"Abortion as art" a hoax? Update: Yes

What do you want to bet that this is a hoax?

Art student Aliza Shvarts claims that she induced multiple miscarriages for her senior project at Yale--according to a story in the Yale Daily News, linked above.

Allegedly, the sperm came from donors whom Shvarts declines to identify. She says she used  "legal", "herbal" preparations to induce these miscarriages "as often as possible" over the course of nine months, but never consulted a doctor about her plan.

The "fabricators," or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.

Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself. [Yale Daily News]

The Daily News was unable to reach Shvarts' senior-project adviser before press time. So, really all we have to go on is the Daily News' account of the student's description of her project. It just so happens that there is no medical record of her experiment. She claims that she inseminated herself, but she won't say where she got the sperm. (Even if the events unfolded exactly as described, there would be good medical reasons to doubt whether she ever conceived.)

This whole story seems tailored to whip up conservative hysteria. It's as if someone came up with a formula that incorporated all their favorite bugbears: Irresponsible sluts, frivolous abortions, liberal academia, and self-indulgent performance art.

If this is a hoax, someone is playing a very dangerous game. There are a lot of violent "pro-lifers" out there. The story has gone viral. It's been picked up by the likes of Michelle Malkin. I've already seen one blog post calling Shvarts a "murdering Jewess."

I have to question the editorial judgment of the Daily News for running this piece without at least getting an official comment from the art school or Shvarts's supervisor about the nature of her project.

[HT: Jill at Feministe.]

Update: The Washington Post published a story on the Shvarts case this afternoon. It's a rehash of the Daily News story with a few new comments. Still no word from the academic adviser.

Update II: Josh Gerstein of the the New York Sun got an official reaction from Yale. The  Shvarts abortion project is a hoax:

"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." [NYS]

The anti-abortion zealots, the Washington Post, and half the Internets got got by an undergraduate performance artist. Sweet.

Update III: According to the Yale Daily News, Shvarts maintains that the Yale officials didn't get it quite right in their press release. She claims she injected herself with sperm, but she admits she had no evidence that she was ever pregnant. I'm still not buying the DIY insemination story. She says she never went to a doctor. I doubt a college student can just wander into a sperm bank and pick up a monthly batch of gametes. What did she do, take up a Dixie Cup collection in the dorm? Or, maybe you really can buy Formula 401 from the Colbert Report... Sure, whatever. Meanwhile, the project supervisor is still AWOL.

 

Comments

[beth]

I made this comment over at bitchphd:

I am upset that the pro-choice people quoted in various articles did not have anything compelling to say, but admit that I myself was speechless and shocked when I first heard of this project.

After reading the artist's description of what she actually did, though, I ultimately feel that none of it is any of my business.

Like many hetersexual women, she had sperm in her vagina. Like many women, she induced a period. (birth control pills, anyone?) Like many women, she may or may not have been pregnant.

I think the artist is brave, like I think nudists are brave. The only things I am left with are curiosity regarding how the artist herself really looks at the whole thing, and a desire to not know about it at all, like your parent's sex life...

As a woman, if I want to induce a period, well, I think I will. And I think I always would have, and I think it's no one's business, and never was and ought not to be.

Ultimately, it's her vagina/uterus/blood/body...

Inducing vomiting, taking laxatives, are similar kinds of things people do to/with their bodies..

People can talk about 'if' she was pregnant all day long, but honestly all she did was make blood come out of her uterus, like it does every month.

[bitchphd]

You know, there's a difference between "hoax" and "art project."

[The Phantom]

Indeed.

Closer to the performance of a shock jock than to that of an artist.

[aeroman]

I like this as a piece of performance art! It's cheap and obvious, but it really does evoke a lot of compelling themes in an ambiguous but provocative way.

The fact that it has shown how many journalistic and cultural elites apparently have no understanding of the human reproductive system is one of its more impressive effects.

[aeroman]

Phantom: Who says shock jocks aren't artists? You can be an artist and just be totally shitty and boring at it.

[ripley]

yah, folks are missing the point bigtime (except for the comments that the reaction IS the art piece)

think about it this way -why does it matter whether she was *really* miscarrying or simply saving the blood from menstruation? What difference does it make?

doesn't the difference in reaction (over what at that stage would be essentially similar biological components) highlight something interesting about our moral assumptions, and our responses regarding something that in either case existed wholly inside her body and had no independent life?

It's a schrodinger's cat-like situation - if she did exactly what she said (in terms of syringes and herbal 'abortificents'), which I think believable enough, we still don't know whether the blood was menstrual or miscarriage. but everyone NEEDS to know what REALLY happened, in order to know how to feel about it. And of course, in some states there would be different legal implications, although I bet the stuff in the jars looks pretty similar, and again, it happened in her body.

[The Phantom]

Everyone's a copycat it appears. Now, who but Celine Dion is mimicking this great artistic achievement.

The college-student artist should sue, preferably aided by the King of Motorcycle Accidents.

[PhoenixRising]

Lindsay, I once tried to find a donor at a similar Ivy, and Jenny's right.

Beyond that, this may be the most effective art piece ever produced for a senior show, anywhere, in history. If by 'effective' we mean 'moving a reaction in the viewer'.

I'm no artist, but I know agitating when I see it.

[OpposeASHKENAZIslime]

Sick fucking kikes.