Signs reading “Warning, genocide pictures ahead” could be seen on 17th Avenue Tuesday and Wednesday, cautioning people about pictures of babies who have been aborted. The huge, unavoidable posters displaying disturbing images were part of the Genocide Awareness Project sponsored by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.

“There were 33,000 abortions in Ohio last year,” said Mark Harrington, the director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform in the midwest. “People are generally unaware. In a pregnancy crisis, we hope people remember what they saw today.”

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform sponsored the event and the Ohio State student organization, Justice for All: Students for Life, gave packets of information about abortion in relation to genocide as students passed the display.

The presentation travels to large universities and has been to OSU four times in the last eight years.

“We want to raise awareness on contemporary genocide,” Harrington said. “The pictures make abortion real.”

Mary Teegarden, a senior in accounting and president of Justice for All: Students for Life, was busy getting ready to graduate but would not miss an event like this, she said.

“The display is so large because it is designed to get people talking,” she said. “I want them to see that abortion is wrong. It is an act of murder and violence.”

The presentation said abortion was unacceptable, but provided few other options for pregnant women.

“It comes down to the babies. The issue of contraceptives vary depending on the individual pro-lifer,” Teegarden said.

One poster showed the options women have once pregnant – parenting the child or giving it up for adoption.

The headline “Conspiracy of Silence” scrolled above a picture of Native Americans and an aborted fetus. Another read “religious choice, racial choice and reproductive choice” and displayed pictures of mangled children in the Holocaust, a black man in a noose and the detached arms of a fetus wrapped around a dime.

“Everyone hates the pictures, and I do too,” Harrington said. “My point is if the pictures are so difficult to look at, why are we tolerating abortion?”

Most students reacted to the posters; some stopping and looking or talking to people handing out information. Some did not see the pictures the same way as Harrington.

“To compare abortion to the Holocaust and Cambodian killings is a ridiculous exaggeration,” said John Knaff, a freshman in political science. “I am pro-choice, not because I enjoy abortions, but because you should have the right to choose.”

Jazmine Lewis, a sophomore in human development and family science, also walked by the exhibit.

“It is powerful,” she said. “I don’t support abortion and it seems like a good thing to me.”

“I don’t agree with the display, but I am OK with it. This country assures citizens basic freedoms, one of which is to disagree with pro-life radicals,” wrote Liz Cooper, an undecided sophomore, on a “free speech board” set up next to the exhibit.

“It is freedom of speech,” she wrote. “They have their opinion and I have mine.”

Lauryn Shipp, a senior in English and a member of Voices for Planned Parenthood, an organization that connects pro-choice supporters on campus, was frustrated with the presentation.

To counter the larger-than-life posters, pro-choice supporters gathered, she said.

“Mostly, people are thanking us for being out here too,” Shipp said. “They are feeling bombarded by the pictures.”

Laura Allen can be reached at [email protected].