Meredith Hunt and the other CBR volunteers are the true reporters and journalists at Berea College.

CBR volunteer Meredith Hunt reports on CBR’s recent Choice Chain at Berea College.  Hunt is a veteran GAPper, having taken our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to more than 50 universities.  Read more of his thoughts and works at www.lifeadvocates.blogspot.com and www.chaoticterrain.com.

God Made All Peoples
By Meredith Eugene Hunt

Taking our handheld “Choice” signs to Berea College on Friday, November 8 was a homecoming for me.

When Fletcher told me about the GAPs planned for Northern Kentucky U, Eastern Kentucky U, and the U of Kentucky, it seemed natural to go to nearby Berea on the extra in-between day.   That weekend, quite literally was Homecoming at Berea.  Since my youngest son is now a student there, my wife and I, both of us alums, have special impetus to become involved in the college again.

Years ago, when I was a Berea student, I attended a convocation at which the speaker spoke on abortion as a silent holocaust, and that presentation, I’m sure, was a factor in leading me into full-time pro-life work.  My son said that the college, having become far more liberal since then, would never have such a speaker now.  Not that they would boast of it, but Berea graduate Dr. Willie J. Parker (class of 1986) is an outspoken abortion advocate and practicing late-term abortionist.  He’s been the “medical director” of Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC and he is the 2013 winner of the “2013 George Tiller, MD, Abortion Provider Award,” whatever that is.  Parker is not only an abortionist but is also a “Christian,” he says.  He explained last year (May 27, 2012) in the New Jersey Star Register (link here),

In listening to a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, I came to a deeper understanding of my spirituality, which places a higher value on compassion. King said what made the good Samaritan “good” is that instead of focusing on would happen to him by stopping to help the traveler, he was more concerned about what would happen to the traveler if he didn’t stop to help.  I became more concerned about what would happen to these women if I, as an obstetrician, did not help them.

Parker doesn’t seem to notice that in the Good Samaritan story, he is the violent robber who leaves the traveler in the ditch, naked, and bleeding.

Berea College, too, projects a skewed, incomplete perspective on certain aspects of Christianity.  When college president Roelofs learned of our intention to bring Choice signs for students to see them as they crossed the highway that intersects the campus, he sent out a campus-wide e-mail.   In the e-mail he wrote these words:

“In 2003, our community (persons from Berea College, the City of Berea, local churches, and others) developed the following statement expressing our collective commitment to “love over hate,” and it seems appropriate to revisit this thinking:

“For God so loved the world .. . that’s all of us!  United and Diverse.  We believe all people have been created in the image of God and are loved by God.  We believe this divine origin and love invests each person with an inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  We believe God’s love toward us is not dependent upon our condition or actions.  God loves all because God is love.”

It seems clear from the rest of the letter that Berea College does not include children before birth in the human family.  That they are not created in the image of God, are not loved by God, do not have inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  That love for pre-natal children is dependent on conditions.

Or maybe they weren’t thinking about abortion at all when they composed their statement.  Perhaps they should have been.  But that’s why we brought the images and printed arguments to Berea.

During our GAP tour I led a short devotional with the team each morning.  Before Berea, my text was, from Philippians 4, “Let your gentleness be known to all.  The Lord is near.”

The students who passed us were respectful.  True, a couple female professor types stood back out of brochure range as they waited for the light to change, but by-and-large everyone else was either friendly or receptive to our presence.  We handed out more than 1000 brochures entitled “Unmasking Choice.”  A black student asked one of our people, “Is this a religious organization?”  The answer essentially was no.  “That’s why your arguments are so cogent!” he said with enthusiasm and waving one of the brochures.  CBR is an organization of Christians, but we primarily make secular and scientific arguments as to why abortion is wrong.

