GAP

I keep meaning to post about the GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) discussion we had in my class last week, but I've been a bit swamped. I'm not sure I have time to do it justice here, but I want to post before I forget what happened.

I suppose there's not a ton to report, which I think is a good thing. I prefaced the discussion by saying that I wanted to keep the focus on the rhetorical strategies and away from the topic of abortion itself. I think we did a decent job of that, as much as it's possible.

We started by reading a recent article in the campus newspaper explaining what GAP is, why they were on campus, and detailing some reactions by pro and anti-GAP (and pro-choice and pro-life) students and faculty. We also read some letters to the editor that represented a few sides of the issue, and read a brief statement by a spokesperson for GAP explaining what GAP is. I asked my students what GAP's argument is (abortion is genocide) and went from there. We talked about the effective and ineffective strategies used by GAP and they did an excellent job noticing that many of the strategies were incredibly effective at getting people "in the door" but rarely seemed persuasive to those who didn't already agree with the message.

We broke down the definition of genocide and discussed whether or not abortion fit that definition. We mostly decided that the systemmatic nature of genocide made it difficult to qualify abortion as genocide, but clearly not everyone in the class was on-board with that decision. We also talked about the implications of this definition. If abortion is genocide (GAP aligns abortion with Darfur, the Holocaust, 9/11, the Trail of Tears, etc), then women who have had abortions and men and women who support a woman's right to choice = what? Hitler? Nazis? Terrorists? Etc?

That seemed to really stop all of us. Even those who believed that abortion could be seen as genocide had a hard time with the "logical" implications of such a statement.

So the discussion went mostly well. There is one thing that makes me think that if I had it to do over again, I would do it differently, and one thing that is still making me uncomfortable.

First, were I to do this again I would plan ahead and warn the class that we would be discussing it. I would give students the option to not attend class for that discussion and would give them an alternative assignment to be counted as "present" for the day. I had one student who missed class because the GAP demonstration hit too close to home. She left campus, not knowing that we were discussing it in class. I think the discussion would have been too much for her, and I wonder how many other students in the class have personal experience with this topic that made them uncomfortable.

And I don't just mean abortion. One student in my class explained that she has Jewish relatives and found it incredibly disturbing to see pictures of the holocaust and to have abortion rights compared to such an atrocity.

So I would certainly do that differently.

The thing that is still making me nervous is the ways in which I unintentionally silenced students in the class. I'm guessing if a person in that classroom were pro-life or were aligned with the group that brought GAP to campus, that person wouldn't have felt particularly comfortable voicing his or her opinion. I did have one student who explained that he thought abortion could be seen as genocide and he did a decent job voicing dissenting opinions in a thoughtful and compassionate way. But I'm betting he wasn't the only one thinking as he did. And I did my best to allow for all opinions, but I wonder how many students felt silenced by me or other students in the class. And I wonder how to better deal with such issues when I feel so passionately about them.