Fletcher and Jane

^{GAP and RCC, A New Kind of Option Play for Clemson University}

On April 18-19, we were hosted at Clemson University (CU) by the Tiger Town Observer (TTO), a conservative publication on campus.  One of the best parts of doing GAP is that we get to work with outstanding young men and women.  Andrew Davis, the publisher of the TTO, was no exception.  With folks like Andrew, the future is in good hands!

For the first time in CBR history, we conducted both GAP and RCC on the same campus at the same time.  We gave the term “option play” a whole ’nother meaning.

Clemson, a different kind of place.  I loved living there.  South Carolina is still very much a part of the Old South.  In the course of everyday conversation, you still hear people talk about “prominent South Carolina families,” and everybody knows who they are.  By contrast, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use the term “prominent Tennessee family.”  (Bubba the Alabama Fan says that’s because everybody in Tennessee is equally redneck.)  Anyway, South Carolinians tend to think of themselves in terms of a larger social structure in which family identity and social connections matter a great deal.

Some people cluster around CBR staff and volunteers to ask questions and debate (left).  Others prefer to study the pictures from a distance (right).

 
Within this structure, CU students and graduates consider themselves as a “family.”  Not just any family, but one of South Carolina’s most prominent families.  Go to Clemson, and you, too, can become a blue-blood!  The level of school loyalty is unlike anything I have ever seen.  If you’re a football fanatic like me, you gotta love it.  But there’s also a high value placed on the virtue of conformity.  And, if you’re a social reformer, conformity is not an asset.  CU people don’t tend to be the ones to “rock the boat.”  (They did have an anti-war rally there in 2004, but I’m betting that the rabble-rousers were all from out-of-state.)

Politically, South Carolina is quite conservative and pro-life.  South Carolina typically votes pro-life by healthy margins.  So, on the one hand, the students were probably more pro-life than anywhere we’ve been.  But, on the other hand, they didn’t know what to make of us, because we were rocking the boat!  What to do?  How to respond?

Combining GAP with RCC a huge success!  By combining GAP and RCC, we reached many more students than would have been possible with GAP alone.  Clemson is a spread-out campus, and there is no one location where everybody goes.  The RCC truck allowed us to reach students who simply did not walk past GAP.  Also, the truck just added to the buzz on campus.  One student was overheard saying, “No matter where I go, I can’t get away from those pictures!”  Another student responded, “Yes, and that’s a good thing.”

	GAP volunteers Suzette Horton from Orlando and Janice Grover from Clemson answer questions from students.

It was clear evidence that many people saw the truck multiple times, even though we drove it only one day.

Missing the point.  Dr. Don McKale, professor of history and resident expert on the Holocaust, wrote a letter to The Tiger (Clemson’s student paper) that was critical of GAP.  But instead of addressing the arguments raised by GAP, Dr. McKale simply dismissed them as “outrageous”:

I nevertheless find the exhibit a horrible perversion of historical truth and comparison. -- According to a Jewish observer of this outrageous parallel [of abortion to the Holocaust], “Comparing the difficult personal decision of a woman whether to terminate an individual pregnancy to the Nazi government's systematic extermination of six million Jews is an insult, both to the memory of those who perished (in the Holocaust) and to the women who must wrestle with their conscience in making a deeply personal decision.”

Of course, this is a red herring argument, because we never made the comparison he accused us of making.  I responded in a letter to The Tiger (never printed):

Dr. McKale mischaracterizes our position by saying we compare the woman who has had an abortion with a Nazi SS man.  We make no such comparison.  Indeed, a woman in crisis pregnancy is often more victim than perpetrator—a victim of a culture and a set of circumstances that leave her feeling as if she has no other choice.  She is often very young.  She has been told nothing but lies about what that baby inside her is like and nothing at all about the serious physical and emotional risks she faces.  Her plight is often made worse by irresponsible or even coercive male behavior.  The culture is telling her not to worry about the moral consequences.  People close to her are exhorting her to "get on with your life!"  (Perhaps they don't want to be bothered with her "problem.")  This is quite a lot for anybody to overcome, particularly a young person.

Dr. McKale dismisses our comparison of contemporary abortion to the Holocaust, but does not address the specific arguments we advance. -- We did not invent the comparison.  Dr. Martin Luther King compared racial injustice to the Holocaust, and Rev. Jesse Jackson extended the comparison to abortion (www.blackgenocide.org).  Others comparing abortion to the Holocaust include Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Rabbi Jacob Neusner, and Jewish columnist Ben Stein (www.abortionno.org/Resources/abortion04.html).  I don't think it's fair to accuse them of "insulting" the memory of the Holocaust, as Dr. McKale has accused us of doing for making the same comparison.

Irony.  The irony here is that Dr. McKale himself played a key role in bringing GAP to Clemson.  About 20 years ago, he gave a series of lectures on how the German Church supported the Holocaust with both its complicity and its complacency.  Of course, we can’t criticize them, because we have done so little in response to our own modern-day holocaust.  Furthermore, they faced death if they spoke up; we don’t.  But one engineering student who attended these lectures was astounded at the way even church people could rationalize the mistreatment of others.  He hoped that if he ever faced an injustice of that magnitude, he would at least do something.  That engineering student was me.

Left: Fletcher and RCC drivers Carl Bibeau and Paul Troiani (right) meet with Clemson Police Major David Perry (left) to discuss the travel routes for the RCC truck.  Right: The mobile RCC display helped us reach many more students than would have been possible with GAP alone.

To arrange your automatic monthly bank draft to support our work:

1. Download and print the Electronic Gift Transfer Authorization:
http://www.abortionno.org/...GiftTransferSE.pdf
2. Fill out the form.  Make sure you designate the gift for "CBR Southeast"
3. Enclose a voided check or deposit slip bearing the account number of the account we should draft.
4. Mail the Transfer Authorization form and a voided check (or deposit slip) to CBR Southeast, P.O. Box 20115, Knoxville, TN 37940.

Please pray that God will raise up others to help you support this life-saving work!