Double-decker metal risers supported vivid images of aborted fetuses in the middle of UNC’s Polk Place, a place thousands of students stream through every day on their way to class. The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) demonstrated on UNC’s campus Oct. 21-23. The GAP is a mobile anti-abortion display that visits college campuses across the country. The installation compares abortion to historic acts of violence and genocide, and places images of aborted fetuses next to Holocaust victims, Native Americans at Wounded Knee and the lynching of black Americans. “It was just very violent and grotesque pictures, like there were different sides with pictures of dead babies but they were fake. It was just bloody images with words on it,” said Celia Furlow, a freshman at UNC. “Some of it was talking about how abortion is genocide, talking about how if you believe in that kind of stuff you’re a Nazi.”
Hosted by the Carolina Students for Life (CSFL), a pro-life student organization, this is the fourth time the GAP has appeared on campus since its creation in 1997. “Some people say they’re offended by these photos, but maybe these people are offended by the photos because they can’t defend the decapitation and dismembering of little human children,” said Grace Garner, CSFL president, to the Daily Tar Heel. “So that’s why we’re here.” Prior to its appearance, UNC sent an email out to students letting them know it was coming and encouraging students to see CAPS, their counseling and psychological service, if the display created distress. Student response was immediate, with counter protesters gathering next to the installation within a day. Posters read things like: “Abortion is a constitutional right,” “My body my choice” and “Abortion is not genocide.” One counter protester, graduate student Maya Little, was arrested by campus police for “taking articles from another individual’s hand.” Little was the only arrest related to the
protest.
“I believe that we live in a very liberal town and a very liberal campus and so a lot of people do believe in choice,” said Furlow. “However, there’s a difference between saying, ‘I don’t believe this, here’s why’ versus coming into the middle of campus, essentially verbally harassing students who just want to ask you simple questions and posting extremely visual pictures on risers so that they are unmistakable.”
Image by Paige Masten- The Daily Tar Heel