Passersby (that is, drivers in vehicles) often responded, and most indicated strong support.   Berea is a liberal college in the middle of a rural, conservative region, and you could see that clearly.  A few people pulled over to get out and make a comment, or people just gave a thumbs up or called out encouragement.   A few didn’t know if we were for abortion or against it, but it’s hard to imagine how anyone could think  people who supported the choice to abort a child would show pictures of that dead child.  But some people get confused that way.  Innocent unsophistication, I guess.

We also had the Choice Truck driving up and down the road for most of the four hours we were there.  A US Marine Corps medical corpsman in dress uniform and at Berea for homecoming stopped to talk and thank us.  I spent a good deal of time talking with the director of campus safety.  He was my age and had had long experience as a police chief and with security for governmental leaders.

The editor of the student newspaper, The Pinnacle came by for a while.  He wrote an editorial that favorably compared our use of graphic imagery with a similar approach for issues important to him, such as war and mountain-top removal in coal mining.  He did however say that our “protest” was not much newsworthy.  “I didn’t see anything particularly timely or gripping about this demonstration,” he wrote.  “Did this particular group break any new information about abortion?  No they did not.”

Probably he’s right.  But it’s a sad state of affairs when the aborting of children in the womb is so customary, routine, and “old” that it can’t be news.   We are in a sorry condition when cogent arguments against the ongoing legal killing of children don’t break any new information.

In the instance of us bringing the graphic images to Berea College, we were the true reporters and journalists.  We were the media, the “guardian of the student’s right to know,” (echoing the byline of The Pinnacle).  This information about abortion was new to most of those students.  We brought that missing convocation out on the sidewalk, and hopefully some student will make a decision for life for her baby, or will someday become a pro-life activist, or won’t become another misguided Dr. Willie J. Jackson.  By advocating for children in the womb, we represent a missing element in the fulfillment of Berea’s motto, taken from the Bible, “God made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

Let’s go back again soon.

We passed out more than 1,000 pro-life brochures in just a few hours at Berea College.

A Choice Truck at Berea College expands our reach many-fold.

We convert more students at the March for Life than at any other event.

Earlier this year, Simcha Fisher posted her essay entitled Eight Reasons Not to Use Graphic Abortion Images at the March for Life at the National Catholic Register Online.  Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) Executive Director Gregg Cunningham, perhaps the world’s premier pro-life strategist, responds.

Eight Reasons or No Reason to Put Away Abortion Photos?
by Gregg Cunningham

In a National Catholic Register online essay titled “Eight Reasons Not to Use Graphic Abortion Images at the March for Life,” Simcha Fisher concedes that “Americans are tragically ignorant about what abortion really is …” but then lurches to the non sequitur that abortion photos should never be shown in public, and then only “as a last resort” in private.  The mainstream pro-life movement has covered up the horror of abortion for forty years, and now wonders why the public is still not horrified by abortion.  The result has been a failure to outlaw abortion — anywhere, and at any point in pregnancy — and fifty million dead babies!

Had Martin Luther King displayed lynching photos only in “private,” and only “as a last resort,” black people would still be drinking from segregated water fountains.  Dr. King instead commissioned the making of sickening photos and then urged their widespread publication and broadcast.  The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The history of social reform is the history of horrifying pictures:  Pictures of slaves being tortured to death; pictures of Native American women and children massacred by the U.S. Calvary; pictures of African Americans beaten to their knees for trying to register to vote; pictures of little children abused in mines and factories.  These pictures traumatized children just like those Ms. Fisher seeks to shelter at the March For Life.  But the imagery also convinced the country that the victims were real people, fully entitled to rights of personhood.  It additionally persuaded the electorate that the injustices depicted therein were sufficiently egregious to warrant criminalization.

Many of the children who attend the March are genuinely devout and authentically pro-life, but others are only nominally Catholic if Catholic at all.  Some are, or soon will become, sexually active.  Some are, or soon will become, pregnant.  More than a few will abort.  Some of them, however, will change their minds because we showed them the indescribable horror of abortion.  We have testimonies to prove this.

