Feb 18, 2008

Let me begin by saying that, as an English major, I’ve slung my fair share of bullshit.

Learning how to manipulate others’ perceptions using words is the unspoken agenda. You have a great opportunity to learn how to spin things and influence people’s ideas. And if you go to a good program, you learn a bit about the ethics of this process, as well.

I have also been to art school. I won’t say much about the ethics of the people I met there, but I was certainly introduced to the idea of effective visuals, and the concept of a line of appropriateness and good taste, even in shocking art.

The visitors to my school today apparently didn’t have that education.

Not that they aren’t well-versed in the concept of bullshit-slinging. The “Center for Bio-Ethic Reform”? A right-wing anti-abortion group. And they know what college kids want to see while walking half-asleep to a 9 a.m. algebra class. That’s right: giant pictures of aborted, mangled fetuses, and signs comparing family planning to the massacre in Darfur. Tell me—if your protest actually had any rational legitimacy, would you need to euphemistically title it the “Genocide Awareness Project”? I’ve heard language molested before, but those words are screaming for mercy a lot louder than any embryo ever did.

Our local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat, added their own layer of spin: the headline “Genocide project draws shock value for FSU community”. A “genocide project” assumes that the organizers of the project even know the correct definition of “genocide”. And “shock value” assumes that the event had any value at all.

The body of the article, while shorter than Karl Rove’s willy, was more true to the spirit of the commotion. In its entirety:

“Graphic, larger-than-life photos of fetal body parts drew gasps and stares from passers-by at Florida State University’s Oglesby Union, Monday.

“The free-standing, 6-foot, multi-picture display was part of a project which tours universities as part of the Genocide Awareness Project sponsored by Ohio-based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.”

Good gracious, you’d almost think it was some sort of educational event, instead of fundamentalist-Christian disruption of a college campus.

My two cents, on the Democrat’s website forum:

Genocide project”? C’mon, Democrat, just because that organization tries to spin this obnoxiousness into legitimacy, doesn’t mean you have to toe the line. Call it for what it is–an undignified, entirely inappropriate aesthetic and moral attack on the students of Florida State.

While I am 100% behind their right to free speech, presenting young people with pictures of dismembered bodies as they try to walk to class should be condemned for what it is–an act of psychological terrorism.

This organization showed no class, won no support for their cause, and inspired nothing but disgust and a pro-choice counter-demonstration to take place Tuesday. There is a way to present your stance on abortion without resorting to death-porn and debasing your organization.

One woman’s personal family-planning choices cannot, with any rationality at all, be compared to the genocide of Darfur. These fruitcakes need to stop demonstrating on campuses, and instead enroll in some classes in logic and critical thinking.

I have had an abortion, and I will never be sorry. It is what enabled me to have a second chance at college. I do not appreciate being compared to a perpetrator of genocide, while I try to get this education. For shame.