Anti-abortion group brings exhibit to A 2

By Tiffany Maggard

Daily Staff Reporter

An anti-abortion project that has been called highly disturbing and even repulsive during visits to 26 universities across the country will be on display today and tomorrow on the Diag.

The Genocide Awareness Project is organized by the Los Angeles-based Center for Bioethical Reform and features about 30 16-foot by 13-foot images of aborted fetuses juxtaposed with scenes from genocide fields.

The project was invited to the University by the campus Students for Life and Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship groups.

"We're essentially doing what Martin Luther King did with his comparison of the brutalization of blacks to the brutalization of Jews," said Gregg Cunningham, director of the CBR.

Cunningham said the project aims to remind Americans of a Time magazine report which cited that 1 million holocaust victims were newborn children.

"We're saying, 'What is the difference between an infant Jew in a death camp and a fetus in the process of being born?'" he said.

Cunningham said responses to the project have varied from sympathetic to violent.

At the University of Kansas, a student drove his car into the project.

Earlier this year, the Genocide Awareness Project visited Washington State University, where the student government organized a weeklong campaign to warn students of the project's disturbing nature and to encourage people not to walk through it.

"We had signs and billboards to warn people and try to make them go around it," Associated Students of Washington State University President Steve Wymer said.

"I know of two cases where women who had had an abortion and started crying," Wymer said. "I happen to be pro-life, but I would never advocate trying to show my views in this way. ... I mean, this is nasty. It's sick."

Wymer said the project's coordinators were aggressive in their tactics and would not leave students passing by alone.

He said he believes the CBR's goals is to provoke a dramatic reaction.

Cunningham said extreme reactions to the project by pro-choice advocates actually help CBR's mission by attracting television news stations.

But Cunningham said he believes the particularly violent reactions to the project's images are the result of a lack of coping mechanisms he said some young people have when dealing with difficult issues such as abortion.

He said the ability to debate effectively and develop coping skills while doing so is an important contribution he said he hopes to instill upon the college students he meets today and tomorrow.

"Faculty members are so (biased) that what passes for education is actually indoctrination and students are not acquiring the ability to disagree without being disagreeable," he said.

Cunningham said it is important to bring the project to generally liberal communities like Ann Arbor since it is likely to promote debate among individuals who see it.

Students for Life spokesman Andrew Shirvell, an LSA junior, said members of the group saw the Genocide Awareness Project in Washington, D.C., during the March for Life in January and believed it was an effective idea. After much discussion they decided to invite the project to come to Ann Arbor.

"We thought, 'Is this the most effective means for sparking debate on campus? Will it have a big effect?' It was controversial and we debated whether it was an appropriate thing to bring to campus," he said.

Shirvell said, in the end, the group made a near-unanimous decision that the positive contributions of the project outweighed its disturbing demeanor.