GAP display returns

In response to the Genocide Awareness Project display set to take place inside the Sample Gates Oct. 17-19, Bloomington React to GAP, a new coalition that opposes GAP's methods, plans to set up an area across the street from the display or in Dunn Meadow to provide a place where students can gather information or talk to members about abortion issues.\nGAP, sponsored by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, is a travelling photomural exhibit with posters and trucks bearing images of aborted fetuses and genocide, including pictures of Holocaust victims, Rwandans and African Americans. \n"Its purpose is to make it as difficult as possible for people to deny that abortion is an act of violence which kills a baby," a statement from said from GAP's Web site. \nBloomington React to GAP formed within the past few weeks, and includes IU Campus for Choice, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and the Women's Student Association, President of IU Campus for Choice and Bloomington React to GAP member Sarah Marvell said. She also said about 50 other campus groups have been contacted to join the coalition.\n"We're not going to protest, we're merely reacting and peacefully opposing," Marvell, a junior, said. "The action that we are taking is going to be trying to keep the peace, to keep people calm. If people are angry and want to talk about it, we can lend a sympathetic ear."\nThe manner in which the images are displayed may be disconcerting to Bloomington residents and students, Campus for Choice member Ben Barone, a freshman, said.\n"They're an inflammatory campaign and I disagree with their tactics, especially with the trucks that they're bringing out," he said. "Driving around with these images on trucks is basically ambushing Bloomington citizens."\nMarvell said Bloomington React to GAP opposes the display because of the manner in which abortions are compared to genocide.\nThe coalition also opposes GAP because of the character assault it infers on women, Marvell said.\n"We believe that they're equating women who have had an abortion to the perpetrators of genocide," she said. "We don't think that women should be made to feel guilty for making a choice that is constitutionally protected."\nGAP stresses their aim is to protect both women and unborn children.\n"Our goal is not to cause post-abortal pain, but to save human lives," the site said. "Women who have already aborted are at greater risk for future abortions. Approximately 45 percent of women who seek abortions have already had a previous abortion. We want to spare them and their children more suffering."\nInformation from Campus for Choice and other groups, along with flyers indicating routes on campus avoiding the Sample Gates area will be available, Marvell said.\nBloomington React to GAP also urges students to avoid the GAP displays, Marvell said.\n"We're going to be encouraging people to go another way," she said. "We hope that people don't add to the unrest by going."\nBarone said he plans to attend a Bloomington React to GAP event near the display for support.\n"I want to be a voice of reason during this, be a little area of peace in what is going to be a war zone, I think," he said. \nIU Students for Life members deferred questions to President Karl Born and Publicity Director David Sherfick, a freshman. Neither had returned calls to the IDS as of press time.