One of the most heartening endorsements of CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at the University of Buffalo was a “so called” Ms. Magazine blog piece written by the “so called” Amanda Montei.  CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham told FAB that her op-ed piece contained the “best pro-abortion references to CBR that I’ve ever read.”

Ms. Montei was petrified that people were able to see the truth of abortion, so much so that she called for our display to be banned.  If GAP were not effective, would she be so frightened?

Here is some of what she wrote:

(referring to the arrest of Laura Curry) … Curry’s original argument: that the outrageous hate speech, thinly veiled sexist propaganda and lack of critical discussion surrounding a display that equates abortion with genocide is the most warped and cruel profanity-laced tirade a woman could be met with.

Translation:  It is hate speech for pro-lifers to say that it is wrong to kill a preborn child simply because she is unwanted and also younger and more defenseless than ourselves.  In fact, anything that upsets a leftist is to be considered hate speech and therefore must be banned.

The so-called Genocide Awareness Project—also known as the College Campus Outreach division of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform—is an absurd misnomer. In 1997, this far-right group began touring a “photo-mural exhibit” that compares abortion to several genocides. Today, the “exhibit” continues to close down any chance of discourse on abortion on college campuses across the country.

We stimulate more discourse on abortion than any other project in the country.  What we close down is Ms. Montei’s monopoly on the brokerage of ideas on her campus.  Many people think about abortion analytically for the first time.  Ms. Montei has to defend the dismemberment and decapitation of little human beings, and this is a frightful thing to her.

GAP attempts to traumatize and confuse students into submission. GAP should not be allowed on college campuses, where intellectual vigor, critical thinking and historical accuracy are supposed to be central tenets.  (emphasis added)

Translation:  Intellectual vigor, critical thinking, and historical accuracy may be achieved only when Ms. Montei and her friends control who may speak and what may be said.

“[GAP] made the campus feel unsafe for a number of people in a variety of identity groups. This is non-trivial, and just because [GAP’s] disturbance was not sonically loud doesn’t mean its effects weren’t deep.”  (emphasis added) (quoting Cayden Mak, a witness to Laura’s arrest and now the head of the defense committee for Laura’s arraignment)

Translation:  GAP is very effective and therefore must be banned, because pictures of abortion make people who can’t defend the practice uncomfortable.

Curry is well-aware that images speak volumes, especially when accompanied by duplicitous and accusatory rhetoric.

Translation:  An image of abortion carries great meaning, especially when accompanied by convincing arguments.

This “photo-mural” is a radical attempt to shame women with scare tactics, morph the reality of abortion and co-opt the horrific legacy of genocide for religious and political dogma.

Question for Ms. Montei:  If abortion is a morally inconsequential act, then why would a picture of it make anyone feel shame?  If abortion is just a medical procedure, then why would a picture of it scare anybody?

Genocide is defined by the United Nations as a systematic effort to destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group.

The UN never defined genocide in those terms.  UN General Assembly Resolution 96, adopted in 1946, describes genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings …” Resolution 96 goes on to say it is a crime “whether committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds …” (emphasis added)

With abortion, the “entire human group” denied the right of existence is unwanted, preborn children.

In 1948, the UN adopted a more narrow legal definition of genocide to support prosecution in court.  For the purpose of enforcement, genocide would include “any of [a list of acts] committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group …”  The kinds of groups covered was intentionally narrow in scope.  As a concession to the Soviet Union, who feared Stalin’s mass murders might be considered genocidal if broader language were employed, the UN omitted references to social and political groups.  (The Study of Mass Murder and Genocide, Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, in The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 18)

Nor do the photos engage with the harmful rape culture of the U.S., which, as Steubenville showed us, continues to teach young boys that a woman’s body is not her own, is even a kind of plaything.

It is the abortion industry that teaches boys to believe that sex without responsibility is an entitlement.  In fact, the abortion industry routinely covers up the crime of statutory rape, so that the perpetrators can go free and the abuse can continue (www.ChildPredators.com and www.LiveAction.org).

As an educator at SUNY Buffalo, it terrifies me to think that my students are being exposed, against their will, to such inflammatory and convoluted reasoning.  The logic at work here is so faulty that one can hardly begin to engage with it.

C’mon Ms. Montei, don’t pretend this is complicated.  Just give us convincing proof that the preborn child is not a living human being.  If you can prove that, then we’ll close up shop and go home.  If you can’t find that proof — hint: it doesn’t exist because we all know that the preborn child is both human and alive — then give us some rational argument as to why we can kill some human beings but are morally bound to protect others.  Give us the one criterion that separates those whom we can kill from those whose rights we are morally bound to protect.  You are working on a PhD in English.  Surely this is not so difficult for you to do.

Tags: Amanda Montei, GAP, Genocide Awareness Project, Laura Curry, Ms Magazine, University at Buffalo

This entry was posted on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Campus Debate (GAP). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.