CBR’s Kendra Wright reinforces the abortion photos with logical arguments.

For the first time ever, CBR hit Georgia Southern University (GSU) hard with the reality of abortion.  Faculty, police, press, and students alike couldn’t deny what abortion does to a human being.  Nearly a dozen students said they will organize a pro-life group to continue the work.  Pray that they will!

One administrator said her own daughter had been born at 24 weeks; she said her baby, “looked like the picture on your poster.”  She was startled by the contrasting photo of a dead 24-week-old baby, killed by a late-term abortionist.

One of the most encouraging responses: “Where’s the sign-up sheet?  I have to do something! This is horrible.”

Campus police were a constant presence.  One officer debated with a couple Liberty students and did his best to defend choice.  It was an unusual but welcome bonus.  The officers, doing their job and standing near the display, allowed us to do ours and influence them with the pictures and our words.

We even had media before GAP:

• Police: Graphic images of abortion to be seen on Statesboro streets (story on truth trucks)
• Anti-abortion group: Graphic images to be displayed on Georgia Southern campus

A reporter from the Statesboro Herald interviewed several CBR members, students, and GSU staff.  (If you can get the Statesboro Herald website to work,) You can read his article here:

• Graphic images and the First Amendment

One student said, “Disgusting!  How can people do that?”  Another commented, “I know the facts and while this is hard to see, I am glad you are here.  People need to know what the word [abortion] means.”

One of the most encouraging responses: “Where’s the sign-up sheet?  I have to do something!  This is horrible.”  Indeed.

Emily McGowan of Liberty University explains how genocide perpetrators always dehumanize their victims.

For the first time in history, CBR exposed the horror at Columbus State University (CSU) in Georgia.  We were hosted by the CSU Advocates for Life (AFL), the student group we started earlier this year.

We were joined by five students from Liberty University in Virginia who spent their spring break winning hearts, changing minds, and saving lives.  We pray for the day these students expose abortion on their own campus, without interference from the Liberty University staff.

The trip was funded by the Chattahoochee Valley United for Life (CVUL), a chapter of Georgia Right to Life (GRTL).  Over the years, we have worked with many GRTL chapters to bring GAP to Georgia.  This trip was a huge answer to prayer.

CBR and CVUL hosed our Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA) to prepare members and students alike to articulate and defend the pro-life movement, even in a hostile environment.

Check out the local media coverage:

• WBRC TV: Controversial images on CSU campus add fire to the abortion debate

A middle-aged woman told us, “I am so glad you are here. Folks don’t understand what they are doing. I have 50 year-old friends who are still hurting from abortion. It goes so much deeper than people realize.”  Indeed.

Over the course of 2 days at James Madison U, thousands of students were forced to face abortion.

An op-ed piece in the James Madison University (JMU) Breeze validated (again) the effectiveness of CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP):

“… our campus was so abruptly forced to face [abortion] this week.”

Mission accomplished!

Sarah Freeze, the author of the piece, was confused about whether the humanity of the preborn child was of any consequence at all.

She wrote, “The question we should be asking is this: Are you pregnant?”

We responded:

According to Ms. Freeze, it doesn’t matter at all whether the preborn child is human or not, nor if abortion unjustly kills a human being or not.  The only question we must ask is, “Am I pregnant?”  If the answer is “no,” then we must not have any opinion on the matter.

Really?

Let’s apply this logic in another context, 200 years ago.  Applying Ms. Freeze’s logic, it wouldn’t matter if the black man is a human being or not, nor whether slavery unjustly steals the lives of black men and women.  The only question we must ask is, “Do I have a cotton plantation?”  If the answer is “no,” then we must not have any opinion on the matter.

She responded

While I appreciate your response, to my opinion, I do have to point out that your argument is wrongly applying my view on abortion to a view on slavery.  Abortion affects no one outside of the woman’s body.  Slavery obviously affected several people and generations and is definitely not the same thing.

We answered

You’d be right in your conclusion, if you had your facts straight.  Of course if no person were killed by abortion, then the right to abort would be established.  But you ignore the other human being, the one being decapitated and dismembered.

When you deny the humanity and personhood of the preborn child, you are making the same mistake that was made by slavery apologists who said that Black slaves were “subordinate and inferior.”  They reasoned, as you do, that the victim class was not fully human, therefore the real people (the ones who counted) could do anything they wanted to those subhumans.  You are making the exact same mistake … unless, of course, you can provide some compelling evidence that the preborn are, in fact, subhuman.

