A progressive political group has courted controversy for installing an art exhibit in New York that aims to normalize abortion.
“Democracy for Downtown,” a self-described political action committee “founded by creative people to transform cultural influence into political power,” has launched the exhibit in order to raise money for leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.
According to its website, the installation is an “EMERGENCY exhibition” that aims to eradicate the stigma surrounding abortion and “fund voter education and advocacy specifically on reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood PAC efforts in upcoming 2020 elections via Downtown for Democracy.”
The website notes that the exhibit has been organized by a “collective of cultural practitioners as an urgent call-to-action exhibition to raise both awareness and funding in support of accessible, safe, and legal abortion,” adding that abortion is currently “under acute attack throughout the United States” and Roe vs. Wade is “in jeopardy of being reversed.”
Downtown for Democracy’s Gina Nanni told The Guardian that the exhibit was erected in opposition to pro-life advocates who keep “chipping away at reproductive rights.”
“There is a generation that came up before Roe v Wade that will never forget, but a younger generation that takes certain rights for granted,” she added. “We want all to be educated, that you can never let go of issues that are important, that being involved in the political process is the only way that we can maintain a society and law that reflects the will of the people.”
Commenting on the new exhibit, Calvin Freiburger at LifeSite News noted that this was “just the latest in a long wave of projects like “Shout Your Abortion” and “Thank God for Abortion,” which are rooted in the theory that “positive” abortion narratives are the key to solidifying public opinion.”
Freiburger highlighted the relative ineffectiveness of such projects, because they “fail to address the core reasons abortion is opposed: recognition of and compassion for the children threatened by the procedure.”
“They also fail to account for the testimony of women who speak against abortion from their own experiences of guilt, physical arm, and mental and emotional suffering,” he added.