Yale Student Aliza Shvarts Self-Induces Miscarriages for Senior Art Project

Fire-up your engines of belligerent indignation, here comes the craziest sh*t you’ve heard today: The Yale Daily News reports today that senior Art Major Aliza Shvarts “artificially inseminated herself ‘as often as possible’ while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages.”

This, over nine-months, as documentation for her exhibition, which projects videos of her miscarriages and life onto a hanging cube wrapped hundreds of times in plastic, with blood from the miscarriages spread between the layers.

While saying that she didn’t do the piece for mere “shock value,” Shvarts believes “art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity.” Following her theory with, “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

I’m not sure what to think. On the one hand, I believe art, to be of any quality whatsoever, should get our attention. And the best art often is that which disgusts us now, but in retrospect defines at least a part of the society in which it was created. Abortion is definitely one of the defining fault lines in our societal beliefs and discourse, today.

And for good reason, though most debates of substance on the matter are lost in the middle of our national screaming match.

As a man, I find it difficult to have a rooted opinion on the matter. While I am 100-percent in favor of a woman’s right to choose, and believe denying that would be to deny life’s unfathomable complications entirely, I will never have to make that decision.

On the other hand, what the hell?

Giving yourself what sounds like as many abortions as possible, and then smearing the aborted cells on some saran wrap? How is that not supposed to shock people? All anyone’s going to notice is the morality of the situation, and not what is trying to be said.

I’m afraid Aliza has again created art for those who already like art, not those who would be most effected by her statement; they are already starting the witch hunt. Those who are not immediately put-off by her choice of artistic conception will love it for its audacity. But those who would benefit most from listening will dismiss it for the same reason. I hope this all proves worth it.