She will offer no such evidence, because there is none.  If she bothers to formulate an argument, it will inevitably allow us to kill certain born people as well.

German student: I don’t know how old you are, but …

“Frederick,” a James Madison University (JMU) student from Germany, was ashamed of his peers. He said to CBR’s Jane Bullington,

“It is so closed-minded to decide you guys have nothing worth hearing and just sit on the sidelines protesting.

I am studying genocide and human atrocities.  These photos are not disturbing; the actions are disturbing.  Folks need to get out of their comfort zone and engage others so they can expand their world views.  It is pitiful that my peers are so pansy and childish.

I don’t know how old you are, but I do know that you know more than I do and I need to listen and learn.  And whether this is genocide or not, I see the reasons for the comparisons and it is an atrocity.

You have made my Tuesday.  My comfort zone has been stretched once again.  Thank you for coming, and thank you for taking with me.”

He’s right about one thing.  Jane is pretty old.

Lincoln Brandenburg explains prenatal development at James Madison University

by Lincoln Brandenburg

At James Madison U, I spoke with a young Jewish lady who had heard about GAP and came out to see it.  She was Jewish and was offended by the comparisons of abortion with the Holocaust.

She opened by declaring that “Abortion is not genocide!”   I responded, “You are absolutely right … if the preborn are not human.  Were that true, the comparison would be inappropriate and the right to abort would be established.

“But if the preborn are human, as science tells us they are, then we kill over a million humans every year.  Then there’s no better word to describe it.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re causing me to change how I think about this.”  (protester at James Madison U)

She brought up many examples of when abortion might be “needed,” such as for a woman who is in college and cannot take care of a baby.  Again, I agreed with her that abortion would be acceptable in those cases (and, indeed, in every case) … if the preborn were anything less than human.

She began to grasp the concept that the humanity of the preborn is the central question to the morality of abortion.

Some of her friends have had abortions and she didn’t want to believe they are guilty of murder.  I assured her that we are not here to condemn or judge her friends; they may be good people who didn’t realize that abortion decapitates and dismembers a baby.  I pointed out that, like many who have seen these images, they might not have aborted their children had they known how evil abortion really is.

As we spoke, her demeanor changed.  She glanced at the pro-abortion protesters and said, “I don’t want to say this out loud, but you’re making good points.  You’re really making me shift in my view.”

I told her how I personally became a pro-life activist after connecting abortion to the Holocaust.  I knew that I couldn’t say I would have stood up for Jews (her ancestors) in Nazi Germany back then, if I didn’t stand up for preborn children right now.

As we continued to discuss the logic of standing up for all human beings, she hesitantly said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re causing me to change how I think about this.”

Some respond to GAP with a closed mind, but others are willing to blindfold their own prejudices.  At first, she opposed our use of abortion pictures, but she had to admit that our conversation (and many others) would not have happened without the tension created by the photos.  Dr. King was right:

“I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’  I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.”  (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Lincoln Brandenburg is a Project Director for CBR in Georgia.  He iis with the GAP team in Virginia this week.

Now that the vote is in, there are important lessons to be learned, not just in Tennessee, but nationally as well.

Lessons Learned:

1.  Until we change public opinion, Amendment 1 (along with the anticipated ensuing regulations) are about as much as we can hope to accomplish with our current strategy.  An outright ban would not have passed.

 Voters believe that abortion is evil enough to be regulated, but not evil enough to be banned.  Americans will not tolerate government intrusion into matters of personal morality, unless there is extreme justification for that intrusion … and they don’t understand how extremely evil abortion really is.

2.  In order for the public to demand protection for every human person, we have to convince millions of American voters that abortion is not just evil, but so evil that it ought to be against the law.

 The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), along with NRLC affiliates and others in the movement, are trying to end abortion by mobilizing public opinion as it currently exists.  The results of Amendment 1 in Tennessee and initiatives in other states demonstrate that this will never work.

 Unfortunately, they have nothing in place that even begins to reshape public opinion, not at the level necessary to challenge the status quo.

3.  In order to reshape public opinion, we must force millions of ignorant and apathetic Americans to see the facts they are desperate to avoid.

