Yale Student's 'Abortion Art' Claim a Scam

UPDATE Below: Hoax confirmed.

The Yale Daily News breathlessly informed us of a female student, art major Aliza Shvarts, who claimed that her senior art project was a documentation of nine months of self-induced miscarriages. Her goal, of course, was to "spark conversation" about "the relationship between art and the human body." What is really the truth with this so-called "art" project, though, is that Shvarts has pulled the wool over the eyes of the Yale Daily News, the willing dupes who claim to be her professors, and anyone reading this story on Drudge and believing she really induced her own miscarriages. It's all a hoax. Or if not an outright hoax, it’s a misleading tale of a girl who hasn't a clue about how one becomes pregnant, what the fake drugs she took are really capable of doing, and the psychological pain of a real miscarriage.

It's also proof that our sources of news rarely if ever employ any common sense in how they write up the news. A tiny bit of logic put to this story of "self-induced miscarriages" would reveal it to be all stuff and nonsense. But, no, what we get instead is the story reported as if it is fact and not the cynical efforts of a kid that just wants her 15 minutes of fame. It is also proof that the liberal side of the abortion debate leads the ideological mindset of the news.

Here is the story in the Yale Daily News:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

Seems very grave and serious, doesn't it? This girl put her body through the repeated physical abuse of impregnation and miscarriage for her "art." If this were true, it would have been quite a physical ordeal. In fact, if it had really happened, I'd imagine that she might possibly have put her health, or at least her future ability to become pregnant, at risk. But, in truth she was likely never pregnant, she never had any "miscarriages" and there was nothing but common menstrual fluids resulting.

What was her "process"? How did she create these so-called miscarriages? She asked boys she knew to donate sperm (she claims she also asked them to have tests for sexually transmitted diseases), she supposedly implanted that sperm into herself, and then she took these claimed herbal concoctions misleadingly called "abortifacient drugs" to end the pregnancy with forced miscarriage.

The main question is, was she ever pregnant? I have to say most likely no. The "turkey baster" method of implanting semen for impregnation is very ineffective, though known to be successful. Sperm does not live for too long once it hits the open air, so implantation would had to have occurred quickly after the issuing of the fluids. So, to assume that this girl had actually impregnated herself is not a good bet. There is no indication that there was any sort of "controls" placed on her efforts at implantation and, since there was never once any medical care, there is no proof that she ever was pregnant at all.

Secondly, the so-called "drugs" she used to induce the "miscarriages" are not real drugs. To even call them drugs is misleading. The so-called drugs, the abortifacient drugs, are herbal concoctions that have no medicinal value. The makers of these drugs make unsubstantiated claims that their mixtures cause miscarriage but there are no scientific studies of these claims and the FDA does not regulate these fake drugs under law -- meaning the claims are not accepted as scientific fact. So, Shvarts' claim that she took "drugs" to induce miscarriage is built on the false claims of these fake "drugs."

Then we have the blood. Nine months gives us at the very least 27 days of menstruation. There is little indication that the blood used in this "art" project is anything other than normal flow.

So, what do we really have here? No proof of any real impregnation, no proof that the "drugs" taken could really induce miscarriage, and no medical tests to buttress any claims. In other words, we have a hoax. If not a hoax, we have a girl who has no idea what she is talking about and too many willing accomplices in the school and the media to just accept her claims as truth without any logic or science to put such claims to the test.

Lastly, I'd like to say how cynical and disgusting the entire concept is in the first place. To purposefully create nascent life only to kill it for the sake of "art" is a dangerous concept. How far could such a concept take us into the darkness of true evil? Would it be acceptable to kill small animals for the sake of "art"? If not, why not? After all, if killing human life is acceptable for the sake of "art" why put a limit on killing animals for the same reason?

And then we get to how this "art" project makes light of the real psychological pain that miscarriages cause women. My wife, for instance, went through a miscarriage early in our marriage and to this day she hurts over the event. There is real pain involved for women who have miscarriages, pain that should not be so casually mistreated by this so-called “artist.” They have often invested much emotional attachment to their impending baby's birth, they have settled into becoming a mother, and then, when that life is extinguished for whatever reason, an emotional pain often devastates the woman. She has lost her baby. Who gets over that with the snap of the fingers? Worse, what sort of hateful person would induce the pain of such a loss over and over again on purpose?

I will guarantee that there will be thousands of women who will read this story and will have that pain revisited to their minds immediately, that this Yale "art" student is causing pain to hundreds of thousands of women as we speak. There will be thousands of others incensed that this woman so blithely discarded the life inside her that many who are desperate to become pregnant are trying so hard to foster inside themselves.

Like the fool in Maine who imagined that her putting American flags on the floor to be trod upon was “art” that would “spark conversation,” this student from Yale is not sparking any useful discussion. She is only ginning emotions to no useful end. And, even more cynically, she is using lies to do it.

(Photo credit: stoptheaclu.com)

**UPDATE-- HOAX CONFIRMED**

Well, all my suspicions were justified, it seems. The New York Sun is reporting that Yale announced that this was all the work of a "creative fiction" by the "art" student in question. The Yale Daily News was suckered, big time.

A Yale student’s bizarre art project in which she claimed to have repeatedly impregnated and induced abortions in herself is a work of "creative fiction," the university said in a statement this afternoon.

"Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art," a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. "She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body."

Ms. Klasky went on to suggest that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. "Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."

Yes, it's all a scam. Just as I thought. The sad thing is that, without so much as giving this story some thought, so many news outlets reported this as fact earlier this morning.