Cristina Lauria displays a “Choice” sign at the U at Buffalo, which creates more opportunities to discuss abortion with her classmates than anything else she can do. What’s more, the pictures make the discussions productive because they force students to see the brutal truth of what abortion is and does.

Because you support CBR. the University at Buffalo Students for Life (UB SFL) are displaying abortion victim photos at strategic locations around campus.

UB SFL member Cristina Lauria reports

We get lots of positive comments from people walking by. Although, of course, there are those who get angry at the pictures and stomp on by them. Interesting how they won’t look at what they support.

Way to go!!!!  Keep up the good work!

To support Cristina and other brave pro-life students, please partner with CBR to give them strategies and tools that work!!!!  Link here to support CBR.

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.

Debate and dialogue is possible, even in places like the University at Buffalo, when lawbreakers are not allowed to censor the undeniable facts.

In stark contrast to last year’s visit, the First Amendment was thoroughly upheld at the University at Buffalo (UB) this time around.  CBR returned to UB to deploy our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) on April 28-29.

FAB readers will recall the chaos that ensued on our first visit (stories here, here, here, and here).  As a result of university-sanctioned censorship, CBR filed a federal lawsuit against UB for permitting an unruly mob of pro-abortion protesters to purposely disrupt our peaceful, pro-life demonstration (link to stories here and here).

For those keeping score, this was only the second time in the history of GAP that CBR has been forced to file a lawsuit against a public university.  Usually, the knowledge of our willingness to defend speech rights is enough to ensure their enforcement.

The UB has a long history of obstructing pro-life speech.  When the UB Students for Life organized in 2010-2011, UB stalled their application for 9 months, until the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) forced UB to give the Students for Life the same access to UB spaces/facilities that all the left-wing students enjoy.  Story here: Recent Victory for Pro-Life Speech.  Later, UB students vandalized a Cemetery of the Innocents display, not once, but twice.  Stories here: Second Round of Discrimination and Vandalism at University of Buffalo Continues.

It was clear that sometime during the past year, the University at Buffalo “got religion,” as we say here in the South.  They were determined to prevent the kind of censorship that they allowed last year, and they did.

The area surrounding GAP was constantly abuzz with pro-life vs pro-abortion conversation, sometimes passionate and emotional, other times calm and intellectual, but always productive.

On Day 2, high winds and rain prevented us from constructing the full display, but volunteers made do with a smaller set-up and aggressive literature distribution.  Click to read our brochure,  How Can You Compare Abortion to Genocide?.

Media:

• Students for Life bring anti-abortion display to campus for second year
• Graphic images are necessary to anti-abortion movement

On Day 2, wind gusts up to 50 mph were in the forecast, so we reconfigured the display for maximum wind resistance. The bracing shown is more than sufficient to resist the calculated wind load at 50 mph. As a further safety precaution, we carried utility knives and were prepared to sacrifice the signs if necessary. Using a wind gage purchased from Walmart, we measured top wind speeds of only 19 mph.  In Spring 2006, a 7-sign configuration of our 4×8 signs successfully withstood gusts reported to be 48 mph at Oklahoma State University.

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.

Professor Laura Curry arrested at U of Buffalo

University at Buffalo professor Laura Curry gained national attention when she got herself arrested for a profanity-laced tirade near CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  Example coverage:

• Speak Up: Taxpayer-funded Profs, Desperate to Save Abortion, Rant at Students
• Red Alert Politics: Professor calls students’ pro-life display “f**king profane”
• Huffington Post: Arrested For Profanity-Laced Tirade Over Pro-Life Display
• Ms. Magazine: Professor Arrested for Complaint Against Campus Display
• Christian Post: Profane Rant Against Student  Anti-Abortion Display

The Laura Curry Defense Committee has posted a video of the arrest (below).  The video concludes with the provocative question, “What is more profane?  The word ‘f**k’ or the message coveyed by these posters?”  Good question.  We might have said “the reality exposed by these posters,” but other than that, they are very close.

