Students at UC Berkeley could not miss the reality of abortion in Sproul Plaza October 26th and 27th. CBR's Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) reached many at Cal. Read more in CBR's November Newsletter.

Read all about the GAP at UC Berkeley which took place on October 26th and 27th 2009. Click Here.

Pro-abortion students at the University of Houston protest CBR's Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).

Dear Ms. M,

Regarding your complaints concerning our Genocide Awareness Display at the University of Houston:

First of all, you dispute our reference to abortion as “genocide” and challenge us to “Google” the word “Darfur” to learn what “genocide” really is.  Your invocation of Darfur is clear evidence that you don’t understand the controversy over the definition of genocide in Sudan.  Your assertion that abortion is not genocide perfectly mirrors the Sudanese argument that the ethnic cleansing of black Africans by ethnic Arab militias (and the uninformed military) in Muslim Darfur is not genocide.  Our Congress and our President and our Secretary of State have all declared the mass murder in Darfur to be genocide.  They used horrifying pictures, just as we do, to make their case.  But the United Nations and Amnesty International argue that crimes against humanity in Darfur are not genocide.  History proves that the definition of genocide evolves over time in a process which is often marked by disputation.  People who care about ending crimes against humanity usually call them genocide.  People who don’t care usually call them something else.  Your lack of concern for the unborn closely parallels the Sudanese lack of concern for the black Africans of Darfur.  So neither of you are willing to call these atrocities genocide.

Which brings us to your second point:  You boast that you “were not shocked by our graphic images.”  We acknowledge that we are not “shocked” by your boast.  You define yourself as “100% pro-choice.”  Our images aren’t aimed at people who are fanatical pro-aborts.  They are aimed at people who are open-minded with respect to abortion.  Most pro-aborts are more ignorant than evil.  Showing them who the baby really is and what abortion really does to him/her, is usually enough to change their minds. Our pictures work wonders for those who only lack a fundamental understanding of abortion.  But for those who lack a functioning conscience, the pictures don’t matter because the facts don’t matter.  Their devotion to the Culture of Death transcends mere facts and becomes an article of faith.

As for your third point, the greatest contribution you could have made to the success of our abortion photo display at the University of Houston was to have helped draw attention to it by joining a counter-demonstration, and the larger and louder the better.  Nothing attracts crowds like conflict and the more vigorously you oppose our presence, the more influential you make that presence.  Thank you for amplifying the impact of our exhibit.

Finally, your defiant financial contribution to Planned Parenthood is by far your most anemic rejoinder.  Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue now tops one BILLION dollars.  They are rolling in cash.  They have so much money they can’t figure out what to do with all of it.  Our pictures change everything for everyone with even a rudimentary sense of right and wrong.  Your financial contribution changes nothing.  Our pictures for your donation is a trade-off we will eagerly make any day of the week.

We are praying for you Ms. M and we don’t say that with the slightest condescension.  God loves you and wants to forgive you, if only you will humble yourself, repent and allow Him to embrace you in the Name of Christ.  In your heart-of-hearts, you know that you aren’t really comfortable with your position on abortion.  You also know that all is not right with your life spiritually.  Our prayer is that you will pray about these important matters.

Lord bless,

Gregg Cunningham
Executive Director

From: Ms. M
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:58 PM
To: Gregg Cunningham
Subject: inspired by the GAP project

To the directors and members of the Center for Bio-ethical Reform:

After seeing your presentation at the University of Houston this week, I was shocked into awareness. I would like to share the effects that your presentation has had on me.

However, I was not shocked by your graphic images. What shocked me was your utter lack of respect for women who are put in difficult situations and have to make difficult choices. I was shock by your egregious violations of basic vocabulary, such as genocide. (Google “Darfur” if you want to know what genocide is. Your appropriation of this term to your cause is ludicrous.)

I am now and have been for most of my adult life, 100% pro-choice. I do not usually feel the need to take political action or support groups that advocate for a woman’s right to choose abortion. However, your presentation changed this for me. Not only did I stand with a crowd of people protesting your display, I have signed up to make a monthly contribution to Planned Parenthood.

So here’s the effect your presentation has had on me: not only am I more committed than ever to being pro-choice, I am donating some of my hard-earned money to Planned Parenthood. Looks like the bad guys are winning. And you have only yourselves to thank.

Sincerely,
A pro-choice college senior

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Photos Depicting Abortion Can Change Mindset

Also, the October 2009 Communique Newsletter as well as other back issues are available at the above link.

PRESS RELEASE:

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) Goes To Berkeley

Monday, October 26^th and Tuesday the 27^th, CBR, in conjunction with Berkeley Students for Life (BSL), will sponsor the Genocide Awareness Project on Sproul Plaza at U.C. Berkeley. The exhibit is designed to establish that abortion is genocide, not health care.

Slavery-Bigotry

10-Reproductive Care

The display will be exhibited from approximately 9:00am until 5:00pm both days. More of the signs comprising the Genocide Awareness Project can be viewed at www.abortionNO.org.