 They are apathetic because they are ignorant of the facts, and …

 … they are ignorant because they are apathetic.

 They don’t read our stuff.  They don’t come to our talks and debates.  They avoid new information.

 We have to go to them, they will not come to us.  Our methods must be non-consentual.

 With the average American, we get maybe 3 seconds to prove that abortion is so evil that it ought to be against the law.

 This is the same problem faced by Wilberforce, Clarkson, King, Hine, and other reformers who came before.  They all solved the problem the same way … by using horrifying pictures to engage citizens who were desperate to avoid the truth … after years of trying what didn’t work.

4.  We have a long way to go.  Let’s get started.

Created Equal’s Jumbotron abortion display was recently featured on a TV station in New Jersey.  In the video below, watch as people react to an abortion video on screen.  Link to original report here.  One woman said,

I have friends who’ve had abortions, and they wish they knew exactly what the abortion process was going to be before doing it.

One man said,

I’m never going to forget that for the rest of my life.

On the Brickyard at NC State

CBR staffers Bill, Jeanette, and Edie recently joined up with Aubry, Ruth, Catherine, and Stephen, all members of the Students for Life (SFL), for an afternoon of exposing abortion at North Carolina State University.

We displayed CBR “Choice” signs on the Brickyard, not far from where we had displayed GAP last Spring.

We handed out CBR’s Unmasking Choice brochure, along with copies of How to Keep Your Mushrooms Happy!!, a new handout from Human Life Alliance.

As students walk by, our standard ice-breaker is to ask a simple question, “What do you think?”  This opened many opportunities for dialogue with respectful students on both sides of the issue.  We got many positive affirmations from pro-life students, and at least 15 passersby signed up to be members of SFL.

“For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear let him hear.”  (Mark 4:22-23)

Abortion victim photos (AVPs) don’t just convert people to pro-life.  They affect everyone.  They …

1. neutralize the opposition, …
2. convert the neutral, …
3. activate the converted, and …
4. energize the active.

Live Action News recently highlighted the pro-life activism of Katie Perrotta at Eastern Michigan University.  She is just one more example of a student who became actively pro-life after seeing GAP.

From Live Action News:

Katie Perrotta is a 20-year-old student at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Having grown up “pro-life” she wasn’t active in defending life until she witnessed a campus display featuring images of abortion victims and the angry reaction of pro-choice students. It was then that she started reaching out to her campus and actively defending life.

Great op-ed piece that appeared in the University at Buffalo (UB) Spectrum soon after our GAP visit to that campus.  It was written by Anne Mulrooney, a regular columnist for the Spectrum.  Piece: Graphic images are necessary to anti-abortion movement.

I do this for a living, but Ms. Mulrooney found another example of the use of images that was completely new to me:

During the late 1800s, King Leopold II of Belgium beat, enslaved, mutilated and brutally killed citizens in the Congo when Belgium’s production quotas for rubber and ivory were not met. Had his actions not been exposed through the photography of Alice Seeley Harris and her husband John Harris – missionaries in the Congo during the 1900s – these horrific abuses might never have been exposed.

Entire op-ed piece here.

Our location near the entrance ensured that thousands would see the truth of abortion.

By Jonathan Darnel

If you want to see the American culture war up close and personal, in all its gritty reality, just go to a rock festival and promote pro-life values.  That’s what CBR and Delaware Right to Life did June 20-21 at the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware.

During its four day run, Firefly draws a crowd of more than 100,000 people, almost all between the ages of 16 and 30, many of whom camp out at the festival grounds for the duration.  With alcohol flowing freely and illicit substances only a little less freely, many attendees in various stages of undress, and a Trojan condom advertisement streaming behind an airplane overhead, it was obvious that this crowd would be a challenge.

Into this morass descended CBR Maryland and Delaware Right to Life with our graphic victim images, portable loudspeaker, and literature asking the question “When is it right kill?”  For more than four hours each day, these heroic men and women challenged the death-culture at its stronghold … attracting attention, sparking conversations, and yes, inviting persecution.  Meanwhile, CBR’s 33-foot Truth Truck, blazoned with enormous photos of abortion carnage, circulated up and down the busiest street in Dover, just outside the festival grounds.

