Endlessly Creative Yalie Makes Art with Abortion Goo
We saw this YDN headine:
For Senior, Abortion a Medium for Art, Political Discourse
And thought the headline editor made a humorously inappropriate mistake. But then we read this:
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
So- wait a- holy shi-
The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
I think I saw this, once. In a horrible, horrible nightmare.
If L’Affaire Papaya is any indicator, Shvarts should think about getting a security detail for her dorm. Drudge Report linked to the article, and you know what they say: First Drudge, then the blogosphere, then psychotic right-wing militiamen with websites hosted on Angelfire. Due to sudden influx of Drudge-related traffic, YDN’s website is periodically going down. So, until YDN stabilizes, we’re running the full article and a li’l more commentary after the jump. Oh, and in case you’re wondering:
Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.
Well, at least she has a sense of modesty.
For senior, abortion a medium
Martine PowersStaff ReporterYale Daily News: April 17, 2008Art major Aliza Shvarts ‘08 wants to make a statement.
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock — saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.
But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”
“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it?s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”
The “fabricators,” or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.
Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.
Art major Juan Castillo ‘08 said that although he was intrigued by the creativity and beauty of her senior project, not everyone was as thrilled as he was by the concept and the means by which she attained the result.
“I really loved the idea of this project, but a lot other people didn’t,” Castillo said. “I think that most people were very resistant to thinking about what the project was really about. [The senior-art-project forum] stopped being a conversation on the work itself.”
Although Shvarts said she does not remember the class being quite as hostile as Castillo described, she said she believes it is the nature of her piece to “provoke inquiry.”
“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts said. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”
The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, Schvarts’ senior-project advisor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Few people outside of Yale’s undergraduate art department have heard about Shvarts’ exhibition. Members of two campus abortion-activist groups — Choose Life at Yale, a pro-life group, and the Reproductive Rights Action League of Yale, a pro-choice group — said they were not previously aware of Schvarts’ project.
Alice Buttrick ‘10, an officer of RALY, said the group was in no way involved with the art exhibition and had no official opinion on the matter.
Sara Rahman ‘09 said, in her opinion, Shvarts is abusing her constitutional right to do what she chooses with her body.
“[Shvarts' exhibit] turns what is a serious decision for women into an absurdism,” Rahman said. “It discounts the gravity of the situation that is abortion.”
CLAY member Jonathan Serrato ‘09 said he does not think CLAY has an official response to Schvarts’ exhibition. But personally, Serrato said he found the concept of the senior art project “surprising” and unethical.
“I feel that she’s manipulating life for the benefit of her art, and I definitely don’t support it,” Serrato said. “I think it’s morally wrong.”
Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.
“It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part,” Shvarts said. “This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”
The official reception for the Undergraduate Senior Art Show will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 25. The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1. The art exhibition is set to premiere alongside the projects of other art seniors this Tuesday, April 22 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.
A few questions arise:
- How did she save the, er, biological material between collection-time and creative-time? Tupperware? Fridge? Old paint cans in the art building?
- Is anyone else concerned about drip-potential in an aerial abortion-goo-cube hanging from a classroom ceiling?
- Why did they time this to coincide with pre-frosh stuff?
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April 17th, 2008 at 10:09 am
April Fools !(?)
April 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Sadly no
April 17th, 2008 at 10:32 am
1) She froze it…it’s in container in her fridge as we speak…
2) It’ll be sealed in vaseline…between two clear sheets of plastic. it’s not the drip I’m worried about, it’s the smell…
3) I don’t know, why don’t you email the administration and ask for yourself?
I just feel bad for the girl who’s going to be displaying her senior project next to this one…
April 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
aliza is great.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:06 am
her last name is oddly appropriate, considering she did kind of Shvart out a bunch of zygotes for months on end…
April 17th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I sincerely hope that she’s lying and it IS for shock value because if not, then she is a deeply, deeply disturbed girl.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I’m going to stick to watercolors
April 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
actually, bulldog days (prefrosh days) ARE on tuesday… monday through wednesday. nice.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
OMG this is the sickest, most horrific thing I’ve ever heard of. Killing babies for art. Wow, what a beacon of the Ivy League.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I agree with P’08. Conventional art for me too.
And what are these “natural, herbal” miscarriage inducing medicines she’s talking about? Aren’t these essentially toxins? And she’s NOT worried about the long-term effects on her body? She’s probably infertile now.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:40 am
She should be held criminally responsible. This is morally and ethically reprehensible.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:42 am
What. The. Fuck.
