The Thursday, January 14^th issue of the campus newspaper contained an insert called Detours which featured a columnist named Jason Brown. In his essay, Mr. Brown openly incited violence against us:

The CBR is a right-wing, anti-abortion, head-up-its-ass organization. They use shocking pictures of aborted fetuses ….

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But in one of my favorite gestures of all time, a Kansas student decided to drive his car through the display.

Now there is a kid with some initiative! I wish there was someone around here with a go-get-'em attitude like that.

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Their display will be at the Reitz Union today.

Stop by and pay a visit.

Bring your car.

A related story in The Los Angeles Times, August 10, 2000 carried the headline "CBS Apologizes for Talk Show's Violent Bush Joke." The story began as follows:

CBS and the producers of "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn" apologized Wednesday for putting the words 'Snipers Wanted' under footage of George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention during a mock newscast portion of the program.

The UF school paper, of course, offered no apology for openly inviting violence against us. It is testimony to the careful logistical work of Paul Kulas and the rest of the CBR staff that no violence actually occurred.