Ms. Fisher says we should hide the horror of abortion because post-abortive women attend the March.  CDC reports that nearly half of all abortions are performed on post-abortive women.  Post-abortive women are, therefore, among the women most at risk of aborting.  They are, consequently, the women who most need to see the terrible truth, lest they kill again.  Many post-abortive women (and men) have told us they now realize that visualizing what they had done forced them to stop trying to rationalize it.  Only then were they able to confess and repent, so they could be forgiven and healed.

Ephesians 5:11 commands us to “expose the deeds of darkness,” not to show them only privately nor only as a last resort.  Responsibility for the terrible longevity of history’s most horrific slaughter does not rest entirely upon our adversaries.  We will be judged for our timidity, perhaps as harshly as they will be judged for their barbarity – by history and by Providence.

Every now and then, we hear the claim that some woman saw our abortion pictures and the resulting grief caused her to take her own life.

Dubious Claim

We are skeptical of this claim, to say the least.  First of all, the claimant never has first-hand knowledge of the alleged suicide;  the alleged victim is somebody’s friend’s roommate’s sister’s cousin.  Furthermore, we never read about the alleged suicide in the local paper or campus paper.

We have been using abortion imagery continually for twenty-two years.  The pro-aborts universally hate and fear us as the source of this tactic.  They would destroy us if they could.  If there were the slightest credible evidence of even one suicide whose proximate cause could be linked to our imagery, wouldn’t they have come forth with specific allegations to that effect?  But they never have, because there has never been such an incident.  And even if there were, we will have done all in our power to offer post-abortion women free counseling support and spiritual healing.  We show only compassion for post-abortive women, consistently describing them as abortion’s second victim.

The Larger Context

But of course we can’t dismiss the possibility that a post-abortive woman might take her own life.  It is possible.  But shouldn’t every action be evaluated within the largest possible context?

If we cover up the truth, 1.2 million human beings will be killed, this year and every year from now on.

Mothers of these aborted babies are 6 times more likely to commit suicide (source) and are at greater risk for a wide range of physical complications (source).

Women who have aborted are also at greater risk to abort again (source).  They are, consequently, the women who most need to see the terrible truth, lest they kill again.  Many post-abortive women (and men) have told us they now realize that visualizing what they had done forced them to stop trying to rationalize it.  Only then were they able to confess and repent; only then could they be forgiven and healed.  Healed people don’t commit suicide; hurting people do.

Pro-life parental involvement laws reduce teen suicide rates (source).  Exposing the truth about abortion helps pass this kind of protective legislation.

If a post-abortive woman takes her own life … and we know that too many do … who is at fault?

• Is it the abortion industry, who invaded her body and butchered her child?
• Was it her college professor, who told her that her preborn child was just a blob of tissue?
• Was it her pastor, who knew the truth but covered it up by never showing her pictures of abortion so she would know the truth as well?
• Was it her boyfriend, who threatened her with abandonment if she would not abort their child?
• Was it her parents, who pressured her to abort because they did not want to help raise a grandchild and/or who wanted to avoid embarrassment?
• Was it the political system, which protected the abortion industry from any kind of accountability, so that they could maximize profit at the expense of women and children?
• Was it the education system, which allied itself with Planned Parenthood to tell her that sex on the first date was a good thing if she liked the guy and that having many partners throughout her life was normal?
• Was it the entertainment industry, who taught her boyfriend to believe that he is entitled to sex without responsibility?
• Or was it the pro-lifer who didn’t do enough to warn her of the consequences of abortion, before it was too late?

