It takes alot to strain the rational part of my brain to the limit, but this story out of Yale might have done it. A senior art student claims to have artificially inseminated herself as many times as possible, and then induced abortions using herbal teas. Her art project consists of a hanging cube wrapped in sheets of plastic smeared with the blood from the miscarriages. There are also videos of her during the procedures.
Here is the link to the Yale Daily News article on the subject:
Aliza Shvarts (Yale '08), said she did this to promote discourse, but even as a stauncly rational pro-choice woman, I am having a hell of a hard time accepting this.
I'm okay with art being shocking and controversial. Everyone has a right to express themselves even when (especially if) it is offensive to large numbers of people. But this is almost impossible for me to rationalize. It takes a right which many women and men have fought for and turns it on its head. Even if I don't believe that a fetus is a human being, it still feels like she is creating life, or the potential for it, with the sole intention of destroying it for the shock value.
Of course this has already been picked up by anti-choice groups and Fox News as evidencec of the evil Roe v Wade has wrought. And I don't blame them for using it. It is perfectly fomulated to create the visceral disgust and outrage that their movement has tried to accomplish with medical photos and holocaust analogies.
As for my own thoughts and feelings on the matter? I'm disgusted. It feels sick and wrong. But logically and legally she has the right to do it. Furthermore, it seems these were done within the first month, so we're dealing with little more than menstrual blood. She also used natural and readily available herbs to do this, so any use of this to argue against safe and legal abortions by a physician is flawed.
But is still feels wrong.
Update [2008-4-17 19:40:28 by ArgusRun]: I changed the title to reflect my own growing certainty (or hope) that this is a hoax. Which either makes this a bid for attention, or some deliberate meta thought experiment to examine our own reactions.