Pro-abortion sympathizers were noticeably more vocal at Firefly than many of the other venues CBR has visited.  Verbal harassment was constant and physical harassment took place upon several occasions, resulting in at least three arrests.  While this atmosphere might have been too much for ordinary pro-life advocates, our volunteers had previously participated in the Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA) and were thus better prepared to both endure persecution and to answer the constant barrage of pro-abortion arguments.  Surprisingly, a large number of concert attendees were quietly supportive and thanked us for being there.  Post-abortive girls spilled their hearts in front of us and were, of course, ministered to.

The Firefly project took a lot of work.  We spent months preparing literature and equipment, promoting the event, and coordinating with local police.   To get to the display location, volunteers had to push/carry several hundred pounds of equipment over half a mile, and move everything back when finished.  Yet it was well worth it.

We showed the grim reality of abortion to thousands, and every volunteer had multiple opportunities to explain the pro-life viewpoint to curious onlookers.  Since living conditions at the Firefly campsite promote behavior that often leads to abortion, we believe that our unexpected presence at the festival is already bearing fruit, as new parents who might have chosen abortion cannot do so, our images and words being yet fresh in their memories.

Our volunteers were glowing about the experience:

At the very end a young man came past, yelling at us and very pro-abortion. We had a long talk and ran the gamut of the arguments.  At the end he thanked us for being there and said we’d given him a lot to think about.  (Bobbi, Delaware Right to Life)

On one occasion, I heard a group of young people admit that we were hitting our target demographic.  Later, when one young man was berated by his friends for taking our literature, I heard him defend us and point out that he himself had been adopted.  (Moira, Delaware Right to Life)

I specifically targeted couples who looked in love and who might face a crisis pregnancy later.  Several were pro-choice and we talked a very long time.  One couple in particular took our literature and said they would pass it out in the dormitories!  They admitted that they really needed a new perspective on abortion, and thanked me for giving it to them!”  (Eva, Delaware Right to Life)

 Jonathan Darnel is a Project Director for CBR Maryland Operations.

We are often challenged by pro-lifers who resist our efforts to expose abortion.  We recently met with a group of students who offered a series of objections to our work.  Here are their objections and our answers.

Objection:  We will be disliked, hated, criticized, etc.

Response:  MLK, Lewis Hine, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Clarkson were all disliked, hated, criticized, etc. … and more.  If we are serious about ending abortion, we need to be as strong as they were.  In Dr. King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail, he was very clear that reformers must expose evil, in spite of the inevitable negative reaction from those who support the status quo.  Please take a few minutes and read his letter.

Objection:  There is nothing but anecdotal evidence to say that pictures work.

Response: We have ample independent evidence to prove pictures work:

1. We have the verdict of history that says pictures always work to educate, change public opinion, and ultimately public policy.
2. We also have the history that reformers who don’t use pictures never succeed.
3. At Middle Tennessee State, 15% of passersby said the GAP display changed their minds.  That was in addition to the sizeable percentage (40-50%) who said the display made them even more sure of their pro-life beliefs.
4. Typically, about 10% (range: 5-15%) of the respondents to our informal polls tell us that the GAP display changed their minds.
5. At the U of Louisville, 65% of an independent group of students said the display was effective at changing minds.  That included 29% who said GAP changed their own minds.
6. Here is another statistic that is not anecdotal.  At 100% of the venues at which we have displayed GAP, multiple people have told us that our pictures changed their minds.  Others changed their minds but didn’t tell us until later.  Here are just a few examples:
   1. 1. University of North Florida (mind changed 3 years earlier)
      2. University of California Irvine (baby saved 3 years earlier)
      3. University of California Riverside (mind changed 1 year earlier)
7. The following comments came from just one philosophy class at the U of Louisville:
   1. 1. Student B:  I had always believed in choice … but the pictures were too convincing.   I’m not sure why the relationship between abortion and genocide has never crossed my mind, but the display was surprisingly convincing.  … Abortion is a form of murder and genocide.
      2. Student I:  … it truly changed my perspective on abortion …
      3. Student L:  I had only a few cheap glances over at [the pictures], but what I did see I wish I would have not. … [The photos] made me think about this and I think that the pictures woke me up … and gave me a reality check. … The pictures said enough for me.
      4. Student O:  The first picture stuck in my head and I just stared at it in total shock. It was a picture of a tiny little embryo/baby, its head the size of a dime, lying dead in blood with all its organs visible … They are murdered because of the selfishness of others.
      5. Student P:  I think these photos were used to prove the point that abortion is still murder and in mass numbers, should be compared to genocide.  I didn’t think of abortion in this way until viewing the exhibit.
      6. Student A:  It definitely make everybody not just stop and look, but to really think about the message … It worked!
      7. Student J:  They made the presentation so that you didn’t want to look but you couldn’t help but look.
      8. Student Q:  It was a clear illustration of how a well-planned … [the] project could reach hundreds of people in a very short span of time.