Historical Note

From WarHistoryOnline.com:

On April 4, 1945, elements of the United States Army’s 89th Infantry Division and the 4th Armored Division captured the Ohrdruf concentration camp outside the town of Gotha in south central Germany.  Although the Americans didn’t know it at the time, Ohrdruf was one of several sub-camps serving the Buchenwald extermination camp, which was close to the city of Weimar several miles north of Gotha.  Ohrdruf was a holding facility for over 11,000 prisoners on their way to the gas chambers and crematoria at Buchenwald.  A few days before the Americans arrived to liberate Ohrdruf, the SS guards had assembled all of the inmates who could walk and marched them off to Buchenwald.  They left in the sub-camp more than a thousand bodies of prisoners who had died of bullet wounds, starvation, abuse, and disease.  The scene was an indescribable horror even to the combat-hardened troops who captured the camp.  Bodies were piled throughout the camp.  There was evidence everywhere of systematic butchery.  Many of the mounds of dead bodies were still smoldering from failed attempts by the departing SS guards to burn them. T he stench was horrible.

…  During the camp inspections with his top commanders Eisenhower said that the atrocities were “beyond the American mind to comprehend.”  He ordered that every citizen of the town of Gotha personally tour the camp and, after having done so, the mayor and his wife went home and hanged themselves.

Was General Eisenhower responsible for these twin suicides?  Should he have covered up the Holocaust to protect the emotional wellbeing of those who were complicit in causing or permitting these crimes against humanity?  Could the Holocaust ever be understood and future genocide averted if the evidence of past genocide is whitewashed and suppressed?

Summary

The pro-aborts are desperate to stop the display of our images and they will use every lie at their disposal to intimidate us into hiding the truth.  Don’t let them get away with it … ever.

.

When funding or timing prevents us from taking our huge GAP display, we can still win hearts, change minds, and save lives by invading campus with a few “Choice” signs!  Here we are at Tennessee Tech University (TTU).

This was an excellent target because TTU is another school which allows citizens to reserve space for displays, without requiring a student invitation.

On this day, we identified 5 freshmen willing to form a pro-life club on campus!

At upper-right is CBR SuperDuperVolunteer Gary Johnson, who is in a special category all his own!  He is a real blessing to everywhere he goes.  We just need to take him more places!  That’s where your support comes in.  Link here to send Gary to more places … to bless more students!

Below, Deeper Still and CBR volunteer Debbie Picarello can engage students at a very different level than Gary ever could do.  Link here to help Debbie bring hope and healing to post-abortive women … and  men!

.

.

We would love to display our huge Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at every major university ever year.  But when funding or timing prevents GAP, we can still win hearts, change minds, and save lives by invading campus with a few “Choice” signs!  Here we are at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU).

This was an excellent target because MTSU is one of many schools where we can reserve a good space without a student invitation.

At upper-right is long-time CBR volunteer Kathy Hardin.  She and her whole family have been a huge blessing to CBR and to many babies and moms.  Below is Kathy’s daughter Karine, who first graced the cyberpages of FAB in 2011.  She’s come a long way since Armenia!  At MTSU, Karine was a force to be reckoned with.  She asked anyone and everyone to take a pro-life pamphlet (bearing abortion photos, of course) and almost nobody refused.

.

When she sanctions consumer fraud as a means of victimizing abortion customers, she reveals a view of women that is both archaic and repressive.

Gregg Cunningham recently spoke at a church in Stockholm as part of a month-long European tour.  As perhaps the world’s premier pro-life strategist, Gregg is frequently asked to consult with pro-life leaders in Europe and elsewhere around the globe.  This particular talk was attended by Ida Ali-Abdulla Lindqvist, an extremist abortion advocate who posted a one-sided story on the Swedish state television website.  In this essay, Gregg responds.  Note: your browser can translate the links to English (or something like it).

Swedish Abortion Extremist Clearly Frightened of Abortion Pictures
by Gregg Cunningham

Shortly after my antiabortion presentation at a church in Stockholm, Ida Ali-Abdulla Lindqvist posted an extremist abortion manifesto on the Swedish state television website.  She misrepresented her position on abortion to gain access to our meeting (unnecessarily, because we eagerly welcome our adversaries, particularly if they are journalists) and then misrepresented the events which transpired at that meeting.

