VIRGINIA CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE supports the CENTER FOR BIO-ETHICAL REFORM as they bring the displays of aborted babies to Virginia universities, comparing them with other acts of genocide.
Students at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), were faced with the harsh reality of abortion on April 7-8, 2015. No longer can their pro-abortion professors effectively lie to them and offer catchy phrases like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) pierces those lies by using massive photomurals (12 x 6 feet each) to contrast abortion to other recognized genocides. Students will never think of abortion as they did before seeing GAP.
The CSULB Newman Club sponsored GAP again this year and reserved the best location on campus. This club of energetic and dedicated pro-life Catholic students is a joy with which to work. Our CBR team was also joined by a number of dedicated Southern California volunteers. Here is what the student newspaper reported about GAP:
In honor of Genocide Awareness Month, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform erected 20-foot posters of graphic abortion images as part of its Genocide Awareness Campaign on the Free Speech Lawn Tuesday.
Brett Waterfield, the director of student life and development at California State University, Long Beach, said that the school must remain content neutral when allowing students to host events on campus.
“The genocide awareness event is sponsored by a student organization here on campus,” Waterfield said. “We have to support the students’ first amendment rights to express their views… we have to respect our students’ voices and opinions and beliefs and so forth.”…
In 2006, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals established that public universities could reasonably control the time, place and manner of expression on campus to allow the maximum flow of ideas so university students and faculty can push the sociological edges of culture forward.
‘We want to educate students about abortion,” Kevin Olivier, the director of operations for the CBR, said. “To let them know it is an act of violence that decapitates and dismembers human beings. The pictures provide evidence for our claim.’…
The signs and photos are graphically detailed with the intentions of getting students’ attention, said Christopher Page, vice president of the CNC.
‘Human beings… are killed and then sucked out in pieces… and its perfectly legal…’ Page said. ‘We have to get everyone’s attention, and these signs are appropriate.’
URGE plans to protest the Genocide Awareness Campaign for as long as they choose to stay at CSULB.
‘Our goal is to get them banned from campus because of how uncomfortable it makes people feel,’ said Karina Sarabia, a sophomore English education major and board member for URGE (United for Reproductive and Gender Equity) See: CSULB Catholics bring pro-life advocates to campus
Newman Club member and sophomore Meredith Amon, wrote a letter to the editor in response.
Last week, the Daily 49er printed an article about the Genocide Awareness Project. Contrary to what some believe, the pictures GAP uses are authentic and depict the reality of abortion.
If abortion is designed to terminate that life by vacuuming or tearing up the child, what does it look like? GAP encourages students to see the evidence in these pictures and to challenge them to do their own research. Just by seeing the image of prenatal development, like the one featured in GAP, is enough to see that life is not just a clump of tissue—it is a human life. What abortion does to that human life is saddening and horrifying…
GAP came to share peaceful conversation with students — to show the humanity of the unborn.
The media has become a powerful and effective means for communication and that is what GAP does with these images. They were there to inform, spread an awareness of abortion, and back up their claims with scientific arguments — that science teaches that human life begins at conception, that the heart beat begins at 3 weeks, brain waves can be detected at 6 weeks, and once conceived, the child’s DNA is separate and unique to that of its mother. It was two days of trying to break the silence and have a conversation our country needs. What was disappointing was the protesters’ discouragement of any discussion with signs saying, ‘Do not engage’ or ‘Want to help? Just walk away. Do not engage.’ Were they attempting to silence GAP because the prolife side was actually making sense and was more compelling than theirs? Amazing conversations occurred on GAP’s side but what did protesters really gain? High-fives and ‘support’ without any real dialogue. As the dozens of students who talked to GAP [staff ] know, they were peaceful, respectful, and stated their case with reason and logic.
In the United States, there are approximately 1.21 million abortions that take place each year, and since Roe v. Wade in 1973, there have been more than 57 million abortions in our country. That is one third of our generation lost to abortion. …Genocides, also according to the United Nations, can be ‘Many instances crimes of genocide have occurred when racial, religious, political, and other groups have been destroyed or in part.’ … By this definition, GAP brings awareness that the human group being attacked is the unborn, and the grounds for which their existence is denied, is their unwantedness…. See: Letter to the editor: Genocide Awareness Project
Tuyen Dinh, a junior journalism major and Contributing Writer to Daily 49er, believed that only liberals have freedom of speech. He wrote in his piece: “CSULB encourages progressive thinking and believes in the power of free speech, but the administration should draw the line when it comes to the anti-abortion demonstrators [from The] Center for BioEthical Reform.” http://bit.ly/1JygKGd Thankfully, the First Amendment still guarantees our freedom of speech, but most students, and even many in positions of authority, do not begin to understand, nor appreciate, that right.
Student Dyanne Roper wrote a response to a Daily 49er opinion article entitled “Ban the Abortion Fort.” She asked:
If the pictures are scarring and viewers are uncomfortable, wouldn’t your next thought be ‘Why?’ Why the negative reactions? There must be something disturbing about what is being photographed. A picture is nothing but a neutral, unbiased portrayal of what is on the other side of the lens. If it is disturbing, why do we allow it? …
Great questions, Miss Roper. GAP is a powerful tool to get students asking questions that no one was asking the day before we came on campus.
