Students gather in front of the signs to see the photos, read the messages, and ask their questions.  Although UNC is more intolerant than most places, there are many students who were willing to engage with open minds.

Nothing could be finer than a GAP in Carolina!

At UNC Chapel Hill, we were hosted by the Carolina Students for Life (CSFL), one of the many campus pro-life organizations we’ve had a hand in starting over the years.

We set up at our usual location on Polk Place, in the heart of the campus.  Thousands of students passed by during every class change.

UNC Chapel Hill is a real bastion of intolerance and hate.  Several students vandalized the warning signs we normally place on approach routes to the display.  Because these signs are really a courtesy to students who may not wish to see genocide photos, we had to wonder if these vandals hated us, or did they just want to make sure everyone saw our display?  Not too sure about that.  Anyway, …

We had huge crowds both days. On Day 1, a street preacher stationed himself across the sidewalk from the GAP display and spoke about abortion, relativism, and salvation, to an ever-growing crowd of protesting students.  While the preacher was not a part of our operation, he used a lot of our debate techniques and talking points in his preaching.  The preacher, the protesters, and the crowds of students which gathered, all focused even more attention on our pictures.

For me, the highlight of the trip was this note left on the free speech board:

My mom was raped.  She didn’t want to have me.  I was almost aborted.  My grandmother saved my life.  When I was born, my mother was grateful.  She then loved me well.

That pretty well says it all.

On Day 2, as we prepared to leave, the protesters blasted us with “music” performed by a woman-hating “artist” who blurted out “f— you, b—-” over and over again.  The pro-aborts who blasted this rant obviously did not value or even respect women, even though most were themselves women.  So often, following Satan leads to to some form of self-loathing behavior.  Fascinating.  Instructive.

Media:

• Anti-abortion group compares abortion to genocide in Polk Place
• Letter: Anti-abortioners have no claim to genocide
• Letter: ​Abortion protesters spoke false narratives
• Letter: Anti-abortionist had no place on campus
• Letter: ​Chapel Hill’s anger is sometimes laughable

A UNC student studies the GAP display

by Mick Hunt

In an earlier post, I gave examples of “pro-choice” meanness at UNC.  But there’s more to the story.   In spite of the intolerance we witnessed among the hard-core leftists, there were many thoughtful students with open minds whose responses encourage us to continue in this difficult work.  Here are a few stories and comments you will enjoy:

 A young man protested in front of our GAP display.  He said that he was strongly pro-choice, although he would not want his girlfriend or wife to have an abortion.  After a lengthy dialogue with one of our volunteers, he looked at the pictures for about 20 minutes, saying very little.  Then he said, “You have some compelling arguments.  Although I’m pro-choice, that doesn’t mean I always will be.  You’ve dissected this complex issue and made it very difficult for me to be pro-choice.”

 A campus groundskeeper said that even though he was pro-choice, our display had an impact on him.  After hearing why we compare abortion to other forms of genocide, he said he still didn’t agree.  However, we had gotten him to think about it.

 A young man said he didn’t get the genocide comparison because abortion isn’t based on race or nationality.  We explained to him how the Cambodian genocide was based on level of education.  He said, “Thank you.  I guess I had a very narrow view of what genocide is.”

 Two young men wanted to talk and learn about abortion and our display.  Afterward one said, “Thank you for a calm conversation.  These emotional issues so often end in ad hominem attacks.”

 Katie was taught by her mother at a young age that if she ever got pregnant before she finished college, and was not married, she would have to have an abortion.  She looked sadly at the display, almost crying.  She said, “Before seeing your display, if I had gotten pregnant, I would have had an abortion.  I never really thought what abortion did to a baby or even if it really was a baby.  But no more.  Now I know the truth.  I have a post-abortive friend and I am going back to talk with her and provide resources to move her toward healing.”

