Abortion pictures pierce through denial about basic facts, and thereby open the way for Kate Kennamer to have a rational dialogue with passersby. Rational dialogue is impossible when people deny the basic fact that every abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby. (Note: this caption was corrected on 5/16 because one of the students in the photo has commented below, and as best we can tell, he was NOT willing to have a rational dialogue on this occasion. We routinely have civil discourse with people who are pro-choice, so apparently we jumped to the wrong conclusion in this case. FAB regrets the error.)

Earlier this month, 4 CBR staff and volunteers spent the day at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK) with hand-held “Choice” signs.  “Choice” signs are 3-ft-by-4-ft, light-weight, hand-held signs that depict aborted babies in the first trimester.  These signs simply show students what “choice” really is.

CBR volunteer Debbie Picarello spoke with a male graduate student who said his mother had 2 abortions before giving birth to him and his living brother.  He learned of her abortions a year ago.  He believes much of the dysfunctionality his mother has displayed toward him and his brother was a product of her abortion-wounded heart.

His own father is also the father of one of the aborted children, and their marriage is not a good one.  One of the symptoms of an abortion-wounded heart is relational difficulties. 

A pro-life male student wondered how effective graphic pictures are.  Debbie explained the historical significance of images, that reformers have been effective when they used images to expose the humanity of the victims and the inhumanity of the crime.  Debbie doesn’t ‘like’ these pictures, but she could talk about how effective they have been.  He seemed more open to the need for the pictures.

A male student said, “Eww, a hand!” as he walked by.  Several students, both male and female proclaimed loudly, “Those are disgusting!”  Yes, that’s the point.

We got lots of encouragement.  Quite a few students, both male and female, either thanked us for being out there, or gave a thumbs up as they were walking by.  Many students took our Unmasking Choice handout.  Many others gazed intently at the pictures as they walked by.  Mission accomplished!

Most universities have spaces where citizens can hold signs and speak with students, even without an invitation.  In this case, we were invited by the UTK Collegians for Life.  The president of Collegians for Life is Clint Kennamer.  Clint became pro-life when he first saw abortion at our GAP display at the University of North Florida (UNF) in 2009.  Clint was at UNF because he came with his wife Kate, who was a CBR staff member at the time.  Now, Clint leads pro-life activism at UTK and Kate still volunteers for CBR projects!  Yes, the pictures work!

Folks, if you want to have a GREAT day, get a couple of your own Choice signs and visit your local college.  You will be teaching powerful truth that people are desperate to know.

Because of her own personal story of abortion and forgiveness, Debbie Picarello is able to share hope and healing.

GAP display and RCC truck at UConn. The RCC truck helps project the message to all corners of campus and into the surrounding community.

Our I-95 GAP tour continues this week in Connecticut and Massachusetts.  On Monday and Tuesday, we were at the University of Connecticut (UConn).  Kudos to CBR Maine Director Leslie Sneddon for setting up this phase of the tour and CBR Midwest Director Darius Hardwick for bringing the display and several volunteers.

Day 1 was uneventful, except for the normal pro-abortion angst that we were exposing their deeds.

But on Day 2, several protesters showed up and attempted to stop our team from setting up.  The UConn Administration refused to give in to thuggish behavior and required the protesters to move aside so that our space reservation could be honored.  All moved to adjacent space except two, and those two were arrested.  Story here and here and here (good video) and here and here and here.

Now, on to the University of Massachusetts!

Pro-abort protesters attempt to block GAP at UConn on Day 2.

GAP at the University of Maine

Lots of media coverage at the University of Maine (UM) and the University of Southern Maine (USM).

