Meghan Mazella/The Ithacan Sophomore Rachel Goldstein and seniors Karly Desmond and Katie Schwartz gathered outside the Campus Center to protest the Genocide Awareness Project. Erin Sager/The Ithacan Junior Michael Wier hands out anti-abortion literature to senior Bernadette Johnston and sophomore Emily Kabanek at a Students for Life display.

Junior Jacqui Small stood in shock as she looked at the posters on display outside of Campus Center. She shook her head as she stared at a poster that paralleled a photograph of an aborted fetus with images of victims of atrocities committed by the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis.

“I think it is really inappropriate to compare abortion to history,” said Small, who was adopted as a newborn. “I have a hard time with the issue of abortion, especially since my very existence is due to the choice made by my biological mother.”

Many Ithaca College students paused to look at the anti-abortion images presented by Students for Life as they walked through the academic quad Monday and Tuesday.

The posters were on loan from the Cornell University Students for Life chapter. They are part of a traveling display created by the Awareness Project and are available to anti-abortion groups on campuses across the country.

Some members of Students for Life, which organized the display of the anti-abortion posters as part of Celebrate Life Week, said they deliberately chose disturbing images as a way to draw student attention and spark dialogue about the issue of abortion.

“I just hope the overall impact is a continued and lasting discussion of life issues because those are a major issue facing our generation,” said Michael Wier, treasurer of the group. “One in three pregnancies ends in abortion. It’s a major issue and one that this campus is pretty silent on.”

Junior Sarah Holzgraf said that while she agreed that the posters started an important dialogue on campus, she thought they did so in an inappropriate manner.

“It’s bringing a discussion about, but it does it in an exploitative way,” she said. “[The campaign] is comparing apples and oranges.”

Though Holzgraf said she would not choose to have an abortion, she does not believe the right to choose should be made illegal because such legislation would force women to take unsafe risks.

Holzgraf and others formed a pro-choice coalition upon hearing of the events scheduled for Celebrate Life Week. They met Oct. 23 to plan a counter protest to the Genocide Awareness Project and held their own posters as they stood on the Campus Center steps. Protesters were also equipped with informational packets, pro-choice stickers and condoms.

Freshman Heather Budman said the group hopes to be recognized by the Student Government Association in order to receive funding in the future.

But the anti-abortion campaign’s controversy was not limited to the college community.

Joan Bechhofer, a Planned Parenthood board member, stood with students to protest what she said were unwarranted attacks against her organization.

One of the prominent images was of a bloody aborted 11-week-old fetus under the heading “Planned Parenthood.” The image was shown next to a picture of the World Trade Center Towers engulfed in flames under the heading “al-Qaida – Taliban.”

Bechhofer, who worked for 30 years as a staff member at Planned Parenthood before joining the board, said such imagery would be extremely traumatic to anyone who had gone through the abortion process and was dealing with the after effects.

“It’s never an easy choice,” she said. “And to come and see the comparison of women who have chosen to have an abortion with groups of people who kill millions of people, like Nazis or the KKK, must be devastating to a woman.”

In addition, Bechhofer criticized the Students for Life campaign for not offering more educational information about preventative measures other than abstinence that can be taken to avoid situations where abortion needs to be considered.

“If a group is that much against abortion, you would think they might endorse some reasonable methods to prevent it like safe sex or methods of protection,” she said. “You don’t see anything about that there, and in general, the anti-abortion folks don’t work with groups that promote safe sex.”

But Wier said the primary goal of the Students for Life event was to focus attention on abortion itself, instead of on the factors that might contribute to pregnancy.

“Generally I would try to just encourage people to take their choices responsibly,” he said. “This is not to say that people don’t. I know that accidents happen, but we want people to see abortion for what it is.”

Though Students for Life received financial assistance from Residential Life, the Student Government Association and the Office of Judicial Affairs for speakers, the group was singularly responsible for the poster campaign.