And lastly, a woman sent the following letter to CBR headquarters:

Dear Genocide Awareness Project,

From 2005-2009 I was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  On multiple occasions I saw your anti-abortion presentation and was shocked to see the dismembered little bodies.  I was pro-choice when I was in college, mostly out of selfishness and lack of knowledge about the development of a fetus.  I am now officially pro-life after having my first daughter and finally realizing WHAT is going on when a baby is developing in the womb.  My SIX WEEK baby had a HEART BEAT … and we are allowed to kill them?

I will not give you my whole story, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for what you do.  I am sure that you get much more argumentative and accusatory feedback than positive feedback.  Please let me tell you that when I hear my baby’s heartbeat (and I tracked her growth) I remembered your posters on campus and finally understood what you were fighting for. … I’m only sorry it took me so long.

THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO.  Your project made a difference in my life.

E. W.

………………………….
Mick (Meredith Eugene) Hunt is a regular FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the Southeast and elsewhere.

Julie and Emily Ascik, Co-Presidents of Carolina Students for Life.  (They both are wearing glasses. Click to enlarge.)

by Mick Hunt

The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) changes lives among our audience—students, staff, and faculty of our nation’s largest public universities.  And it also changes the pro-life student leaders who host the project, by making them stronger.

In an earlier post, I gave examples of “pro-choice” meanness at UNC, including an account written by CBR Project Director Edie Benchabbat, who described how some UNC students attempted to dehumanize a pro-life student leader, one of the co-presidents of Carolina Students for Life, and how she felt bullied.  Edie also reflected on how we encourage pro-life students for the long term. She wrote about the UNC incident:

Now I look at our role in a different way.  So many pro-life students and adults felt intimidated by the pro abortion-choicers and whispered as they walked by, “Thank you!”  We bring a strength to our students.  We give them the foundation to stand up for the unborn.  They may go out alone sometimes, but I think the level of their impact and the level of confidence in coming face-to-face with evil is stronger with us.  I see us as spiritual, physical, and emotional bodyguards so the pro-life students will blossom into strong advocates for the pre-born children.

And if you think the pro-life UNC student leaders were discouraged by the ill treatment they received, consider what Julie and Emily Ascik, the co-presidents of Carolina Students for Life, wrote after GAP in their letter recommending the project for other universities:

It really is scary and was scary for us to bring the GAP Project to our very liberal, very pro-choice campus.  But it was also probably very scary for Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce to speak up about their causes, especially towards the beginning when they were alone in their stance and when people were afraid their tactics would offend people.  Abortion IS horrible and seeing the pictures of it is horrible, but we must make sure other people know what is happening thousands of times daily in our society.  As William Wilberforce once said, “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

We actually rejoiced when some UNC students staged a counter-protest; it meant they were thinking about abortion.  Contrary to what most people think, having people talking about abortion, even if they are angry and insulting, is a good and productive thing to do.  Yes, it hurts when they say hate-filled and incorrect things to and about you, but as Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Next time, I’ll share some UNC stories about how GAP changed our audience.

………………………………………………………
Mick (Meredith Eugene) Hunt is a regular FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the Southeast and elsewhere.

Lincoln Brandenburg talking with a UNC student
(Click to enlarge.)

by Mick Hunt

“Leftists claim to be the voices of tolerance and diversity; however, the universities they control are the most intolerant and monolithic institutions in American life.  Their notion of diversity is to cover the range from extreme leftist to downright nasty leftist.”  (FAB)

In my experience UNC offered the largest reaction against GAP when we previously appeared in 2005. (But see the positive article on our 2005 GAP on page 13 of the Carolina Journal.)

Then, some 200 students and faculty members surrounded the display with their backs turned away from it, symbolically rejecting its truths, while additionally preventing others from seeing it for themselves. Had they kept this up for longer than 10-15 minutes, police might have taken action, as would have CBR. As it was, we took advantage of the situation by placing our handmade signs throughout their midst, signs that said, “Face the Truth. Choose Life.” After their protest broke up, many of the students stayed to talk with us and view the display.

This past spring (March 31 & April 1) the “pro-choice” response was different. The drum beating and dancing—that sort of thing—we’ve seen the like of it before, but this time our opponents offered something more alarming: Meanness.

