See the photos

How successful was (GAP) at the University of Tennessee (UT)? In answering that question, a good place to start is the following letter from Pat Job, director of the Pregnancy Support Center of Knoxville, TN:

Two weeks after … [CBR] left campus, a total of twenty-six girls have come into our office to have a pregnancy test …and we are sure that five of the girls were pro-abortion and changed their minds as a result of your [GAP] display. They were fussing about the vivid pictures but admitted that these pictures changed their minds about abortion. They were pro-abortion until you came to town Gregg. Three other girls were undecided about what their decision would be until we offered our alternative. All three were pregnant and will parent their babies …. Gregg, I want to encourage you and CBR – it [GAP] encouraged us.

GAP only works with viewers who are confused about abortion but have (or will develop) a functioning conscience. It does not work with any viewers (confused or knowledgeable) who are indifferent to right and wrong (and will remain so). Blessedly, more Americans are confused than evil, but even if the entire population were too depraved to be converted by GAP, we would be no less obligated to proclaim the truth as a witness against baby killing.

CBR’s new Southeast Region staff members, Dr. Fletcher Armstrong and Jane Bullington of Knoxville, TN, played major roles in organizing one of the best campus visits GAP has ever experienced. Thanks must also be extended to Kathy and Bob Proctor, in whose home several of the CBR staff have stayed in connection with GAP. The Proctors are both architects and Kathy teaches at UT. She is also a faculty advisor to the student pro-life club. Their work is saving lives.

Another student approached Lois Cunningham, my wife and CBR’s Director of Crisis Pregnancy Outreach, to explain that her UT classmate was also pregnant and had intended to abort until seeing the GAP signs. She said it was the pictures which changed her mind. The student added that this pregnant friend had just called her parents to disclose her condition and her decision to carry to term and place for adoption. But she also tearfully confided to Lois that she herself hated abortion because she had learned that her mother had aborted the only sibling she had ever had.

These are real moms, who by their own accounts, would have killed real babies had they not seen GAP. And yet many were mad at us for showing them a truth they didn’t want to see. Because social reform is impossible without confrontation, criticism of our tactics is the inevitable plight of effective reformers. Had pollsters measured public reaction to Martin Luther King’s activism, they would have often found opinion bitterly opposed to both his methods and his message. Many African Americans recoiled from the persecution King’s tactics forced them to endure and white racists, of course, rejected his demands for justice.

“I WANT THEM OFF MY CAMPUS"

But the civil rights movement ultimately prevailed precisely because it tormented, troubled and horrified a culture in denial – and it was unrelenting – until the rights of blacks were taken seriously. Societies which are complicit in injustice don’t like being forced to face the evidence of their guilt. Consider the following letter, published in the campus newspaper, The Daily Beacon, November 18, by UT student Steven Marchese, a senior, majoring in broadcasting (naturally, an aspiring journalist, heaven help us):

It seems that the disgusting Pro-life [GAP] exhibit will be with us for the entire week. I want them off MY campus, as do the majority of my fellow classmates, as well as most of the faculty.

Unfortunately they are within legal limits and can not be removed by any law. So that means we have three more days to be distracted from our studies.

Therefore, we must all band together, students and faculty. This is our campus, it is our duty to keep this offensive trash out – especially if the law can’t.

Like I said WE are in the majority here, and that will work in our favor. If it means skipping or for you teachers out there canceling class, so be it.

WE must silence them with our presence, surround them with our numbers. We must kick them out.

These people go from school to school throughout the country. It is up to us to send the message that UT does not support this stupidity.

If we don’t, it will look like we southerners [sic] buy into this nonsense. So please get out there and do whatever you can. Please.

"KILL THOSE CBR F*@$#!S"

Did this guy cut a lot of class or did he just sleep through the First Amendment lectures? But another student went much further. He was so enraged by the message that he urged the slaying of the messengers. In the UT electronic “Student Government Association Discussion Area” there appeared a posting whose topic was entitled “Let’s kill those CBR f*@$#!s.” The author’s pseudonym was “Extremist Org Bigot” and his (her?) organization was listed as “orghaters.” The topic description read “Extremist organizations should be dispersed with extreme violence. Let’s tie up the CBR sub-humans and burn them alive. Then we can take pictures and post them at the UC [student union].”

The vast majority of students are responsible in their reaction to GAP. It is the hard core pro-aborts – and only a small faction of those – who threaten violence. But however small, this constant undercurrent of pro-abort violence necessitates the presence of campus police to protect CBR every minute of every university visit. That the pro-aborts have never actually rioted is a tribute to the civility with which CBR conducts this project and this consistent police presence. Had pro-life activists threatened UT pro-aborts in any way, even in jest, the incident would have made national news and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno’s thugs would have rumbled out of garrison. But when the pro-aborts make threats, even homicidal, they are shrugged off as mere rhetorical excess.

And the threat of violence against CBR was in the news Monday, November 16 when The Daily Beacon featured a front page story headlined “Abortion protesters bring graphic crusade to campus.” The article quoted pro-abort leader Ann Black. “Black said the [pro-abort] group wants to prepare the community for what GAP will display and prevent anyone from getting hurt or prosecuted for violence against CBR.” Notice that Ms. Black isn’t worried about CBR being victimized by violence, she is worried about pro-aborts being injured or prosecuted because they victimized CBR with violence.

Oppressors always unfairly blame peaceful activists for the unrest which follows opposition to injustice but the tension created by our pictures was compounded when UT Chancellor William Snyder reportedly told pro-aborts that CBR’s purpose was to provoke violence among students. As Dr. Snyder circulated among our opponents on the first morning of the GAP display (he would not deign to commune with pro-lifers) he was besieged by pleas to put CBR off campus. When I confronted him on the false statement he allegedly made, he refused to disavow the remark -- or defend it. In contrast, an anonymous civil libertarian noted on the above-mentioned bulletin board that conservatives had not demanded the removal of a picture of two women wearing nothing but body paint, prominently displayed in the student union shortly before CBR exhibited GAP at UT.