One commenter on the Ms. Magazine blog posting said much we would agree with.  Cindy Hanford wrote:

While the arrest was outrageous and the GAP project insulting to all women, so is the use of the f* word.  I find it disturbing when feminists do not recognize that the use of a word of sexual assault would be offensive to anyone who cares about the victims of sexual assault and  wants to change our society so that rape is unacceptable.  Currently, the f* word is used to say in a vulgar way, “I hope you are sexually assaulted” which no one should say to their worst enemy.  Our society also uses it as a synonym for sex, which is particularly problematic in a society that has problems distinguishing between rape and consensual sex.  In addition, most words of profanity are insults towards women’s sexuality, even when used to insult men, such as mother f*, and son of a b*.  I hope that feminists challenge the use of these words, rather than use them.  There are also more productive and effective means to protest,  If only the campus police were as busy arresting men who assault women, much less arresting all the young men on campus who use the word.

Truth wins out when you support CBR.

Pro-abortion professors hate it when somebody comes along to challenge their little monopoly on campus.  They control the message for 363 days a year … but then we come along with GAP for a couple of days and ruin everything!

The effect of GAP lasts much longer than just the 2 days we are on campus.  Our huge photomurals of aborted babies will remain imprinted on the brains of students and others for years, even decades.  Once people see the truth for themselves, it is much harder for leftist professors to lie about abortion, and they know it.

Some of them were so frightened at the prospect of losing their monopoly over the terms of the abortion debate, they even compared pro-lifers to people who supported lynching Black men.  (See their letter to The Spectrum here.)  How dare those rascally pro-lifers show pictures of aborted babies and compare the practice of dehumanizing and killing preborn children because they are unwanted with the practice of dehumanizing and killing other unwanted people groups?

Lemme get this straight.  Saying we shouldn’t kill people because they are young and defenseless is like lynching Black men.   Riiiiight.

UB SFL President Christian Andzel responded

It is absolutely shameful for the paid professionals at the University at Buffalo to insinuate that anti-abortionists ‘appear to have a lot in common with those who supported lynching.’ As a student in the history department and President of the Pro-Life club on campus, not only am I ashamed and appalled that my professors twisted our message to suit their point of view, but I am offended due to their false characterization of our argument. We were citing the history of oppression and voicelessness of the victims who deserved human rights and justice.

GAP sign reaches high above the crowd, defeating censorship attempts encouraged by the University of Buffalo.

Our GAP at the University at Buffalo (UB) brought out the pro-aborts in force.  UB student newspaper The Spectrum reported as many as 150 protesters on Day 2.  They chanted, screamed obscenities, tried to block our signs, … the whole 9.

The only thing they didn’t do was give a rational explanation as to why it is OK to kill some human beings and not OK to kill others.

They even brought out fabric barriers in in a failed attempt to block the signs.  The police refused to intervene, giving law-breakers tacit approval to prevent the UB Students for Life and CBR from exercising our First Amendment rights.

FAB wonders if the UB Administration would be similarly “tolerant” if conservative students interfered witih a leftist presentation on campus.  Naah … we didn’t think so.

Anyway, CBR defeated this attempt by putting up one sign on the second level, extending high above the blocking reach of the mob.  (Can’t wait to go back!)

The UB has a long history of obstructing pro-life speech.  When the UB Students for Life organized in 2010-2011, UB stalled their application for 9 months, until the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) forced UB to give the Students for Life the same access to UB spaces/facilities that all the left-wing students enjoy.  Story here: Recent Victory for Pro-Life Speech.  Later, UB students vandalized a Cemetery of the Innocents display, not once, but twice.  Stories here: Second Round of Discrimination and Vandalism at University of Buffalo Continues.

Stay tuned!  Much more to come!  To fight against censorship of pro-life students, please support our work here!

CBR’s GAP display, “Choice” signs, and a truth truck makes abortion unavoidable at the U of Buffalo.