Also they are not self-induced miscarriages. If she is taking abortifacents, she is having abortions.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:52 am
aliza, you are so beautiful and smart. why did you choose to do this to your body? the many effects of this could last forever.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
So later in life, when she actually has kids…does she show them her Senior Thesis so they can meet their brothers and sisters?
April 17th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
this is screwed up. ha.. ridiculous, i dont even know
April 17th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
My second thought upon reading this article this morning (the first being WTF?) was, shit, IvyGate is going to be all over this. I don’t know this girl, but… yeah… what is there to even say? Yale has gone completely batshit.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
This is just…awful.
“Art” like this and the “Piss Christ” and the guy whose exhibit was a dying, starving dog chained to the wall give real art a bad name. “Look at me, I’m puking into a trash bag and videotaping it, give me an NEA grant!!”
That’s right, I said this ISN’T art.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
it’s stories like this that remind me that some of the biggest dip-shits go to ivy league schools. this girl clearly has no common sense, and needs to be shot. better yet, let her have the baby, give it a couple years to grow, then hand the baby the gun and have it shoot her for nearly trying to abort him/her.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
governors conference is going on soon– arnold and others will be here. YAY press coverage!
April 17th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
http://my1stperiod.com/2064/2106.html
April 17th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
who cares about the conference. i shall attend no events until this girl dies.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
http://foryale.blogspot.com/2008/04/everything-wrong-with-aliza-shvartss.html
April 17th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Is nobody else bothered by the fact that her thesis adviser did not veto this and/or ensure that she got psychological help????
April 17th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
http://my1stperiod.com/2064/2106.html
April 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Seriously, did I just fucking read what I think I did? So many unanswered questions…
April 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Trust me, everyone is bothered by that. Check out the comment boards at the YDN. Her advisor should be fired.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Also, when I did research that involved interviewing people about something I had to go through a review board because I was using human subjects. Did this not have to go through some sort of review board. Any review board? WTF?!
April 17th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I call bullshit. It’s prank.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
“Her advisor should be fired.”
This has nothing to do with her advisor, unless her advisor gave her the idea and forced her do it. Professors are not responsible for the legal, ethical, or academic choices of their students. They are there to discuss, advise, and provide links to information. What the student does with it is wholly up to the student.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
It’s the artificial insemination thing that’s suspicious, she actually got pregnant nine times? Bullshit. The faculty would have hauled her away - and where do you get abortificants? Plus I know her advisor and [her advisor is] totally freaked out by contamination. At most these are her periods, if this isn’t some stupid prank. Oh, FYI: Juan Castillo ’08’s name is used as shorthand for ’stupid entitled undergrad’ in the grad dept.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Advisors ADVISE. And as an advisor, I think most people would vehemently advise against this shit. Now, maybe they did and she just went for it anyway, but I’m inclined to think that if her advisor expressed some real qualms she would have come off it.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
This isn’t art…this is some sort of a psychological disorder.
And I’m calling bullshit on this statement in the article: “Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.” If that really were the case, she would have stuck to paint and canvas or other classical mediums.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
As for David Mneuzinger or whatever his fucking name is… so pathetic. Dude: your. cartoons. suck. your. art. is. worse.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
That is really, really sick. Seriously, that’s just awful. I really hope this is some sort of prank, but knowing some of the freaks at Yale, I doubt it.
Also, am I the only one waiting impatiently for christianarchisti to chime in? This’ll be a good one for him.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Shenanigans! Think about what the article said and how cryptic her comments were: wouldn’t specify how many times she was inseminated, what she exactly used, how she could be so successful conceiving then purging, an advisor mysteriously lacking decency or unavailable for comment?
As the Hot Air blog put it:
“It’s too broadly parodic of too many things: the trivialization of abortion, modern art’s fascination with effluvium, amoral academic culture justified as a form of faux-profound “consciousness-raising,” etc etc etc. All that’s missing is some sort of representation of Christ as a gay Nazi.”
No one has even SEEN the piece. This is probaly going too turn out to be a “GOTCHA!” things. That was her point “to spark debate about art and the human body”
April 17th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
@Far Above Cayuga: You think if she ended up with, say, an ectopic pregnancy and it turns out she was advised by a Yale faculty member about this project, there wouldn’t be a lawsuit? The advisor should be fired and Yale shouldn’t showcase this at all. Completely depraved.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Bollinger: Leave Juan out of it. He’s a nice guy and doesn’t deserve to caught in the middle of this shitstorm. Even your bringing him up shows the level of maturity in some of the MFA students. Shouldn’t you guys be spending your time creating “art” instead of thinking of how to pick on the undergrads? What awesome lives you do lead.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
P.S. From what I understood of the project in class, she never knew if she was pregnant or not before taking whatever it was that she took. Although, the process was designed as to make pregnancy possible. She injected the sperm into her vagina no more than 30 minutes after the sperm had been given…so as to make sure that it was viable. She also injected the sperm on the days of her cycle where she was most likely to get pregnant. And then she took the pill right before her period.