The Maine Campus:

• SWA addresses GSS to voice concern over planned protest
• Video: Anti-abortion group Genocide Awareness Project riles emotions at UMaine
• Editorial: GAP gore fest brings out worst for all involved
• Op-ed: GAP’s avowal of abortion as genocide utterly unfounded
• You hurt your own cause: An open letter to the Genocide Awareness Project
• Columnist: GAP’s hyperbolic crusade against women warrants only contempt

Bangor Daily News:

• Anti-abortion demonstrators, gay marriage opponents bring messages to University of Maine

WLBZ TV (Bangor)

• Students talk abortion at U-Maine

USM Free Press

• Anti-abortion group coming to Portland campus Wednesday and Thursday
• Anti-abortion display raises hackles on campus
• Kelley: Anti-abortion agitators ignite a different debate

WCSH TV (Portland)

• Abortion protest stirs strong emotions at USM (very well-done)

WGME TV (Portland)

• Anti-Abortion exhibit set up at USM

Portland Daily Sun

• Anti-abortion mural exhibit triggers USM student reaction
• Anti-abortion exhibit stirs emotions, elicits student reaction at USM
• USM students urge ‘compassion, civility’ in face of anti-abortion installation

Maggie Egger and Kristine Kruszelnicki get ready for the students to arrive. Abortion photos allow just a few people to have a huge impact.

Maggie Egger of Spiders for Life and Nicole Cooley of CBR organized a Choice Chain at the University of Richmond (UR) on Monday.

The abortion pictures are what the military calls a force multiplier.  They allow us to take a small amount of resources and create a huge effect.

One student tried the “famous violinist” argument on Nicole.  Of course, we are all veterans of the Pro Life Training Academy, so we know exactly how to answer that question.  Nicole pointed out that the famous violinist is not analogous to the preborn child because

• The violinist is not the offspring of the host.
• We all recognize that we have responsibilities to our own children that are greater than our responsibilities to a random stranger.  For example, we are required by law to support and care for our born children.

That seemed to be enough; the young man just turned and walked away.  Nicole could have added:

• The child is not an intruder.  He is exactly where he naturally belongs.
• Withholding support is not the same as dismembering, poisoning, and/or crushing.
• Except in the case of rape, the host actively participated in the act that created the pregnancy.

This being a private school, the normal First Amendment protections did not apply.  For example, CBR staff and volunteers were not permitted to speak to a UR student unless first approached.  However, when the UR students began chalking messages on the plaza (a common activity on college campuses), CBR volunteer Jonathan Darnel got his own chalk and started to respond.  It was just like our Free Speech Board.  The pro-aborts complained, but UR administrators allowed him to continue.

Media coverage here.

Jonathan Darnel awaits a ruling on whether he could continue chalking messages on the plaza. He had started to write a quote from Dr. Alveda King: "America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion."

GAP on the Mall at the University of Maine

GAP continues this week in the key state of Maine.  On April 9-10, GAP is at the University of Maine at Orono (UMO).  Coverage by UMO’s student newspaper, The Maine Campus.  Quote from the article:

Amanda Rivers, a second-year social work major, walked out of a morning class and saw the display.

“I’m so glad that they’re here,” she said.

Rivers said she always knew she was pro-life but didn’t understand the extent of her commitment to that mindset until she saw the photos, which she described as “graphic.”

“I came out of class and just did the walk around and honestly started crying,” she said.

Her views on abortion were cemented after she spoke with a GAP protester, and she said she doesn’t believe there are any circumstances in which abortion is a moral decision. She now describes herself as firmly anti-abortion.

“I am now. One-hundred percent,” she said.

She said she understands why the group of students gathered around Hardwick to argue with him. …

Full article here.  Please add your comments online!

George Mason hosts graphic abortion photo wall

Lots of media coverage at George Mason University (GMU) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

The Washington Post:

• George Mason hosts graphic abortion photo wall 

The Broadside at George Mason University:

• Abortion protest stirs controversy
• Freedom of speech only stretches so far

The Commonwealth Times at Virginia Commonwealth University:

• Graphic images draw criticism from students
• Anti-abortion protesters display, emanate negative values

WTVR-TV in Richmond:

• Students, group hold abortion rallies on VCU campus

.

.