Mr. Mats Selander and I advocated the public display of prenatal development imagery and abortion photos to ensure that voters, and especially people contemplating elective pregnancy termination, possess the clearest possible understanding of an unborn child’s humanity and of abortion’s inhumanity.  In advanced societies, healthcare professionals are ethically obligated to present patients with disturbing clinical information, even over their patients’ objection.  The same duty should exist regarding abortion.  Ms. Ali-Abdulla Lindqvist, however, demands that this information be withheld.  Why does she fear the truth?   Because she can’t face the facts without losing the argument.

She incorrectly asserts that our “strongest weapon” is the use of “confusion, shame, and guilt.”  But in reality, our strongest weapon is the truth – the truth which must be seen to be understood.  The truth for which no words are adequate.  The truth revealed in our aborted baby photos.  That truth dispels confusion and can only induce feelings of shame and guilt if abortion is exposed as an indefensible act of violence that kills a real baby – which, of course, is precisely the truth Ms. Ali-Abdulla Lindqvist is trying to hide.

Ms. Ali-Abdulla Lindqvist says our abortion photos are “manipulation” and “mental abuse” of the “most disgusting sort.”  But it is Ms. Ali-Abdullah who is the manipulator and abuser.  Nothing could be more manipulative than abusing women by misleading them into abortions they would have rejected had they been shown the horrifying truth.  When she sanctions consumer fraud as a means of victimizing abortion customers, she reveals a view of women that is both archaic and repressive.

Ms. Ali-Abdulla Lindqvist then falsely accuses us of displaying abortion-related imagery which was not representative of most pregnancy terminations in Sweden.  This is not true.  Because 95% of Swedish abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, 95% of our abortion-related imagery depicts embryos and early fetuses of 12 weeks or younger.  A brief look at our website (www.abortionNO.org) proves this point.

She also criticizes what she mistakenly suggests were a set of questionable “statistics,” but which I clearly explained were not “statistics” at all.  They were merely rough estimates being offered for purposes of discussion.

She refers to a question from a young man who asked whether any of our videos depicted miscarriages.  She intimates that my answer was evasive, but all of our abortion imagery was obtained at abortion clinics.  Women go to abortion clinics for abortions.  When women miscarry, they are generally treated in a hospital or their doctor’s office by the obstetrician/gynecologist who treated them during their pregnancy.  All of our abortion imagery depicts abortions.  Anyone who alleges otherwise is placing themselves on the same moral plain as Holocaust deniers who say Jewish death camp photos are fakes.

Ms. Ali-Abdulla’s racism and gender bias and are on full display as she rages against patriarchy generally and white men specifically.  Half the babies butchered by abortion are male and that alone should give men a voice.  But she is also an anti-Christian bigot.  She asserts that the Swedish Lutheran Church will not be perceived as a “modern institution” unless it suppresses meaningful dialogue regarding abortion.  Censoring speech may be a modern institutional value in some parts of the world, but thankfully not in Sweden.  Christianity is committed to timeless truth, not fleeting modernity.

Ms. Ali-Abdulla Linqvist is frightened of these pictures.  We can hear the fear in her voice.  Like most feminists, she wants no debate over abortion.  She understands that abortion photos make that debate more difficult to suppress.  She understands that abortion photos make that debate more difficult to win.  People yawn at words.  No one yawns at pictures.

Diana Jimenez

Even while Biola University was doing its best to suppress the truth of abortion on campus, a baby’s life was saved by the one student with the courage to break the rules.

The following was posted at ArmsOfAudio.com:

There are a lot of people bashing Diana right now but first hand I can tell you she did what she was told to do.  I am 20.  A student of Biola and always claimed to be prolife.  I thought that until I got a positive pregnancy test.  This came after a night of partying just outside the campus and had a one night stand with a youth pastor in training.  I was going to go to Planned Parenthood that day and as I walked through campus her signs made me realize there is a human life in my womb ….  In that moment I went to my dorm room got on my knees and asked that I would have the strength to be my baby’s mom.  STOP saying she didn’t follow her stupid rules.  God came through for me because of her.  And Susan Elliot is a tool of the devil.