I don’t know what she was thinking, but her reasoning is that because she never knew for sure that she was pregnant and took the abortificient anyways that it was not abortion.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
this is awesome. makes me wish i had applied to yale…
April 17th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Juan is responsible is one of the parties responsible for this fake project and, like Ali, is shitting on the department and the hard work and reputations of others to try and get ahead. He deserves public humiliation. Yale’s art program does not. Also, I’m an undergrad, dipshit.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Wow, we’re feeling mature today, aren’t we?
How is Juan responsible? He was just stupid enough to comment on this project, that hardly makes him responsible. This was not a group effort in the art major. No one had any idea that she was doing this. When she presented we were all shocked and speechless. I don’t even know how much her advisor knew about this. When we tried to talk about it we were shut down by her and her clique (one other person that sits with her in the corner of the room) calling us “heteronormative” and “missing the point.”
It is true though, she is making Yale look REALLY bad and probably fucking up the senior exhibition for everyone else.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
This is fake. It has to be–no one has seen it, and it’s too beyond the pale to be real.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
It should go without saying that this is not representative of the Yale undergrad population. Sarcasm from cc and comments about “freaks” from P’07 are unneccesary and inaccurate. Sure, point fingers at the recent Cazares-Akash shit too, but this is Ivygate. That’s the kind of stuff you’re going to hear about. Stop using this to justify your decision to go elsewhere.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Artstudent- if you aren’t Juan, I think I know who you are and I would seriously advise you to seriously rethink your friendship with him. You’re a decent human being, he isn’t. Anyone who abuses Yale at the expense of other people’s time and effort deserves nothing but contempt. This project, whether Juan is involved or not, is a bald attempt at drawing attention to oneself at the expense of everyone else involved.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
The trouble is, even if this girl is setting us all up as part of an elaborate hoax, and every scrap of that YDN article is false, I would offer her the following advice: MISSION ABORT (pun fully intended). She’s crazy if she did this to herself, but at least those who want to see retribution can rest easy knowing she’s probably infertile for life. On the other hand, if this is all some sort of emo art joke, she will have offended Pro-Lifers, Pro-Choicers and every person who finds the abortion issue even mildly important from a moral or legal standpoint.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Well I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on Juan’s character and intentions.
But I agree, this is an abuse of the Yale Art Department. All the art majors knew about this project when she presented on it last week…but we all kept quiet because we knew that this is probably what she is aiming for-a media shitstorm focused on her project. I’m afraid that this might actually help her gain legitimacy in some fucked up art circles and galleries. I can’t imagine how she failed to foresee the outrage that this would cause and because of this, I personally didn’t want this story leaked because this is just what she’s going for.
Alas, the YDN does it again…
April 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
The trouble is, even if this girl is setting us all up as part of an elaborate hoax, and every scrap of that YDN article is false, I would offer her the following advice: MISSION ABORT (pun fully intended). She’s crazy if she did this to herself, but at least those who want to see retribution can rest easy knowing she’s probably infertile for life. On the other hand, if this is all some sort of emo art joke, she will have offended Pro-Lifers, Pro-Choicers and every person who finds the abortion issue even mildly important from a moral or legal standpoint.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The trouble is, even if this girl is setting us all up as part of an elaborate hoax, and every scrap of that YDN article is false, I would offer her the following advice: MISSION ABORT (pun fully intended). She’s crazy if she did this to herself, but at least those who want to see retribution can rest easy knowing she’s probably infertile for life. On the other hand, if this is all some sort of emo art joke, she will have offended Pro-Lifers, Pro-Choicers and every person who finds the abortion issue even mildly important from a moral or legal standpoint.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
artstudent08, trust me, this has been done before. The only reason it’s attracting attention is because Yale’s name is attached to it.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
The trouble is, even if this girl is setting us all up as part of an elaborate hoax, and every scrap of that YDN article is false, I would offer her the following advice: MISSION ABORT (pun fully intended). She’s crazy if she did this to herself, but at least those who want to see retribution can rest easy knowing she’s probably infertile for life. On the other hand, if this is all some sort of emo art joke, she will have offended Pro-Lifers, Pro-Choicers and every person who finds the abortion issue even mildly important from a moral or legal standpoint.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Ok so I do find this project shocking and appalling, but Aliza is really nice. It’s one thing to think what she did was immoral, it’s another to talk about shooting her. Don’t be a hypocrite.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Why are people - pro-choice people, at that - horrified? If abortion is a right, then it is a right that should be exercised by anyone. What argument can you stand on if, as your own principles maintain, no one has a voice in the matter but the woman herself?
Terrible? Only a beast would say exercising a right, a Constitutional right no less, should be called terrible. How dare you say her actions should be prohibited. Everything Ms. Shvarts has done is perfectly legal. If she wants to make her womb Sheol, it is her right. This is her body. It is her choice. She needs no reason. She is old enough to need no permission. And in the end, all she has done is create art out of her children, as so many parents do.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
So… when are you going to post some pictures of this Aliza chick?
April 17th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Reason, you’re batshit crazy.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
i wasn’t being sarcastic. i really do think this is an amazing piece (then again, i am convinced that there’s no way it was actually carried out the way it was described). but maybe i’m just a weirdo or a freak…
April 17th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
http://www.buckleyla.org/data/files/News/StudentVoice/Issue_7_part_I.pdf
April 17th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I’d like to preface my post by saying that I believe in academic freedom and the right to expression. However:
I can’t believe YALE let this go on for NINE MONTHS.
I can’t believe Yale would approve this ‘thesis’ let alone host its display.
Those at Yale - particularly in its art department and those who associate with Aliza - should be ashamed and embarrassed.
The only “dialogue” that Aliza is sparking is one regarding her own recklessness - not her art.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
funny i wouldnt think you could get pregnant enough in 9 months to make any sort of decent project out of it.
also wouldnt miscarrying in the first month only yield like a microscopic lump of cells if anything not absorbed back into the body?
April 17th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“The only reason it’s attracting attention is because Yale’s name is attached to it.”
I think this is because people would have expected someone with a little foresight to intervene.
@”Reason”
You can extend that same freedom to allow yourself to run head first into a brickwall; that’s not the point. The question is, what kind of person would do that to herself?
April 17th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
As a person who is generally pro-choice, I’m alarmed because pro-choice DOES NOT EQUAL pro-abortion. I’m for a woman’s right to exercise control over her own body to the extent that it is ethical. Using abortion as a form of birth control is not ethical; purposefully creating and then killing life is not ethical either. It’s one thing to abort a baby you didn’t mean to have and can’t support; it’s another to inseminate yourself so you can have an abortion.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
and Yale rejected ME over this crazy chick?
i’m starting to be glad to be as far away from this psychotic, self-important dilettante as much as possible. i can’t believe that someone could call abuse of one’s body and one’s constitutional rights “art.” what a joke.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
EMO ART
April 17th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
This girl is a fool. Even if she did no damage to her health and graduates and her adviser escapes reprimand, she has made her career as an artist so much harder. Any grants she applies for will run the risk of reigniting publicity about this and, thus, getting denied funding. Anybody receiving government fund won’t touch her with a ten-foot pole lest they get their own funding cut. What a dipshit. But she will serve a purpose: she will be an example of what NOT to do as a beginning artist.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I would’ve expected something this batshit crazy to come out of Brown, not Yale…
Also, Fark.com has picked up the story. Even the most pro-choice people over there think she’s fucked in the head.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
she’s not even cute. what a letdown.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
apparently, it’s all fake? The Yale President’s office is releasing a statement about it being fake. There was some speculation that it might have been performance art–telling people she had done it without having actually done it. But all my classes have talked about today is how insane the whole thing is, whether real or not.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
whether or not she actually tried to impregnate herself or just said that she tried to impregnate herself is not the point.
either way it’s just rabble rousing nonsense.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
From http://www.yale.edu/opa:
Statement by Helaine S. Klasky — Yale University, Spokesperson
New Haven, Conn. — April 17, 2008
Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.
She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.
Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
What a self-righteous cunt
April 17th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
bollinger, go to hell.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
i lied to people for 14 hours and got a yale degree out of it. awesome senior project, what a stupid bitch.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
good job yale. she ‘has the right to express herself through performance art.’ donors have a right not to support such nonsense. employers have a right not to hire her. real acts or not, she predictably got many people very upset. is this really her free speech or is she trying to cause trouble? incitement is not necessarily protected speech.
forget prefrosh visiting. her timing with respect to congress is impeccable. congress is asking why universities should be tax exempt when their endowments grow so large. a stunt like this will not make friends in dc. should some congressmen take this as proof that yale is the antichrist and must be stopped… that would be very painful.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
senioritis meets a strict deadline. her sculpture wasn’t ready yet, answer: “performance art.” i wish i were an art major. i could’ve shit in a bag instead of writing a thesis.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
@wtheckie: Of course she’s not attractive. Would anyone good-looking be in such dire need of attention?