The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) has launched a post-card campaign that puts the truth of abortion into Canadian mail-boxes and homes.  Thousands of people in Calgary have received large post-cards bearing photos of abortion, and there are more to come.  This was the lead story on the local TV station!  See all of the CCBR postcards here.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “America will never reject racism until America sees racism.”  His niece, Dr. Alveda King, now says, “America will never reject abortion until America sees abortion.  That’s why we show it to them.

Help help America whareject abortion; please click here here and be as generous as you can.  Please don’t turn away.  We have invitations to bring our campus outreach project to major universities, but we cannot accept those invitations unless we can raise $18,000 this week!  Please help, because a baby’s life is at stake.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnb6AHQr0ho

Front side of one of the postcards from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Back side of same postcard.

Parkville High School student protests CBR's School "Choice" Project.

This report comes from Kurt Linnemann of CBR Maryland.

They came out with a sign!  A handmade sign!  Finally!  After bringing our School “Choice” Project (the graphic reality of abortion) to nine high schools, we had our first student protest.  Two of them stood beside us holding a handmade sign that said, “It’s easy to talk about MORALITY when you’re not the one getting PREGNANT.”

It was great … and I commended them on their willingness to stand for what they believed.  Flawed as it may be, I was glad to see they had conviction and were willing to act.  And I told them so.  As I took pictures of the students holding the sign, a Baltimore County police officer told me I was not allowed to take their picture.  I asked her why.  She told me that once a child gets on a school bus they become wards of the state and as such they are protected by the state.  I repsonded by saying that as long as they were in public, I had a legal right to take their photo, minor or not, ward of the state or not.  I asked her to call her supervisor.  She did and afterwards told me that her supervisor simply instructed her to encourage the students to leave and get into class.

School "Choice" Project at Parkville High School.

So these students along with others learned of activism and our First Amendment rights, which are both great things.  And the 1600 students at Parkville High School learned what abortion does to a baby.  Through the images of the aborted babies, the plight of the preborn child became a major topic of discussion for the students, faculty, administration, and related families of Parkville High School.

By participating in the School “Choice” Project one morning a week, you can be a hero, save a baby, and get to work on time!  For further information, please contact me at klinnemann@cbrinfo.org or call 410-913-3931.

Awesome!  Kurt’s appeal for help is obviously targeted to the schools in the CBR Maryland region.  We can help you reach high-school students with the truth, no matter where you live!  Go to www.ProLifeOnCampus.com and “Contact us.”

Note: We always follow police directives, but we do ask them why and ask them to clarify with their own supervisors.  If they persist, even with a demand we know to be unlawful, we comply and work it out with their lawyers in the proper venue at the proper time.  On the street is neither the proper venue nor the proper time.

CBR's staff member (and our hero) Sarah Cleveland speaks to group of FSU students with Edmund Burke on her back. Now that's heavy!

Day 1 of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at Florida State University (FSU) was a huge success.  Large crowds gathered to view the signs and listen to our team explain the facts about prenatal development and abortion.

Media coverage here (includes video) and here.  Both stories implied that “hundreds of students” were “fired up” and “outraged,” but compared to recent trips to FSU, it was pretty tame.

I was able to pray with one student who had been abused as a child.  I prayed that God would reveal himself to this young man in a powerful way.  As an atheist, he was probably skeptical, but he let me pray for him nonetheless!  I hope you will pray for him as well.

The FSU crowd was large and engaged, but peaceful.

Student at Forida Gulf Coast University learns a lesson he will never forget: abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby. He can never be lied to again.

CBR’s campus outreach for the Spring 2012 semester got off to a great start at Florida Gulf Coast University earlier this week.  Great video on the Eagle News (student newspaper) website.

Notice how the pro-aborts agree with us on the most important aspect of our display: abortion is “terrorizing,” “grotesque,” “shocking,” “aweful,” etc.  Unlike the abortion industry and many college professors, pictures don’t lie.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f19xe1ESFH4

Question:  If abortion is such a great thing, then why do pictures of it make abortion advocates so angry?

