UPDATE: As the story develops, the young art student has claimed that the piece is not “performance art” but perfectly real. Yale, for it’s part, is claiming that her denial is part of the performance and that she told them she would deny it if they exposed the piece. For my money, I still think it’s a hoax, especially since her thesis adviser refuses to comment.
Either way, it is an unbelievably tasteless stunt for a revered institution such as Yale to be party to. By supporting an endeavor like this, whether real or a performance, Yale has removed all doubt that they have completely broken ties with the Christian origins which made the Ivy League the haven for intellectual excellence it had been. We’ll see how long that reputation lasts. 
Events at Yale this week make it easy to sympathize with King Solomon. Reflecting on a long, productive life, the king spake thus:
I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
Yale, one of our nation’s oldest and proudest institutions of higher learning was founded in 1701 to be a place “wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences [and] through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State.” (from the Yale Charter). A mere 207 years later, a student is making her senior art project out of the remains of babies which she conceived and aborted herself. This also is vanity. Perhaps King Solomon understates the case. Aliza Shvarts, who plans to graduate this spring, artificially inseminated herself “as many times as possible” in the last nine months and proceeded to take herbs that would cause her to, in her words, miscarry (read: abort) the pregnancy. She then took video of herself in the process of miscarrying the child. Her project will combine the video footage with an “artistic” presentation of the the blood and other results of her pregnancies. The Yale newspaper has more details, should you be curious. Before I comment, there is some speculation that this may be a hoax, but even if it is the fact that Yale is willing to sponsor a hoax this offensive and disgusting is outrageous enough in and of itself. And whatever is going on here, this young lady needs all the compassion and prayers we have to offer as she clearly has some deep-seated issues and I pray that she will find resolution for them in the arms of her Creator, who loves her and her children more than she can possibly imagine. That said, the way nearly every pro-choice person has responded and will respond to this story proves far too much for their position. If a person was consistently pro-choice, there would be no reason to be shocked or outraged by this story. This is her body and she’s doing what she wants to do with it. Who are we to tell her she should act differently? Sounds awful judgemental to me! And, after all, these pregnancies were all terminated very early. It’s only a glob of cells, right? Why is what she did any different than trimming her finger nails? It was just a bunch of cells she didn’t want in her body any more and now they’re gone. We have been fed these lines for decades now but when it comes down to it, even the pro-choice crowd knows better. They know that what this girl has done is the destruction of a human person for the sake of destroying it. They might deny that an baby early in its development is a person for the sake of keeping abortion legal, but their reaction to a story like this displays that they don’t believe that any more than the Pope. That’s just one of the issues this story raises. How is this different than our use of graphic abortion photos to make the case for the pro-life position? Why are we surprised by this? After all this young lady was told her entire life that babies in the womb are fair game to get rid of for convenience. How does this differ from stem cell research and other forms of science that create life to make a point (albeit scientific rather than artistic) and then destroy it? What would cause a person to put themselves through the agony of multiple abortions (which are not pain free!) for the sake of “art”? As we look for answers, let’s be sure to remember Aliza and her young ones in our prayers. Lord have mercy!
