‘Genocide Photos Ahead’: Anti-abortion group displays graphic photos on USC’s campus

Signs reading “Warning Genocide Photos Ahead” hung in front of an anti-abortion display at the busy Russell House student union on USC’s campus.

Counterprotestors gathered quickly Monday and Tuesday, holding signs advocating for a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body. 

USC’s College Republicans club invited the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform to campus, where they set up the display of large vinyl photos of lynching victims, Holocaust victims and aborted fetuses. Cameras, focused outward, ringed the display.

“We are here on your campus because abortion is the killing event of tiny, innocent children, often involving their decapitation and dismemberment,” Bradley Martel, a project manager at the California-based Bio-Ethical Reform, said of the group’s “Genocide Awareness Project.”

Noah Lindler, College Republicans president and an aerospace engineering student, said the project has been visiting colleges for 25 years. He said it came to USC once before, in 2001.

“The purpose of it is to bring the truth of abortion to campuses, to where the minds of the seeds of change can be planted, and to actually get conversation started,” Lindler said.

Martel said the organization goes to college campuses because they are a “marketplace of ideas.” He said it’s important to speak to young people who “haven’t made their mind up on some important things yet.”

“I had a good conversation yesterday with a young woman,” Martel said. “I reasoned with her about who is the pre-born child, and what does abortion do to that child. And I asked her at the end if that moved the needle on her opinion about abortion, and she said, it did.”

The photos purported to show aborted fetuses at 10 to 11 weeks into a pregnancy, with one claiming to show a fetus aborted at 24 weeks. Photos of Nazi flags, bodies from the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust as well as lynched bodies compared abortions to genocide. 

“We believe the mass murder of innocent babies is comparable to the mass murder of innocent civilians anywhere in the world,” Lindler said. “The mass murder of innocents is wrong no matter what.”

The shock factor of the photos drew in dozens of student protestors and observers.

“People are offended by these pictures because they cannot defend the decapitation and dismemberment of tiny human beings,” Martel said. “They don’t have to be offended. They simply would need to justify the decapitation and dismemberment of tiny human beings.”

The College Republicans met with USC administrators, who signed off on the material, Lindler said. He said the process was similar to reserving any other space on campus.

University spokesperson Collyn Taylor said the university approved the event in compliance with the First Amendment, but the appearance “in no way represents an endorsement by the university.” The school was aware of the group’s history, he said.

Some students argued the photos were fake, Lindler said. A sign in front of the display said to “ask to see the medical textbook” to confirm the validity of the photos. Lindler said the photos were from medical textbooks. 

After being told by a reporter that the photos were not in the textbooks cited, Lindler said the photos were from abortion clinics. The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s website said the photos were taken by an anonymous “abortion photographer” and confirmed by an unnamed abortion clinic doctor.

Signs on the display condoned abortions used to save a mother’s life but not those involving rape.

Protesters stood nearby with signs supporting abortion rights. One protester danced in front of the display while playing pop music, saying, “Don’t even worry about it. … Just keep moving. It’s silly.” and “They can’t take our joy!” to students who walked by.

USC police had one to three officers on site both days. A student was detained by police around 1 p.m. Tuesday after swatting pamphlets out of a presenter’s hand. The student was released and later escorted away from Greene Street by officers.

Emma Philbeck, an English student and co-president of the Planned Parenthood Generation Action campus group, said protesters were there “to show that this is not what our campus is about.” She said students have a “cacophony” of ideas and beliefs.

“We’re here to show that this isn’t the only opinion on campus,” Philbeck said. “This campus is more than these gross images. This campus is more than this horrible rhetoric. We’re here to emphasize choice. Choice is important. Choice defines us. Choice allows us to be free with who we are.”

Reese Peters is a freshman biochemistry, molecular biology and philosophy major. She said she was at the event protesting because her parents raised her to stand up for what she believed in. Peters said she knew there would be things she would disagree with, but she did not expect the graphic nature of the display.

“I knew I’d have friends who had political views that I didn’t share,” Peters said. “But I didn’t know that there would be a huge billboard, literally in front of the union with fake pictures … I didn’t think that was going to be something that I’d have to experience in the first few weeks of school.”

Caitlyn Miller, a political science major, said she joined the protests Tuesday because she wanted to show the demonstration was not a majority belief.

“Having lived here my whole life, I want people to know that Columbia – this is not all Columbia stands for,” she said. “A large majority of us don’t hold that (belief). This is not what USC stands for. Our student body, I think, feels differently.”