Mark Harrington (614-419-9000), Fletcher Armstrong (865-776-1312) and Don Cooper (541-760-6620) of CBR and Alberto Gonzalez, director of BSL (925-451-5959), will be available for interviews at the U.C. Berkeley campus on the 26^th and 27th. Interviews prior to or following the 26^th and 27^th may be arranged by contacting Gregg Cunningham, CBR executive director, via email at cbr@cbrinfo.org.

Gregg Cunningham

Executive Director,

The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform,

PO Box 219,

Lake Forest, CA 92609

Office Phone: 949-206-0600

Mobile Phone: 714-240-6976

Dear Mr. S,

Your topic is a difficult one about which to conduct an interview because the details of our abortion clinic access agreements are highly confidential.  Disclosing the wrong information could jeopardize the wellbeing of abortion industry workers who collaborate with us and place all future access at risk.

I am quite amazed at some of the ill-considered journalism on the subject of abortion photos.  The New York Times (http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/behind-19/) recently conducted an interview with a woman of whom I had never heard who many years ago photographed late term fetuses taken from the refuse of abortion clinics.  When I began doing this work those were the only photos available and they saved a lot of babies but they weren’t very good.  The ages of the babies were far from being representative of most abortions and age matters greatly in the public mind.  The camera formats produced images which were not large enough for billboard use, which greatly limited their utility.

The pictures themselves were often taken on amateur equipment by amateur photographers.  They meant well but many, such as the woman interviewed for the NYT story was not a professional activist and as a consequence, she seemed more focused on depicting the babies in ways which minimized the violence of abortion (a high percentage of late term abortions involve intact deliveries which mute the visual horror of abortion) which made the pictures of little value in convincing the public that abortion is an evil of sufficient magnitude to justify criminalizing the act.  She and many pro-lifers such as she apparently had little understanding of the history of social reform and their pictures reflected that lack of awareness.

Our photo acquisition work is logistically difficult, emotionally draining, financially costly and in some ways, even dangerous.  We often take hundreds of photos to get one truly powerful image. But we now have by far the largest archive of abortion imagery in the world and it is in use by activists in a growing number of foreign countries.  We concentrate on first trimester procedures because 90% of abortions occur during that phase of pregnancy.  A woman who is seven weeks pregnant will often dismiss a twenty week abortion photo as morally irrelevant to her situation because she rationalizes that she would never abort that late in pregnancy.  She wants to believe her baby is not yet a baby and that denial may work for her unless we show her a six week aborted baby and then if she has a functioning conscience, we have her.  That six week baby photo can save the life of twenty week baby but a twenty week baby photo will much less often save the lives of six week babies.

All the best,

Gregg Cunningham                            
The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform

Hi Joe,

Because of your generous support for our work and your influential relationship with Liberty University, I am sure you will be interested in the note (below) I received from one of our staff.  He has long experience working with students in our Genocide Awareness Project and is very diplomatic in the way he promotes our work, especially when he encounters resistance, which he often does.  It appears that two unhelpful lessons are being taught to students at Liberty: The first is that it is not appropriate to display abortion photos in public (private showings are approved but not public displays) and that criticizing administration policies at the school, even respectfully, is out of bounds.  Both of these erroneous principles are obviously unbiblical.

It may also be helpful for you to be aware that shortly before Rev. Falwell’s death, I met with him on campus to propose that Liberty create an academic major to prepare interested students for professional careers in pro-life ministry.  I explained that secular schools worked hard to inspire and equip students for careers in abortion advocacy but that there is no corresponding attempt by any Christian school to professionalize the ranks of pro-life activists, the vast majority of whom are amateur volunteers.  We met for more than two hours and he responded enthusiastically.  At the conclusion of the meeting he designated one of the administrators who was present to be the point person who would work with a department chairman to form a curriculum committee to begin the process of designing such a major.  I was encouraged by his supportive response but it was very clear to me that none of the administrators in the room shared his view.  As I feared, I later had great difficulty getting my calls taken or returned and the project died a quick and decisive death.

Christian colleges (and seminaries) are staffed by enormous numbers of administrators who view abortion as someone else’s problem and they see attempts to involve the church in the abortion wars as a threat to ministry.  That view is shared by most faculty members and gets thoroughly internalized by students who go on to pastor churches.  There are students at Liberty who are sexually active.  Some of them are getting pregnant.  Some of those who are getting pregnant are killing their children.  Some of those who are killing their children would have carried to term had they seen the horror of abortion.  Almost none of them will attend our director’s talk on abortion.  Almost all of them would see our photos displayed outside the student union building.  The decision to suppress the truth about abortion is so common at Christian schools that we began using aircraft to tow abortion photos over their campuses.  That is what we had to do to Biola when the school told us that we could only display our signs if we turned them to face a wall behind which passersby would have to go to see them.  We can sue public schools which try to ban our pictures but we have to resort to truck billboards and airplane billboards to reach Christian students.  This is why so many Christian students abort and who so few Christian students every become seriously involved in pro-life activism.  I will pray for your conversations with Matt.

This is a very wide-spread problem.  I remember a broadcast of James Dobson’s radio program on which he interviewed six Christian college presidents and he asked them if they had ever seen a pregnant student on their campuses.  To a person, they said no.  To a person they all believed this was evidence that their students were living chaste lives.  James Dobson was incredulous.  I am not.

Gregg Cunningham

Executive Director, The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform