Yale Student Who Created Abortion Art Controversy Submits New Work
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 30, 2008
New Haven, CT (LifeNews.com) — The Yale University art major who appeared to have falsely claimed her first project involved several artificial inseminations and induced abortions has submitted a new work for the senior art display. Yale officials say Aliza Shvarts submitted a new piece after her first one wasn’t included.
Yale authorities refused to display Shvarts’ first art project until she signed a statement saying the installation was a ruse and that she had never been pregnant or had the abortions.
That request came early last week and Shvarts hasn’t had a project displayed along with her classmates ever since.
University spokeswoman Helaine Klasky told the Yale Daily News that Shvarts requested permission to submit the new work in place of the so-called "performance piece."
“We welcomed the solution that Aliza proposed, as were had been unable to determine with clarity whether Ms. Shvarts had in fact undertaken actions injurious to her health in carrying out her original project," she said.
Shvarts has not commented publicly since the controversy began and the student newspaper said she wouldn’t talk on Tuesday after Yale notified it of the new project.
The newspaper indicated the controversy has made it so Shvarts may not graduate with an art degree. The student is apparently a double major and may have enough credits to graduate as an English major but may take a failing grade for her senior art project course — a requisite for the major.
Shvarts supposedly created an art project consisting of the videos and plastic sheets covered in her blood from the abortions.
Yale officials said Shvarts admitted the project was a ruse, but she later denied the claim.
However, her project wasn’t shown with those of other graduating art students because she wouldn’t sign a statement Yale officials produced admitting she was never pregnant and never had the alleged abortions.
Later, Yale representatives say they searched Shvarts’ art studio and their probe found no traces of human blood — putting her claims further in doubt, though there is no way to know if her project was examined.
Shvarts would not comment to the student newspaper about the investigation, which it said adds more doubt to her claims to have impregnated herself and had repeated abortions.
Meanwhile, Robert Storr, the dean of the Yale School of Art, distributed a second statement to the media saying neither he nor any other Yale faculty have seen Shvarts’ art project, “the very nature of which remains in doubt."
He called the alleged presentation a "phantom work" but said that if "its substance and genesis is clarified beyond any doubt it may join the work already on view.”
That means if Shvarts can validate the authenticity of her "work" her videos and plastic sheets could join the legitimate art projects her 20 classmates submitted.
