Yale Student Aliza Shvarts Insists She Tried to Get Pregnant, Have Abortions
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 18, 2008
New Haven, CT (LifeNews.com) — In the latest development in the Yale University abortion art saga, senior art major Aliza Shvarts insists an admission to Yale officials yesterday that the art project is a hoax is inaccurate. Shvarts now insists she tried to get herself pregnant and repeatedly took herbs to try to induce abortions.
However, she admitted she’s not sure if she ever became pregnant during the nine month "performance art" process.
In a column published in the Friday edition of the Yale Daily News, Shvarts claims the project is real, even though it didn’t go as far as she initially described.
Shvarts first claimed to have been pregnant several times during the process and that she had multiple abortions. The project supposedly includes videotaped footage of the abortions and dried blood on plastic canvases hung in a giant cube display.
However, in the new column the paper published, Shvarts admits she’s not sure if she ever got pregnant after using a syringe with semen to try to become so. She claims she took herbs to try to cause abortions — "repeated self-induced miscarriages" as she calls them — at the end of each menstrual cycle.
"Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether … there was ever a fertilized ovum or not. The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading," she wrote.
She also admitted she has no conclusive proof on whether the blood in her artwork is her own, from one or more unborn children, or both.
The Yale Daily News reports that Shvarts met with Yale College Dean Peter Salovey and two other senior officials and admitted the entire project is fake.
Yale officials say Shvarts admitted she never impregnated herself and never had any abortions. Shvarts calls that statement “ultimately inaccurate" and it appears admitting the hoax to officials and deceiving the public about the nature of the art was part of the project.
“No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts said. “The nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”
Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky says the "denial is part of her performance" and told the student paper Yale officials are upset she would "lie to the press in the name of art."
Shvarts retorted on Friday that she initially had the support of the school to engage in the art project.
“I’m not going to absolve them by saying it was some sort of hoax when it wasn’t,” she told the newspaper. “I started out with the University on board with what I was doing, and because of the media frenzy they’ve been trying to dissociate with me. Ultimately I want to get back to a point where they renew their support because ultimately this was something they supported.”
Whether real or true, the project has created an outrage in the pro-life community, with numerous groups saying Shvarts has done a disservice to women.
They say that, instead of honoring the real pain woman who have abortions or miscarriage endure, Shvarts has made a mockery of their experiences with her publicity stunt.