Someone at UNC lit our brochure on fire.
(Click to enlarge.)

I’ll list incidents that I personally witnessed.

 A visiting alumnus shouted at CBR’s Georgia State Project Director Lincoln Brandenburg, called him a number of coarse names and shook his finger in Lincoln’s face. Later, without provocation, he challenged me to a fight and offered to hit me across the head with a baseball bat. When I reported this to campus police, they said I need to fill out a warrant for his arrest. I told them they needed to stand closer to him in case he tried to hurt someone.

 Two male students stood along a busy sidewalk, wearing black wetsuits (supposedly condoms) while holding signs featuring explicit, hard pornography and an absurd, filthy “scientifically inaccurate” slogan.

 A black female Planned Parenthood representative mocked a black male student for being a “30 year old undergrad.” (He responded by saying he had served two tours in Iraq.)

 When one of the co-presidents of the student organization that hosted us was standing in front of our display while holding a CBR “Choice” sign, a group of “pro-choice” students surrounded her to pose for mocking pictures, like she was some sort of inanimate object. This was so insulting and I felt bad for her. She is from Asheville and I know her family.

 The worse incident of all is described by Edie Benchabbat, CBR Project Director for North Carolina:

“Emily is co-president of the pro-life club at UNC-CH. She was holding a choice sign and the pro-aborts surrounded her and scared her. Someone from CBR noticed and came to her aid. I was on the other side of the quad so didn’t know what happened. I walked back to get more brochures and noticed her sitting down on the ground behind our display with knees bent and hunched over. She was trembling and crying. I went to her and held her to make her feel safe. She told me what happened. We prayed together. 2 other women joined me and we prayed for her. After 20 minutes, she was settled and ready to go out again with someone around her.”

The meanness I’ve described is only one aspect of doing GAP, probably the hardest part. GAP is always intense, but not often as bad as this. UNC has been the worst that I remember. It wasn’t only the specific incidents, but the entire atmosphere. In summary, we should never believe that it will be easy being a part of transforming our culture into one that values and respects the lives of preborn children.

Next time: Changing lives at the University of North Carolina.

Mick Hunt (Meredith Eugene Hunt) is a FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the southeast and elsewhere.

CBR Virginia Project Director Maggie Egger explains how unwanted people are killed by “choice.”

The Carolina Students for Life (CSFL) hosted our Pro Life Training Academy (PLTA) and Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) in late March.  It was our third trip to Chapel Hill.  We gotta do this more often!

Due to a turf restoration project on Polk Place, the normal venue for displays like GAP, CSFL reserved a very visible space just outside the Wilson Library.

Co-Presidents Julie and Emily Ascik are very effective leaders who labored long and hard to convince the CSFL members to host GAP.  As it turned out, some of the opposition came from “members” who rarely bother to do very much at all (other than obstruct, apparently).  Fortunately, several younger members stepped up and CSFL’s future looks bright indeed.

Media coverage:

• Letter: Abortion should be considered genocide
• Letter: Abortion letter was ignorant and hateful
• Letter: A pro-life response to the abortion letter
• Letter: Thoughts on Israel and abortion
• Letter: The missing element in abortion debates
• Controversial anti-abortion protest on UNC campus
• Visual tactics of anti-abortion protest in front of Wilson Library questioned
• Letter: Abortion display was in bad taste
• Students protest anti-abortion display on campus
• UNC students protest anti-abortion advertisements (video with excellent commentary by CBR’s Maggie Egger)
• Opinion: Winston Crisp’s email was not sent to enough people
• USA Today: Anti-abortion group sparks controversy on UNC campus
• Letter: Equal access to contraception is key
• Letter: Thoughts on the abortion display
• Quickhits for April 3, 2014:  Why so serious?
• Column: Public displays of revulsion
• Letter: Abortion images were simply the truth

Julie and Emily aren’t the only pro-life warriors in their family.  Older brother Peter was President of the Students for Life at the U of Georgia when they hosted GAP in 2010.

More to come.

GAP in front of Wilson Library. Note more signs to right side of stairway.