“Don’t Ruin Commencement at Notre-Dame”
From: chemprof
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 3:31 PM
To: Gregg Cunningham
Subject: Obama Speech
Dear CBR:
I recently received your mailing outlining your response plans for Obama’s speaking at Notre Dame’s Commencement Exercises next month. Your letter mentions a student whose grandmothers will be attending the ceremony. I was wondering, what if someone’s grandparent has a heart condition, sees your graphic photos, and suffers emotional shock that triggers a heart attack? What if the grandparent dies? How will you feel then?
What about the young children that could be present? How will their parents deal with their children’s emotional trauma? Will you be there to support and help them? Will those young children ever recover?
Instead of picking the wrong time to display your photos, why don’t you encourage people to write to the ND president and others responsible for this outrage, the bishop, and other church authorities? Why don’t you encourage more alumni to cancel their donations and take Notre Dame out of their wills, as some alumni already have? Hitting administration hard enough in the wallet has some potential for a favorable response, even if the response is given for the wrong reason.
I attended my commencement ceremonies when graduating from both undergraduate and graduate school. Too, as a university professor who attends my students’ commencement ceremonies and speaks with the students and parents afterwards, I implore you to take to heart the excitement and joy of attendees and find another way to protest the Obama scandal. For thousands of graduates, their day will be a once-in-a-lifetime event. Ruin the day for the responsible adminstrators, not for the innocent students.
Thank you for considering my comments,
Dr. L. Divis, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry
On Apr 28, 2009, at 4:05 PM, Gregg Cunningham wrote:
Dear Dr. Divis,
Thank you for writing and suggesting ways to protest Notre Dame’s Obama invitation without upsetting anyone. The problem is that our whole purpose is to upset as many people as we possibly can. Abortion is legal because it doesn’t upset enough people. If you can visit our website at www.abortionNO.org and read the many testimonials from women who would have killed their babies had they not seen our abortion photos, and you still oppose the public display of abortion photos, we will have to conclude that you care more about the feelings of born people than the lives of unborn people.
If, as you postulate, abortion is so horrifying that a photo of it could give an elderly person a heart-attack, perhaps it should be against the law. If, as you postulate, abortion is so horrifying that a photo of it could make a child hysterical, perhaps it should be against the law. You don’t outlaw grave injustice by covering it up. Covering it up allows its advocates to argue that it’s no injustice at all. This is exactly what they do argue and suppressing the truth about abortion lends credence to the lie that abortion is a morally inconsequential act.
We are all for letters to Fr. Jenkins and the alumni and the bishops etc., but no one’s mind is going to be changed by a letter at this point. Many minds, however, remain open to change with a photo. We just got an email message from a young woman in South Bend who saw our photos and changed her mind about abortion.
As for ruining commencement ceremonies for the graduating seniors, you may not be aware that the student-run, mock presidential election at Notre Dame was won overwhelmingly by the most pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the presidency. The vast majority of students at Notre Dame are pro-abortion. A high percentage are post-abortion. A high percentage who haven’t aborted will. That means they shouldn’t be allowed to graduate in comfort. They need truth more than they need comfort. If they are going to revel in the presence of this serial-killer president, they need to squirm in the presence of the babies he is killing. Most of these students are far from being “innocent” this issue. They may be ignorant but not innocent. They mock the churches’ teaching on abortion because Fr. Jenkins and the faculty have suppressed the truth about abortion. We are going to stop this cover-up. We care too much about these students to leave them in the dark.
As noted above, we have had countless women tell us that nothing less shocking than our abortion photos would have sufficed to dissuade them from killing their children. Many more have told us that had they seen these photos before aborting instead of after, they wouldn’t have done it. Large numbers have confided that it took the photos to force them to stop trying to justify a sin needed to confess and of which they needed to repent. Nearly half of women who abort have already had one or more previous abortions so the post-abortive women for whose emotional wellbeing you express concern are the very women who are most likely to abort if they don’t see the truth. And virtually every person I have ever met in serious pro-life activism had admitted that it was pictures which made it impossible for them to remain complacent.
As for children seeing our photos, even parents who don’t allow their children to watch violence on television (as in violent cartoons, etc.) or play violent video games, often take them to the grocery store where check-out lines are flanked with magazine racks whose publications have cover photos which are inches away from young faces and often exhibit bloody photos of dead and dying victims of violence, terrorism, natural disasters, etc. Angry parents are in massive denial about this and almost always dispute these facts, so we have put up scores of examples on our website under “PUBLIC EDUCATION PROJECTS” and then “USING GRAPHIC IMAGES IN PUBLIC.” Some of those magazine covers and newspaper photos are as gruesome as anything we use and they have been seen by countless children whose clueless parents never even noticed. They reason they complain about our disturbing photos but not the disturbing press photos is because many feel a lot more guilt answering their children’s questions about abortion, with which they may well have some humiliating personal experience, than a terror attack for which they bear no responsibility at all.
With all due respect Dr. Divis, the saddest part of your message is your disclosure you are a professor. That means you have a special duty to care about your student’s welbeing, not merely their comfort. You are worried that we will ruin their graduation. We are worried that abortion will ruin their lives. Abortion is a vicious act of violence which kills a baby and endangers the baby’s mother. It is killing these babies which is the threat. Not showing them. Think about that sir.
Lord bless,
Gregg Cunningham
The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform