(no subject)

[rivka]

So, according to the Yale Daily News, a Yale senior conceived (sorry) of the following plan:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. [...]

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for "shock value."

"I hope it inspires some sort of discourse," Shvarts said. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone."

The "fabricators," or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.

Not designed for shock value. Uh huh. You will be pleased to know that, although she's smearing a blood-and-vaseline mixture all over a bunch of plastic wrap in a gallery and showing videos purportedly depicting her miscarrying in a bathtub, Ms. Shvarts describes her experience as "private and personal."

As I said at Making Light: I don't believe a word of it.

College students (and their student newspapers) are probably a pretty credulous audience when it comes to claims about pregnancy and miscarriage. It's an area about which the vast majority of them will have very little experience, plus a great deal of fear.

But from the standpoint of experience, I question the plausibility of what she claims to have accomplished. How many times is it possible to conceive, miscarry, and conceive again in a nine-month period?

The article says she "inseminated herself as often as possible." How nice. But regardless of how often she inseminated herself, there was only a 24-48 hour window per month that she was actually fertile. A healthy couple has about a 20% chance per cycle of conceiving during that window. Let's be generous and give Shvarts another 5% chance because, as a college student, she's pretty much at the peak of her fertility. We're still talking about only a 58% chance of conceiving at all within a given three-month period.

And then "miscarrying," which seems to be the word she's using for induced abortion. After a miscarriage, it takes time for the pregnancy hormones to subside to zero, and then for the reproductive system to reboot itself and for ovulation to resume. Yet we're to believe that she went through this conception-miscarriage-conception process repeatedly.

But even putting all that aside, and crediting Shvarts with some kind of super-fertility, it comes down to this: If it were easy to produce a "natural," "herbal" miscarriage using legally obtainable over-the-counter products, there wouldn't be an abortion issue for shocking college students to make art about. It isn't. (Yes, I know that there are herbal products pregnant women can't use because they are classified as abortifacients. That doesn't make them reliable abortifacients.) Procuring a home-brewed abortion is difficult, unreliable, and dangerous. If it weren't, there would be no need for abortion clinics.

If it's not a total hoax from beginning to end, then I suspect that what happened is that Shvarts "artificially inseminated" herself periodically without particular attention to fertility (or the viability of the donor sperm - which also takes some finicky care). Then, at about the time her period was expected, she took herbs that are known to sometimes be abortifacients and collected her menstrual blood in a jar. "Edgy" and "daring," without, you know, necessarily involving any inconveniences of reproductive biology.

So, yeah: I don't believe a word of it. But let me also add: she's a fucking dramatastic attention whore. "She has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers," the Yale Daily News informs us. I'll just bet she has. It really makes me sick to think of her appropriating the shock, pain, fear, blood, and agony of the grief that is miscarriage in order to have a titillating story to tell at college parties.


Edited to add: Yale officials confirm that indeed she was faking from beginning to end. How very artistic.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Good lord. What an utter idiot.

"Performance art." Feh.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

That story has made me feel ill all day. And I didn't believe a word of it either.

She's beyond a fucking dramatastic attention whore. She's mentally ill.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

If this is this upsetting to ME, I can only imagine how it must feel to people (you included) who have gone through the actual trauma of miscarriage and/or abortion.

I didn't click on the links; I couldn't bring myself to. How utterly revolting.

[eeyorerin]

Jesus Christ.

That is horrific.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

<Hugs>

What shocked me was that someone could come up with this story and treat it so lightly.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Some people suck.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

"Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."

Because, of course, this doesn't. -.-

[redbird]

I think this probably doesn't raise physical health concerns. As for mental health, far be it from me to even attempt to diagnose a stranger based on knowing only one thing about her.

[kaitiana.livejournal.com]

Excuse the language, but what a selfish, self-involved, immature bitch. That she could even conceive of something like that and proceed with it without even thinking--or if she did, without caring--about the thousands of women out there who have experienced actual miscarriages, or extreme trouble trying to conceive, completely boggles my mind. I count my blessings every day that I was able to conceive in a fairly straightforward manner by simply stopping birth control, and every time I hear of another woman suffering a miscarriage my heart just goes out to her. It makes me sick that another woman would be so eager and such an attention whore as to subject women who have suffered so much through reading about someone trying to deliberately impregnating herself and intentionally cause miscarriages/abortions...even if it was a hoax. Maybe ESPECIALLY if it was a hoax.

God. Some people make me really glad they invented Excedrin.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Just as a point of interest, a friend of mine (whose opinion I greatly respect in general) has a different take on it (http://badgermama.blogspot.com/2008/04/contraception-and-miscarriage-art.html).

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeesh.

I'll be curious to see if she unscreens my comment. I wish I'd saved a copy before posting.

That post makes me furious (and the following one, in which she insists that people who are upset or pissed off are anti-choice and/or haven't really given their opinions the kind of thought that she's given her opinion).

She is blurring the distinction between fertilization and pregnancy in a way that is hugely harmful to women's reproductive freedom. Fertilization is something that happens to gametes. Pregnancy is something that happens to a woman. If a fertilized egg never implants in your uterus, triggering the massive hormonal changes of pregnancy, then you were never pregnant. You can't have a miscarriage or an abortion if you aren't pregnant. Her little "thought experiment" about all those miscarriages/abortions she had due to her IUD is just so much mental masturbation.