BTW, CBR will never agree to hide the truth of abortion.  That is Planned Parenthood’s schtick, not ours.

She looked at the pictures and exclaimed, "You came to my school! You sure changed my mind."

I’m in the Jacksonville Airport, headed back to Knoxville, wrapping up my 4th week on the road.  We’re getting ready for our campus outreach (GAP) at the U of North Florida (UNF) and Florida State U (FSU) later this month.  Lots of enthusiasm for our Pro Life Training Academy on February 19.

Thanks to God for all the families in Jacksonville and Tallahassee who will house and feed our traveling team of 26 missionaries, including 14 Canadian students who will be learning how to win hearts, change minds, and save lives.

After I landed in Jacksonville, Kenyana fixed me up with a rental car.  As she filled out the paperwork, she asked, “What brings you to Jacksonville?”

I told her, “I’m a radical right-wing lunatic troublemaker.”  I gave her my card.

She looked at it, “Pro-life.”  Then I showed her the photo of our GAP project on the back of my card.  She got excited, “You came to my school!”

“Where did you go to school?” I asked.

“UNF!”

“Yes, we were there about 3 years ago.”

Without any coaxing at all, Kenyana offered, “Well, you sure changed my mind.  I didn’t have any idea what abortion is.  None of us did.”

GAP at the University of Michigan Diag.

Great article written by a pro-chioce student who saw GAP at the University of Michigan (UM) Diag and decided to attend a Students for Life meeting.  Full story here.  Excerpts:

At the time it seemed like the pro-lifers were seriously screwing themselves over.

But I do remember seeing one young woman, a student, standing nervously behind the display, pro-life pamphlets in hand.  I wish I had talked to her instead of openly laughing at what I perceived at the time to be really poor activism.  (emphasis added)

***

The Genocide Awareness Project] got us angry, but it also got us talking (albeit in raised voices) about a topic that for a lot of people is just another item on the political agenda.  The abortion issue periodically garners national attention, like when pro-lifers attempted to defund Planned Parenthoods across the country last year.

But in an era when people are constantly bemoaning the lack of student activism, look no further than the intense, ongoing pro-life/pro-choice debate, which is less about politics and more about deciding what we value as a society.

***

It’s pretty easy to be pro-choice at the University. …

It’s easy to get trapped in an echo chamber when you think the Truth belongs to your side.  But even if we can’t agree, we can occasionally step across the protest line, stop the chanting, and listen.

Several points to be gleaned from this article:

1. Even angry pro-aborts can be softened, if not converted.  The anger wears away; the education does not.
2. There is a sink-in factor at work here.  After seeing GAP, it was weeks later before Balfour was ready to attend a pro-life meeting.  She isn’t pro-life yet, but Balfour has an open mind and this isn’t over yet.
3. The pictures work in many different ways.  They neutralize our opposition, they convert the neutral, they activate the converted, and they energize the active.
4. The key elements here are (a) the truth, as presented by abortion photos, (b) abundant courage and the love of Messiah Jesus, as demonstrated by the UM Students for Life, and (c) an open mind, which Balfour provided herself.
5. We pro-life activists probably have more in common with pro-aborts who don’t know the truth than we have with pro-life Christian leaders who do know the truth and cover it up.

Jane Bullington winning hearts, changing minds, and saving lives at James Madison University.

“Thank you for being here.”  On the morning of Day 2 at JMU, Mick Hunt read from Ephesians 6, to encourage the team to “put on the full armor of God” in preparation for another day at JMU.  Their discussion was interrupted by a female student who approached the group.

She said, “Thank you for being here. Christians really need to see this. I know this is a spiritual battle.  Can I pray for you?”  Nicole and Jonathan approached her and thanked her for her timely encouragement.  They held hands while she prayed for God’s blessing on our team and for the students who would see images, asking God to move their hearts.

