Today and Tuesday, The Editorial Board suggests you avoid the Reitz Union North Lawn and the Plaza of the Americas — unless your idea of a good start to the week is being harangued by a pack of hungry anti-abortion activists.
Yep, it’s that time again. The so-called Genocide Awareness Project, sponsored by the radically conservative, fear-mongering Center for Bioethical Reform and hosted by UF’s own Pro-Life Alliance, is a traveling circus of towering bloody posters designed to disgust people into turning against the abortion rights cause.
Now, there are too many things wrong with this project to include here, but the tenet The Editorial Board takes the most issue with is the project’s comparison of abortion to genocide. Their posters liken legal abortion to tragic periods of genocide like the Holocaust and the conflict in Darfur. This cheapens the memory of those affected by actual genocide — a horrifying concept that differs profoundly from abortion.
If the people behind the Genocide Awareness Project put as much effort into raising awareness about actual genocide, the world might be a better place. Instead, they set up their bloody photographs of abortions gone wrong and rely on disgust to change people’s minds.
Let us be clear: We are not suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with opposing abortion. However, the Genocide Awareness Project takes it way too far.
The truth is, those who believe in a woman’s right to choose won’t be persuaded to give up that right because of images that are no more impactful than that of any medical procedure. It may make us spew Krishna lunch all over the plaza, but it’s not going to make us change our minds.
