The Genocide Awareness Project at Oakland University.

by Jacqueline Hawkins

She was raped at age 12.  She was told she would die if she carried the baby.  So the young girl aborted.

Now a student at Oakland University, she peppered Mark Williams of CBR United Kingdom with questions.  Lots of questions.

As they spoke, she opened up about her life.  She grew up poor with an alcoholic mother and an absent father.  Today she is a prostitute to make ends meet.

Mark saw how she had been deeply wounded in life, and how her pro-abortion stance was all she could trust.  After all, it had gotten her out of a very difficult situation before, perhaps when nothing else could.  (Not really, but that’s how she saw it.)

Mark told her how Jesus had helped him through many personal trials and asked to pray for her.  By the end of the conversation, Mark sensed that her heart and mind were changing.  He asked if she viewed abortion differently, after their discussion.  The young woman said she did; she even understood why we display abortion images.

As a result of this experience and many others, Mark noted that in America, while pro-aborts may start with an outburst of vitriol, there is often an openness that is not so common on the streets of London.

Perhaps because Americans are less inclined to keep a “stiff upper lip,” Mark was able to see how deeply hurt, abused, unloved, and rejected so many pro-aborts feel.  They confirmed it in a way he rarely sees in the UK.

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

by Maggie Egger

Michelle, co-president of SFL at OU, speaks with a fellow student during GAP.

During GAP at Oakland University (OU) in March, a young man approached our display, then quickly became very emotional.  He stepped back from the crowd and started yelling that women should have the choice to abort, because they could be in really terrible situations, and we can’t judge their particular circumstances.

Then it became personal.  He said when his mom was in college, with a promising career ahead of her, she became pregnant by a man who was not much more than a casual hook-up.  She dropped out of school and sacrificed her career to care for him, the unplanned pregnancy.  He said she was miserable because of it.  She married his father, but they went on to have an abusive and dysfunctional marriage and family.  By this point, the young man was crying and his voice started to shake.  He said that he wished that his mom had aborted him, because then maybe she would have had a chance at a better, happier life.

Then Michelle Anderson, co-president of OU Students for Life, stepped forward.  She said, “I’m sorry that you had to go through that as a kid, and that your mom had to go through that.  But I’m so glad she didn’t abort you.  I am so glad that you’re here today.  We value your life, no matter how it came to be.  You are valuable and you are loved.”  They continued talking quietly for a little while.  He calmed down significantly, and before he left I heard Michelle say, “Can I give you a hug?”  He accepted.

I observed several interesting things in this encounter.  First, Michelle’s demeanor was so calm and loving, it completely diffused a very emotionally charged situation.  Second, she didn’t try to debate abortion.  That’s not what this young man needed to hear at that moment.  Third, the reaction of the pro-abortion protesters was perhaps the most depressing and disturbing thing that I’ve seen on campus in a while.

The young man started off with the slogan of “personal choice” and of course the pro-abortion protesters cheered this.  However, when he said he wished his mother had aborted him, most of them took their reasoning to its logical conclusion and continued to agree with him.  In essence they were saying to him, “We wouldn’t care if you were dead.”  That’s the mindset that we encounter in people who have, for decades, reduced the preborn to mere clumps of cells, instead of whole, distinct, living, valuable, human persons.  And while that mindset is depressing, when it is juxtaposed with the pro-life view, the result can be encouraging.  After all, if everyone always valued all life from fertilization to natural death, it would be no big deal for Michelle to tell that young man that she values his life, not only in that moment, but from the very first moment of his existence.

Maggie Egger is a CBR Project Director in Virginia and a regular FAB(ulous) contributor.

They get snow in Michigan, but that won’t stop us!

On the first day of GAP at Oakland University (OU), Christina Lo Piccolo wrote on her Facebook page:

The cost of my student group hosting the Genocide Awareness Project:  $5,000

The look on my professor’s face when he asked if I saw the disgusting display outside and I told him I helped organize it:  PRICELESS!

What a thrill to work with young heroes like Christina!  The thrill is even sweeter because our trip was paid for by student fee money, just like last year!  Students for Life collaborated with a dozen other campus groups to pay our expenses out of their respective student fee allocations.

But the best part of the week came at the very end, when Christina again posted on Facebook:

This past week was life-changing to say the least.  I was able to participate in 3 days of the Genocide Awareness Project to educate students about abortion.  Hearts were changed and students were motivated to take action.  I can hardly wait to graduate and continue this work as a full-time career.  “Y’all” are like family to me, and working beside you feels like home.

Did she say “Y’all”?  How bout dat.  We get to do GAP and learn a Yankee how to tawk!  It don’t get no better-n-at.

Seriously, we’ll never end abortion if we don’t get folks like Christina to join the battle full-time.  The other side has made killing babies a full-time profession, but we’ve made saving them a part-time hobby.  We can’t do anything without volunteers and financial supporters like you, but we absolutely need more like Christina to do this full-time.  Such a victory is well worth the trip to Michigan!

Thank you for making this possible with your gifts and prayers.

.

Here are just some random comments made by passersby at Oakland University:

“It’s crazy; can I take a picture?”
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“I appreciate what you are doing.”
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“I want to punch you in the face.”
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“I am disturbed; I don’t know what to think.”
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“They are freaking terrible.”
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“You should have been aborted.”
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“That’s really blunt.”
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“Thank you.”
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“It’s just really disturbing.”
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“You guys are just disgusting.”
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“It’s all God’s creation…I don’t know how people can say this is normal, but we have a pretty crazy humanity right now.”
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“Not allowing abortion legally won’t stop it.”
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“I am glad you are doing this and I pray it gets changed in your country.” (Muslim woman)
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“If my girlfriend gets pregnant, she’s going to have an abortion.”  [CBR: “That doesn’t sound like ‘choice’ to me.”]  “I don’t care.  I would make sure she had an abortion.”
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“[Abortion is a] very bad thing; I think it is a loss.”

At every university, they basically tax conservative and neutral students (through exorbitant student activity fees) to subsidize left-wing student activism on campus.  They take in millions of dollars in mandatory fees every year, with almost none of it going to conservative events/projects, but huge amounts going to left-wing propaganda events/projects.  A local example is $20,000 of student activity money spent on (Perverted) Sex Week at the University of Tennessee, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.

But occasionally, they do throw us a bone.  At Oakland University (OU), the Students for Life (SFL) applied for and received the funding necessary to pay for GAP.  This happens rarely … very rarely.

As conservatives, we need to be coaching our students to apply for and get money for conservative activities, just like the leftists do.  (We actually pay professors to coach leftist students how to apply for and get this money, but nobody is coaching our students.)  When they apply for money and don’t get it, we should go to court and sue universities over and over again until they are forced to level the playing field.

Abortion advocates: Isn’t this equivalent to a cell you can cut out of your finger?

One student at Oakland University (OU) said, “If you cut off your finger, then you can take the cells and turn them into reproductive cells which can be turned into a human being.  So why is the embryo so important?”

Two factors in play here, dehumanization and confusion of wholes with parts.

He is confusing wholes with parts when he equates an individual cell that is part of a human being (the cell in your finger) with a cell which is a human being (a human being at an early stage of development).  The cell in your finger can never act as a whole living organism. You leave it alone and it dies.  The embryo in you womb is a living human being.  You leave it alone and he grows into a fetus, infant, toddler, adolescent, teenager, etc.

Theoretically, it may be possible to create a new human being by manipulating an individual cell taken from the “parent.” Once that process is complete it would be a new human being. But until then, it’s only a cell from the “parent.”

He then uses this theoretical possibility of asexual reproduction to equate a baby in the womb with a cell in your finger. It’s just another way of dehumanizing the unwanted human being that he intends to kill.

Abortion apologists say that abortion is simply a “choice” and its victims are subhuman. This is one of many ways they mimic genocide apologists throughout history.

GAP highlights many ways in which abortion is comparable (although not identical) to other forms of historical genocide.  One similarity is the language used to justify the killing.

For example, pro-abortion protester Lauren Catoni was quoted in the Oakland Post (the OU student newspaper), “It’s actually horrifying that they’re comparing this to genocide because genocide is a widespread movement to eliminate people and abortion is a medical procedure people have when they need it.”

Perpetrators of genocide almost never “eliminate people.”  No, they exercise their “choice” because they “need” to.  Perhaps Ms. Catoni should complete her sentence: Genocide is a widespread movement to eliminate people and abortion is a widespread medical procedure people have when they need to eliminate people they don’t want.

OU SFL President Michelle Anderson changed her mind and brought GAP to Oakland University.  After GAP, she wrote to thank us, “GAP is the perfect project …”

The Oakland University (OU) Students for Life (SFL) opposed the use of abortion victim photos … until they attended the Students for Life of America (SFLA) National Conference in January.

They heard Stephanie Gray of the Canadian CBR describe how social movements have used victim images not only to change hearts and minds, but also to move people to action.  They called us, and because of your support, we were able to answer that call.

OU SFL President Michelle Anderson wrote:

My fears suddenly seemed so minuscule after hearing Stephanie’s talk.  We needed to do this at Oakland University.  There was no way around it.  We are extremely happy that we decided to go through with this campus-shaking project.  The large-scale influence that this project has had on our campus is immeasurable!  We are constantly doing pro-life activities on campus, but there hasn’t been something as grand as the GAP project.  It reached more students in two days than we would while tabling for one hour in the student center every day for two semesters.  Even then, we wouldn’t be able to tell students why abortion is wrong in 3 seconds.  With the GAP project, you don’t even need to use words because the “picture is worth a thousand words” cliché truly applies here.

With your support … only with your support … we can help pro-life student heroes like Michelle change the campus culture, win hearts, change minds, and save lives.

Michelle Anderson at Oakland University (on the right) is an  up-and-coming leader for the pro-life movement.

Next stop for this Spring’s massive Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) tour was Oakland University (OU) in Auburn Hills, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit.

Like most suburban universities, OU is relatively new (established 1957) and is growing by leaps and bounds.  Students are more likely to commute and less likely to be involved in student activism.  The OU Students for Life (SFL) are a refreshing exception to that rule.

Under the leadership of Michelle Anderson, the OU SFL has become a force on OU’s campus.  They have hosted a number of big events on campus, including an appearance by Rebecca Kiessling  and a major debate with the pro-abortion club.  And now, they have hosted GAP.

Media Coverage:

• Two-day project shocks campus, draws protest
• Graphic Image
• WARNING GRAPHIC: Genocide On Campus (see video at bottom of page)

More to come.

Abortion touches many people in surprising ways.  (Message written on our Free Speech Board, near the GAP display.)