Objection:  This approach is not compassionate to post-abortive women.

Response:  Many post-abortive women have told us to please show the pictures so that others won’t make the same mistake they made.  One such woman is Dr. Alveda King, who had 2 abortions.  Others have said that only by seeing abortion pictures were they able to come out of denial, confess, repent and heal.  One such woman is on this video.  We always try to bring a team of post-abortive women who can reach out to women on campus who wish to discuss their experiences.  Pictures don’t hurt women; abortion hurts women.

No reformers have ever stopped an injustice by covering it up.  Reformers like Dr. King, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Lewis Hine, and others have always used horrifying images to educate the public and create a forum in which the purveyors of injustice were forced to defend the indefensible.  The purveyors of injustice had never had to do that before.  With abortion pictures, we create a forum in which abortion apologists are forced to defend the practice of decapitating and dismembering little human beings.  They can’t do it.  But only the display of abortion images forces them to try and thus exposes the frivolity of their arguments.

If we don’t expose injustice, history is clear that the killing will never end.  There is nothing our opponents fear more than pictures.

What will it take to end this genocide?  Why not simply show people the truth.

I remember the first time I heard CBR’s Gregg Cunningham talk about displaying abortion victim images on campus.  I thought, “You gotta be nuts!  You want me to stand where?  And hold up what?  There ain’t no way!”

But I kept an open mind.

Now, more and more, people are beginning to understand that we can never end abortion without convincing millions of ignorant and apathetic Americans that abortion is so evil, it ought to be against the law.  It sounds like daunting task, and it is, but it’s the same problem faced by Wilberforce, Clarkson, King, Harris, Hine, and others.

They all overcame this problem the same way.  They started out giving speeches that didn’t work, but ended up using graphic victim images to break through denial and apathy.

Here is a recent column entitled Abortion Holocaust: Make Them Watch, in which Bill Muehlenberg takes us back to 1945, when the American military forced German citizens to actually see the death camps.

Not only did they have to tour the camps, but often they had to bury rotting corpses and/or exhume mass graves.  The sights and the stench were certainly powerful wake-up calls to many who claimed ignorance or denied any responsibility.

You can see an actual newsreel on one of these forced visits here.

Muehlenberg says, in the same way, we should force American citizens to see what is going on in the abortion industry:

Our abortion mills are flowing with the blood of murdered babies. But people are claiming ignorance. Perhaps we should force everyone in favor of such baby killing to tour an abortion mill, and look at what happens, and handle the remains of a burned or dismembered baby.

Had German citizens seen what things were really like before 1945, maybe many would have risen up against the Nazis. If people today could see how the victims of the abortionists are treated, they too just might rise up and make a stand.

What will it take to end this genocide?

Maybe it will take pro-lifers willing to leave their comfort zones.  We can’t force people to tour the abortion mills, but we can use pictures to simply show people the truth.  That’s what it will take to end this genocide.

.

At the University of California at Riverside, a student let us know how GAP changed her mind a year ago.

“I want to thank everyone who showed this to me … because it’s important for people like me to get the right information.”

Watch brief video below:

“I don’t want you to stop showing the pictures. They’re working so don’t get discouraged …”

This was the third time Candace had seen abortion pictures on display.  As Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust held abortion photos on the street, Candace drove by.  She was overcome with gratitude, so she pulled over to talk.

The first time she saw abortion photos was in 2010 at UC Irvine, where CBR was displaying the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  She was 5 weeks pregnant with Daughtry, her first child, and was planning to abort.  Watch the videos below to see what happened next.

A year later, when Daughtry was only a few months old, Candace volunteered to help when GAP returned to UC Irvine.

Here she is now, the happy mother of 2:

Here she was in 2011: