Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Yale Bans Abortion "Art" Display


Abortion as Art???!!!

Let's hope this is just a publicity stunt. But...

Aliza Shvarts' senior art project was to be displayed today at Yale University's School of Art, but a university official said that the project was banned.

Last week, Shvarts caused a media firestorm with her announcement that she had deliberately impregnated herself multiple times and then aborted her children using drugs over a period of nine months, as her senior art project.

Yale University officials quickly distanced themselves stating that the claim was false and that Shvarts' announcement had been a piece of "performance art."

Dean of Yale College Peter Salovey said "In this case, we will not permit her to install the project unless she submits a clear and unambiguous written statement that her installation is a work of fiction: that she did not try to inseminate herself and induce miscarriages, and that no human blood will be physically displayed in her installation."

The display was scheduled to be opened today and was to be critiqued by faculty.

This from the Yale Daily News:

As Aliza Shvarts ’08 maintained her silence Monday, the University kept its promise to forbid the Davenport College senior from installing her controversial senior art project in a public exhibit planned to go on display today...

... Shvarts has not spoken publicly since Friday, when she defended her art project in an interview with the News and in an op-ed piece published in the newspaper. She did not return telephone messages over the weekend and remained silent Monday as time ticked away bef re today’s scheduled opening.

Since then, the University has disciplined two faculty members — the adviser, School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, and one other — who knew of Shvarts’s project, which drew ire on campus and across the country last week when she first revealed its details. Yale officials have maintained that her project was an example of “performance art,” terming it a “creative fiction.”

In her public comments last week, Shvarts rebutted that assessment, calling it “ultimately inaccurate” and gave no indication that she planned to capitulate...

LifeSiteNews reports:

The press coverage was so intense that it shut down the website of the Yale Daily News. Public reaction to Shvarts' announcement was such that even campus pro-abortion groups are distancing themselves from the student. The Executive Boards of the Reproductive Rights Action League at Yale (RALY) and the Yale Law Students for Reproductive Justice issued a statement saying that although Shvarts was "within her rights", she was wrong to have done the self-induced abortions, if indeed she has done so.

In a letter to the Yale Daily News, the two groups said, "Although we stand by the right to reproductive freedom, we cannot approve of her approach and presentation...[W]e are shocked by the content of the art piece in question and the manner in which very serious aspects of reproductive rights have been treated. We seek to protect the rights of real women and real families who deal with real issues of health, safety and access."

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