…Shvarts’ project is a huge tragedy for the pro-choice movement in this country. Although I’m sure that she did not mean for her “art” to fuel the anti-abortion movement, she gave its supporters just the example they needed. Her project, surely, will become the poster child for irresponsible and disrespectful abuse of the right to abortion and a counter-example to the notion that a woman knows what is best for her own body. I am fervently pro-choice, morally-relative, non-religious, politically liberal — and I will defend free speech with my life — but Shvarts’ project makes me want to cringe….[T]his particular [form of self-expression] has the aura of a teenage tantrum. It is attention-getting and, I believe, it ultimately works against what she is trying to express…
This student captures an intriguing aspect of the Yale fiasco. The Shvarts piece has backfired in every, er, conceivable way, including this one: It means to affirm women’s right to do what they want with their bodies, yet displays a woman exercising this right as a means of grotesque self-abuse.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:46PM
Someone had speculated about whether Shvarts was actually trying to help the pro-life movement. Probably not, but it was an interesting thought.