As an aside: WHAT is the major malfunction with Yale lately? Do they grow mental cases in New Haven or just recruit them?
April 17th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
@ @ Reason
If there is an “extent to which [abortion] is ethical,” that implies that there are limits beyond which abortion is unethical. If there is such ambiguity, if there is such a line, then it’s reasonable to have legal restrictions to prevent people from crossing that line. For example, most people agree that some form of gun ownership is a constitutional right, but that indiscrimintely gunning down animals is unethical. Hence, we have hunting permits and kill restrictions.
But the mainstream pro-choice movement - I’m not talking the papaya-hating ones alluded to in the picture, but your average pro-choicer - has been consistently against any restrictions on abortion rights. No partial-birth abortion ban, no mandatory waiting period, no mandatory parental notification.
To be pro-choice, then, is to be firmly in favor of a woman’s ability to decide what to do with her own body (and ejecta), and by extension to believe that restrictions on that right are unethical. If there were anything immoral about having an abortion or twenty, then it would be unreasonable for pro-choice people to be against all restrictions on abortion.
To reiterate, then, according to the pro-choice worldview, this woman was merely exercising her constitutional rights, and should not be subject to censure.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Anon, if she’s not a self-righteous cunt, what would you call her? A conscientious, well-intentioned example of femininity? An edgy fascinating creative thinker? — I didn’t think so. Sorry is ‘cunt’ offends you, but it’s apt.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
@ Reason.
The difference is that many pro choice people view abortion as a means by which to avoid a woman or girl who is not ready to be a good parent bringing a child into this world. “@reason” is clearly conflicted their definition of “life”. The issue here is not so much one of life, but rather one of the judgment about what someone wold do to themselves for the sake of publicity.
Further the law often distinguishes between different consequences associated with the same act. Killing someone for self defense if protected under the law after all, while killing someone for sport is abhorrent. (I hate to make the analogy because I know your little mind will jump on the fact that it used the word “killing” and be unable to process anything else)
April 17th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
What she claimed to create isn’t even within the realm of physiologically possible.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Bollinger: Yes, and yes. Now, like I said, go to hell.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
FAKE! http://www.yale.edu/opa/
April 17th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
FAKE! http://www.yale.edu/opa/
April 17th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I called it, APRIL FOOLS indeed.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I can’t tell if it’s punkrock and brilliant, or just disgusting and immature. Oh well.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
perhaps unintentionally, this art is brilliant. and here’s why. the pro-choice movement consistently argues that abortion should be legal, but also that there all no moral ramifications.
this art proves that, moral ramifications are part of the equations. people naturally have revolted to abortion qua abortion as a freedom.
in close, abortion is immoral and should be reduced in a society such as ours. note however, immoral does not mean should be illegal.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
To Dart Alum:
HEY! We at Brown smoke far too much marijuana to pull off a stunt like this… we would probably forget the abortifacient and have to deal with an actual child nine months later
April 17th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
To Dart Alum:
HEY! We at Brown smoke far too much marijuana to pull off a stunt like this… we would probably forget the abortifacient and have to deal with an actual child nine months later
April 17th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
@Cornell GS ‘10
“Killing someone for self defense if protected under the law after all, while killing someone for sport is abhorrent.”
And killing someone for sport is illegal, which is, shall we say, a fairly strong restriction.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Yale should sue her ass off for defamation and make her take a “medical leave” until, if ever, she fixes those loose screws in her head AND pays the judgement.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Your whole thesis, that legal=ethical, illegal=unethical is just naive. Do you think our legal system, or the American public has the wherewithal to sort through the nuance of such a divisive, if not repulsive, issue as abortion enough to carefully delineate how and when it should be performed? We can’t even agree that it SHOULD be performed, and so striking such compromises would be a defeat on both sides. Hence, it is relegated to the least common denominator of majority rule within the supreme court. You should really put greater effort into calibrating your moral compass than just waiting to see if police arrest you.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
it’s too bad that so much time has been wasted discussing a project that only seeks publicity for the maker of it - the important gender issues themselves are already in the general discourse - when there are so many far more important causes that need smart and motivated people to devote their energies to.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:41 pm
What bothers me here is the fact that she is invalidating the senior work of other art majors. Across the country. Thanks for making a mockery of my major, bitch.