...Or would be, if it weren't exactly the kind of argument that the Religious Right is trying to use to deny women access to safe and legal contraception. They claim that birth control pills and the morning after pill are abortifacients, and argue that pharmacists shouldn't have to sell them and hospitals shouldn't have to make them available to rape victims. Your friend is supporting their medically inaccurate anti-choice rhetoric, even if she comes to a different conclusion.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Having looked at your comment:

Er. Her story isn't mine to tell. I'll just say that I am aware of your history with this, and I would never have wanted to be cruel about it, and I wouldn't have pointed you at her post if I didn't know her to be someone with more than an abstract and impersonal view on the topic. I should not have brought it up, and I'm sorry.

[ailbhe]

I read your comment there, and I would like to say that *I* believe you're spot on with the rape survivor analogy, though I've never knowingly had a miscarriage (I had one but didn't realise until years later, which changes it somewhat).

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Jack Womack predicted -- if that's the word I'm looking for -- abortions as art in Ambient, more than twenty years ago.

[ewein2412]

what they said. feh.

[ailbhe]

I'm glad it was a fake because the idea of what her stupidity could have done to her body (not to mention her mind, and let's not) was giving me horrors. I don't know whether it could be called art because I have a feeling that even bad art is art, but I certainly think it was irresponsible, selfish, and mean.

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

People like this make real artists look bad.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I caught the first wave of the story breaking yesterday and I sort of cheated in that I was 99.9% certain it was a big ol' hoax. And that's what it is, a hoax. Not a piece of performance art, a hoax.

I find it somewhat funny (in a very snarky, I Want to Smack a Bitch kind of way) that her art shows so little understanding of how reproduction actually works. Or that so many people are so miseducated about the female body, about reproduction as a physical process that they fell for it.

If she'd said she just did it once, I might have believed her, but the fact that she said repeatedly was the give away.

Over in feminist, the term "abortion pornography" was used, and even knowing it was a hoax, I agree. The overkill of filth and digust can only be described as pornographic, the way that horror movies turn into orgies of blood and gore. This is like watching a pig roll in poop, only worse. Because I can forgive the pig.

This is a stunt as far as I'm concerned and to better market it, this person has decided to call it "art" and dress it up in a respectible guise, but it is what it is. A stunt. A publicity stunt.

As for the premise of what she was doing, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the nature of pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage both physically, mentally, medically, and socially.

What bothers me most are the casually cool statements from Shvarts saying that she wasn't trying to cause controversy, just provoke discussion. I find that maddeningly disingenious.

The thing is? You don't really have to do a lot to provoke discussion on abortion. Just put a lot of people (random people even) into a room, mention or even just have a billboard with the word "abortion" and people will immediately start dividing up and debating and chosing a side. It's like using a nuclear bomb to start a fire when all you need to do, really, is strike a match.

This sort of stunt? Only serves to try to bring attention to the artist. I think Shvarts probably sat down, realized she didn't actually have any real talent and figured that if you can't be talented in the art world, you have to be really outrageous.

The art itself, actually, failed. Because Yale outing her as a fake sort of ruins what she was going for (however disgusting), which is the equivalent of your painting falling off the wall during an exhibit. And without the illusion of reality, it's neither a performance nor art. It's just a bunch of (probably) fake blood smeared around and some artist who looks like an idiot and has done more harm than anything.

I secretly suspect strong (if psychotic) pro-life opinions from Shvarts, because I can just hear the pro-life, anti-abortion crowd saying, "Look, look, even if it wasn't real, she could get away with it! We have to have laws to restrict this kind of thing from ever really happening."

I won't start on how her monstrous indifference to how her is an insult to women, especially those who have been through abortions and miscarriages - or how her reckless disregard for people's feelings makes me so very angry that I have a hard time typing.

The best thing I think we can all do is just ignore this girl. Deprive her of what she set out to get, which was attention. I take great satisfaction in knowing that her fame will be short lived and will destroy her chances of ever being taken seriously as a real artist.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Double-you tee eff?

That's awful.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

she's a fucking dramatastic attention whore

Yes. That about sums it up.

If I were more cruel, I'd wish a series of real miscarriages on her. But I can't bring myself to do that.

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

wow, you can't make this shit up, can you?

No comment other than WTF?

oh and ACK ACK ACK ACK.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

- I have been reading your journal for some time now and have been very impressed with you as a person.

- I was horrified along with everyone else to learn of your recent loss.

But I can't believe you posted this over at Making Light: lz Shvrts cn g fck hrslf wth rsty cthngr, th slf-drmtzng, nsnstv btch.

???

I find that language just as troubling as the undergrad's original project.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I do recognize that it fell beyond the realms of civilized discourse, which is why I disemvowelled myself. (I don't know how familiar you are with Making Light, but Teresa's practice of removing the vowels from posts which go beyond the pale has led to the tendency among regulars to occasionally do so for themselves.)

If you find it as troubling as Shvarts's project, well, um, I disagree. But take whatever action in response you think is necessary.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't know the context of the 'disemvowelling'. However, the image of a rusty coathanger up a vagina is pretty disturbing, vowels or no.

If you find it as troubling as Shvarts's project, well, um, I disagree.

OK, obviously the two things aren't equivalent, sorry. But it was the common theme of women disregarding other women that struck me. I probably shouldn't have said anything, given what you've recently been through, but you objected to Shvarts' project on ethical grounds, and I didn't know how you could find an ethical grounding for the rusty coathanger remark.

Thanks for replying.