Breast cancer link.  One of our GAP signs presents the connection between abortion and breast cancer.  The hard-core pro-aborts dispute this, but there is plenty of statistical evidence to suggest that abortion increases the probability of breast cancer from the ambient 10% to about 13 or 14% (an increase of 30 or 40 percent).  This is not a trivial increase; it likely results in 10,000 fatalities per year (source).

As two female students looked at the sign depicting this link, Jane began to explain the cellular changes in breast tissue that begin to happen when a woman becomes pregnant.  One of them interrupted, “I am a biology major and I see where you are going with that.  That’s the most convincing argument right there for not having abortions!  You need to be telling women this!”  Jane laughed and said, “We’re doing our very best, please help us!”

You can help us with your gift to sustain this work.  If only 8 people would give $100 per month, we could go back to JMU every single year.  Click here to make it so.

GAP sign depicting causal link between abortion and breast cancer.

"Abortionists profit from human trafficking." This is a reference to recent revelations about Planned Parenthood.

Media.  It was another awesome day.  Unbelievable coverage on the front page of the student newspaper.  You can’t see it online, but they published a whole 2-page spread of photos that included some of our best GAP signs.  On the paper’s website, I noted that this was the first mention of abortion since 2008!  Yikes!

Southern Hospitality, in the North?  We were really struck by how polite everybody at Rhode Island has been, regardless of whether they agree with us or not.  Not sure why.  Perhaps the people of Rhode Island are just naturally polite.  Perhaps Rhode Island promotes a small-state, small-town culture.  Perhaps the presence of 4 police officers put everybody on their best behavior.  Perhaps Rhode Island is so blue (left-wing), they viewed us as more of a curiosity than a threat to their “rights.”

Opportunities.  Regardless of the reasons, we had many, many opportunities to present the pro-life message to students.  We had 10 or 15 staff and volunteers who never stopped handing out pro-life literature and speaking with students all day long.

Calm down?  The pro-abortion protesters gathered, but were relatively quiet.  Still, I overheard one student complain as she walked between their group and our display.  She said, “Why can’t both sides just calm down?!”  I had to laugh as I thought, “This is as calm as it gets!”

Don’t forget us!  As usually happens, some Jewish people complain because we compare abortion to the Holocaust.  On the other hand, a Ukrainian employee of the University approached me and suggested we add the Ukrainian genocide to our display.  A few years ago, a gentleman who was interested in the history of Native American oppression actually praised our inclusion of the Wounded Knee massacre.  Go figure.

More to come?  We’ll do more of this, but only if you help.  If only 8 people give $100 per month, we can add another major university to our schedule every year.  Perhaps you can’t give $100, but you can give something.  The best way to maintain the status quo is to do nothing.  Please do something.

Silent No More at the University of Rhode Island: "I regret my abortion; Please ask me about it."

At the University of Rhode Island (URI) yesterday, 4 women and 1 man wore t-shirts identifiying themselves as “Silent No More” (SNM).  This outreach has a powerful effect on students.

URI student “Adam” asked if most abortions are performed very early in pregnancy.  GAP/SNM volunteer Hannah explained that she didn’t even know she was pregnant until late in the first trimester.

Nicole added that after being raped and convinced by her pastor to abort, she called an abortion clinic.  “When I called, I was at 3-1/2 weeks.  The clinic told me to wait until 6 weeks because it would be safer for me.  What they didn’t tell me was that in 3 more weeks, my baby would have arms and legs.  What made the abortion ‘safe’ was their ability to count body parts.  When I learned this after the abortion, I was devastated.”

Adam winced as Nicole told her story and took our literature to read more about the genocide comparison.  He also returned later in the day to talk to Hannah further.

The most dramatic witness came later in the afternoon from another rape victim who taped the words “RAPE VICTIM, PRO LIFE” on a black shirt, stood defiantly in front of the abortion pictures, and faced the protestors across the street.  They gaped at her, and half of them immediately abandoned their protest.

A dramatic witness for life at URI.