London passerby, one of many who changed their minds when shown abortion photos.

Quote:

If you had not shown me images, I would not have changed my mind.  Now, all I see is murder.

The Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK holds Abort67 project outside the Department of Health, London, UK.  There were many conversations like this one.  Graphic Images are crucial for changing the way society feels about abortion.  This will enable them to change their thinking and behaviour on abortion too.

.

Westmont College students Aaron Singer, Ryan Hall, and Seth Gruber.

Here’s a story in World Magazine about CBR’s very own Seth Gruber at Westmont College.  Seth is a student at Westmont College and an intern at CBR.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the activists the right to set up the [Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) abortion photo] billboards at public schools. But almost every private Christian college has turned them down.
***
Gruber’s had more conversations about abortion in the last 10 days than he had in the last two and a half years. And more people have offered to stand with him.

Related stories:

• FAB: Student defies “Christian” college, shows abortion
• Seth’s Blog: A Reflection of the First Display on Campus
• Seth’s Blog: Men and the Abortion Issue
• Christianity Today: Westmont College Tussles With Pro-Life Student
• FAB: Liberty University GAP/RCC – Day 1
• CBR’s Open Letter to Liberty University
• World Magazine: Link here to subscribe

Centerfold photo in The Sunday Times of London reached a circulation of more than 1 million readers in the UK.  (Click on photo for a better view.)

Great photo in The Sunday Times of London!  This photo of aborted babies was visible to more than 1 million readers!

Link here to article We Will Shock You.  (You will need to pay a subscription fee to see the entire article.)

Notable quotations from the article:

The pictures are stomach-turningly gruesome, the dismembered figure clearly human — tiny fingers and toes visible in a mess of blood.
***
By far the most radical group in this country is Abort67, who I joined in Reading. They formed at the start of the year with guidance and resources from one of the loudest and most controversial voices on the American pro-life scene: the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR).
***
The group’s founder, Gregg Cunningham, 65, has been involved in the pro-life movement in America for most of his adult life. In the last four years, Cunningham and the CBR have started to spread their reach abroad. This summer he was in Britain supporting Abort67 and giving talks in churches — his fourth visit to the UK this year.
The CBR does not fund Abort67, but it is providing thegroup’s activists with resources, graphic images and a great deal of guidance. Since the start of the year, the group has recruited around 50 volunteers who regularly protest outside clinics in Brighton, Reading, Taunton and London. They claim they have several thousand supporters and counting.
Their protests are having the most dramatic effect in liberal Brighton.
***
The most serious impact has been on the women attending the clinic. One 21-year-old sports coach, who has asked to withhold her name for fear of repercussions, goes there for weekly post-abortion counselling.
“Sometimes it’s just one person with a banner; sometimes there are 20 of them with their children,” she says. “I’ve seen people burst into tears and say they don’t want to go through with it,” she says.
***
[CBR-UK Director Andy] Stephenson is a father of three and, like most of Abort67, a committed evangelical Christian. He is slight, with a dark beard, earnest eyes and an apologetic air; an unlikely crusader, perhaps, but an unrepentant one. “The atmosphere in the UK is changing,” he says. “The abortion lobby has had it easy for too long with no accountability, no consequences and very little meaningful opposition — but there is a new generation of pro-lifers emerging and disillusioned, battle-weary pro-lifers being reinvigorated because theyhave seen the fruits of what groups like ours are achieving with very little resources.”

The article closed with this threat of violence from pro-aborts who are apparently not used to seeing effective pro-life activism:

Brighton Pro-Choice met the week after the trial to plan more radical action against Abort67. One member warned: “If the police won’t stop them, we will have to.”

Child (at right) looks at abortion photos on Market Square.

