Abortion as art: Breaking rules

Charles Reichley
Published: April 24, 2008

This column deals with a very disturbing story that you may not have heard. Many of you will find this offensive or even shocking. 

Aliza Shvarts is an art major at Yale University. She recently announced that for her senior art project, she engaged in a nine-month program where she repeatedly artificially inseminated herself and then took drugs to induce abortions. Her art presentation consists of video and physical evidence of this activity.

Yale university officials quickly investigated and announced that Shvarts had not done what she claimed. Instead they said her project was actually “performance art” where she lied about her activities.
Yale announced they will not let Aliza present her “art” unless she includes a written statement that her story is false, which she has not yet been willing to do. 

Meanwhile, Aliza has says she did what she said, and the University is disowning their involvement to save their own reputation. She claims the university previously approved her “project.” She has provided various details about the process she used, although she notes that she does not know whether she was ever pregnant. 

What I found interesting was the reaction to her story. The negative reaction of pro-life groups was expected. More surprising was the negative reaction by groups which strongly support a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body. For example, NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly National Abortion Rights Action League) condemned Aliza’s actions. But they couldn’t complain that her
abortions were wrong. So instead they claimed the project was “offensive and insensitive to the women who have suffered the heartbreak of miscarriage.”

Which part was offensive? Was it the part where she got pregnant or the part where she terminated her pregnancy? Aren’t all abortions insensitive to women who want to have a child but can’t when they see other women getting pregnant and throwing that life away? After all, every day women have sex without protection, knowing if they get pregnant they can just have an abortion. 

So maybe the real offense isn’t that Aliza got pregnant knowing she would abort her baby, but that by doing so she made a public spectacle of abortion. Aliza insists her project, as the Yale Daily News reported, was about “the relationship between art and the human body.” But all people are talking about is the abortions.

Her project reveals the dark side of “choice.” It is the logical consequence of the argument that a fetus is just a lump of tissue belonging to the woman, who is free to do whatever she wants with it, just as she could choose to remove a mole or cut her fingernails. 

Of course, we know, at least subconsciously, that a fetus is more than that. That’s why abortion supporters say abortion should be rare. But as long as the pro-choice crowd can maintain the fiction that abortion is just a hard but essential last choice for women in desperate conditions, they can keep people from really thinking about it. 

Aliza broke the rules. She focused attention on the selfish, destructive side of abortion — abortion as a flippant choice. It’s not her alleged abortions which upset NARAL — it’s that her “art” makes otherwise apathetic people stand up and take notice. And those who do will become upset not just at Aliza, but at the “ethics” of abortion that insists Aliza has an absolute right to do what she claims to have done.

So, we are told Aliza’s abortions are an affront to women who can’t get pregnant, but the other million abortions are not, because we are to believe that in those cases, the women tried their best not to get pregnant and when the worst happened, they agonized and struggled before making “the best choice” for their unwanted child, which is to kill them, to put them out of their expected life of misery.

When asked whether women should have the right to choose abortion, a majority agrees. However, when asked if abortion should be legal for any reason, a majority says no. Since “choice” really means “for any reason,” it is clear that public opinion for abortion depends on keeping people ignorant or apathetic about what “choice” really means. Aliza put that public opinion at risk and for that she is condemned by those who fight for her right to do what she claims to have done.

Charles Reichley has been a Prince William County resident since 1981.He can be reached at critically .