Controversy Over Abortion Art

Compiled by PETER EDIDIN
April 19, 2008

A Yale University art student’s startling claim that she artificially inseminated herself, induced repeated abortions and used the blood for her senior project is false, Yale officials said after her account was published in the student newspaper, The Associated Press reported. In an article on Thursday in The Yale Daily News, the student, Aliza Shvarts, was quoted as saying she had inseminated herself “as often as possible” while taking herbal drugs to induce miscarriages as her senior year performance art piece. Her account found its way to the Internet and news outlets before Yale said it had investigated and found it to be false. “The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body,” said Helaine Klasky, a university spokeswoman. Ms. Klasky said that when confronted by three Yale officials, Ms. Shvarts acknowledged that she had never been pregnant and did not induce abortions. On Friday, however, Ms. Shvarts had insisted that she had really experienced “repeated, self-induced miscarriages,” although she had said that she had never known if she was actually pregnant. the rest