The  WBIR story on our Urban GAP at Market Square created a flurry of online comments.  A common theme was the fear that small children would see the abortion photos.  In fact, many did.  We saw a few parents who prevented their children from seeing the photos, but most took it all in stride.  One commenter on the WBIR story wrote:

I would never subject a young child to the images of abortion no matter what. Yes, the images are reprehensible and beyond belief, but to show a child these images borders on being reprehensible as a parent and as a human being it would be deplorable. This is not the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s where abortion was considered against the law. Today, it is a woman’s choice. There are medical reasons that abortion is needed. Also, its one thing to protest but Dr. Armstrong and the rest need to keep it decent and clean when in a public place with children around. If you choose to show these images to your children then go ahead but give the parents of other children the right to do the same and show those images to their children if they so choose. You took away the parents right to decide if they wanted to show their children or not.

He actually confirmed, again, whey we show the pictures when he wrote that they were  “reprehensible and beyond belief.”  People don’t believe how bad abortion really is until we show them.

I responded:

On February 23, 1997, Schindler’s List was broadcast by NBC during the family viewing hour. A mini-controversy arose when Congressman Tom Coburn complained that large numbers of unsupervised children would undoubtedly see the very violent video sequences contained in that movie, including the violence of multiple gunshot head wounds.

NBC West Coast President Don Olhmeyer defended their decision, “I just wonder if Congressman Coburn is aware that there was a Holocaust, that millions of people died and it’s not something anybody should ever forget. . . . NBC is extremely proud of its presentation of this unique award-winning film. We think that Congressman Coburn’s statement should send a chill through every intelligent and fair-minded person in America.”

The overwhelming consensus was that NBC was right to show the movie, including all the scenes of violence, so that people could know the truth about what happened in the death camps, and so that people would commit to preventing such a human catastrophe from ever happening again.

We agree. That is why we show pictures of abortion.

We will not submit to a double standard that says (1) it is OK to show violent images that expose an injustice that happened in another place, at another time, perpetrated by other people, even though children might see those images, but (2) it is not OK to show violent images that expose injustice happening here, and now, and perpetrated by our own people, because children might see them.

Marie Bastone is one of our favorite GAP volunteers. Here she is at the University of Massachusetts.

Marie Bastone, one of our favorite GAP volunteers, e-mailed me about her experience at UConn and UMass.

I had a stimulating & challenging 4 days with GAP.  UConn s were out vigorously protesting the display with some students coming quietly to say that appreciated that we were there.  The next 2 days at UMass at Lowell almost made the gang at UConn look like lambs.

On the morning of Day 2 at UMass, one Asian student very, very respectfully and humbly came to say that he was a pro-life,  pre-med major who volunteered at a nursing and pediatric clinic.  He said he had thought hard about the pictures and their message and took it home with him the previous night.   This morning,  asking his peers to listen to what he had to say, he got down on his knees and begged us to please take down the pictures, because they had hurt one female student who had been sexually assaulted.  The kids cheered.

In response, Frank Diorio got down on his knees and beautifully and eloquently begged this young man to consider how the pictures save lives.  This student listened with his head down, eyes closed and nodded quietly …

I can almost hear Frank telling this young man how a second assault (abortion) can never undo the first one.  Many women who are raped and then abort will tell you that they now regret their abortions, and that healing from the abortion was more difficult than healing from the rape.  This is because they had no control over the rape, but the abortion was an act of barbarity that they themselves consented to.  Marie went on …

I myself had some serious exchanges with students.  The funny thing is that the ones who were most hostile and resistant were the ones who kept coming back, both days and both morning and afternoon.  There was some intense emotional shouting and rage.  It was interesting, and, as always, a privilege.

Actually, Marie, the privilege is ours.  We can’t wait to do it with you.  For those who can’t come do this in person, why not help another way?  Would you be willing to support this work at $100/month, $50/month, or $25/month?  Whatever you can do will make a huge difference in the lives of mothers and children.

Maggie Egger and Kristine Kruszelnicki get ready for the students to arrive. Abortion photos allow just a few people to have a huge impact.

Maggie Egger of Spiders for Life and Nicole Cooley of CBR organized a Choice Chain at the University of Richmond (UR) on Monday.

The abortion pictures are what the military calls a force multiplier.  They allow us to take a small amount of resources and create a huge effect.

One student tried the “famous violinist” argument on Nicole.  Of course, we are all veterans of the Pro Life Training Academy, so we know exactly how to answer that question.  Nicole pointed out that the famous violinist is not analogous to the preborn child because

• The violinist is not the offspring of the host.
• We all recognize that we have responsibilities to our own children that are greater than our responsibilities to a random stranger.  For example, we are required by law to support and care for our born children.

That seemed to be enough; the young man just turned and walked away.  Nicole could have added:

• The child is not an intruder.  He is exactly where he naturally belongs.
• Withholding support is not the same as dismembering, poisoning, and/or crushing.
• Except in the case of rape, the host actively participated in the act that created the pregnancy.

This being a private school, the normal First Amendment protections did not apply.  For example, CBR staff and volunteers were not permitted to speak to a UR student unless first approached.  However, when the UR students began chalking messages on the plaza (a common activity on college campuses), CBR volunteer Jonathan Darnel got his own chalk and started to respond.  It was just like our Free Speech Board.  The pro-aborts complained, but UR administrators allowed him to continue.

Media coverage here.

Jonathan Darnel awaits a ruling on whether he could continue chalking messages on the plaza. He had started to write a quote from Dr. Alveda King: "America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion."

Liberty students study the abortion photos and Scripture verses.

We wrapped up our visit to Liberty University on Friday.  It was quite a week.  Not sure if it was the heat (90+ degree days) or the lack of sleep, but this ole boy is whipped.  Can’t wait to do it again, though.

By the end of the week, we had found a location near the Liberty University Bookstore that featured a publicly owned piece of land adjacent to a major walkway and at perhaps the most active entrance for cars and buses.

Based on the comments of the students, our presence was the talk of the campus.  Many students didn’t appreciate our displays of graphic photos.  Others were fully supportive.  Still others agreed with our use of graphic images, but didn’t understand why we came to Liberty.  “We’re already pro-life, aren’t we?”  Stimulating that kind of conversation, reflection, and debate is a major goal of our work.

We were pleased to sign up more than 20 students who were enthusiastic about becoming more involved in pro-life activism at Liberty.  Twenty people can make a huge difference.

I learned that on Day 4, the Lynchburg police (who were present during our entire visit) had come by to investigate a trespassing complaint.  Before we even started on Monday, we had given each team member a set of aerial photos which depicted the intersections we would work, along with property boundries that separated private property from public property.  These maps were downloaded from the City’s own Geographic Information System (GIS) website.  (See pages 16-19 of this letter to see the photos.)  Our volunteers produced the maps, which showed that we were clearly on public property, so the police thanked us and went on.

I should emphasize that we are grateful for the courtesy shown to us by both the University and the City of Lynchburg.  Perhaps they didn’t want us to be present, but they didn’t interfere, either.

If you’re dead tired and you’ve been at it for 4 solid days in the hot sun, you have to wonder if a 5th day is really worth the wear and tear on your body … and everybody else’s bodies.   But even though we had been there 4 days already, we still noted the impact of the photos on the students.  They still studied the abortion signs and reflected on the Scripture verses displayed.  It was on this 5th day that the Liberty student TV crew came out to get video and interview our people.  The Liberty student newspaper also showed up.  Praise God for giving us that 5th day!  We are interested to see what the reporting will look like.

As we were packing to leave, we encountered one student whose sign shocked us at first, but whose message was a huge encouragment in the end.  In big letters, his sign said, “Looking @ dead babies just makes me hungry …”  He was being clever.  In small letters, he continued his declaration, ” … for change!”  Indeed.

Hungry ... for change!