An organization in the anti-abortion movement is attempting to influence the results of this year's presidential election by graphic displays of unborn children and abortion. Greg Cunningham, head of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) has developed a Key States Initiative that entails driving large rental-type trucks into cities and setting up displays on college and university campuses. Knowing that, while relatively small, the anti-abortion vote is committed, Cunningham calculates that in states where the race will be tight between Bush and Kerry, the aroused persons could make a difference.

And Cunningham doesn't even try to play coy about his intention to influence this year's senatorial race in Pennsylvania, where CBR's airplanes and trucks will be operating every day from now until November 7 because "Pennsylvania is a key battleground for control of the Senate."

Arousing people is what Gregg Cunningham does best, and he's giving Ohio his best shot.

He said the banner would be the most graphic picture ever displayed from the air.

"It will be categorically the most shocking we have ever done," he said. "The imagery is so horrifying that I can't almost stand to look at it."

Cunningham has honed his aggressive tactics through years of taking his Genocide Awareness Project to college campuses across the country - whether the schools want him there or not.

[Cunningham is on the right in both photos: Genocide Awareness Project]

Along with perpetuating some standard antiabortion scare tactics ...

... the GAP campaign displays fetus graphics alongside photographs of the corpses of victims of racially-motivated lynchings and the Nazi Holocaust.

[Photos: Genocide Awareness Project]

And the reaction of one University of Kansas student is a typical response.

Simone Fischer, 20, a student from San Antonio, said her first impulse was to tear down the signs when she saw the swastika and a photo of Holocaust victims headlined "Religious Choice'' next to abortion photos headlined "Reproductive Choice.''

"Being the Jewish new year, one of the most sacred days, and I see abortion being compared to Jewish graves and the Holocaust, I did not feel welcome on my own campus,'' Fischer said. "My feeling was shock and then anger. I felt violated.''

As far as Cunningham is concerned, shock and anger make his displays a success. Gregg Cunningham likes to play rough: "This is like a chess game where we don't even let our opponent sit down at the table until we've pre-positioned the pieces to place him at checkmate. Then we invite him to sit down and tell him, 'It's your move.' Although we're not going to do anything unlawful or immoral, we're not going to play this game pursuant to rules written by pro-aborts and weak bishops."

Frank Pavone -- national director of Priests for Life and owner of America's most well-traveled and frequently memorialized fetal specimen -- feels the same way as Cunningham about the way "this game" is played by his superiors in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and he's got the mileage to prove it.

Frank Pavone and Gregg Cunningham at a CBR Planning Meeting
[Photo: AbortionNo.org]

I recently bought a truck. A big one, like the ones you see delivering supplies to the supermarkets. And the other day, I got to ride on it for the first time.

What's important about it is not what's on the inside, but what's on the outside. The truck is actually a traveling billboard, and anyone looking at it sees the images of children who were aborted within the first 11 weeks of pregnancy.
:::
The Center for Bioethical Reform (CBR), on whose Board of Directors I serve, has launched the "Reproductive Choice Campaign", which utilizes the highway system, a key means of transportation, as a vehicle of education. I have worked with CBR and its director, Gregg Cunningham, for years, and this is one of the projects we are now launching around the nation. Four of these huge trucks have been traveling the highways of Los Angeles all summer and will soon appear in other states.
:::
The truck project, moreover, makes full use of the First Amendment, a tool which we in the pro-life movement need to better understand and more fully utilize. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right of people to convey verbal and graphic messages despite the fact that they offend others, and despite the fact that children may be among the viewers.
:::
The truck I recently rode in was the first I ever bought. I assure you, it won't be the last.

Father Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life

Despite his claim that everyone who approaches a Genocide Awareness Project  display is treated "with respect," Cunningham has earned his reputation as a litigious bully, pursuing his alleged "right" to violate Hawaii's state law against aerial advertising all the way to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and vowing to continue the fight until it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.

And folks who lack the legal resources of a state government -- or even a megachurch -- fare no better when they object to CBR operations.

Consider how Cunningham responded only a month ago to a mother who objected when CBR trucks with graphic abortion pictures repeatedly circled her children's day camp last month in Kittanning, Pennsylvania - a borough with a population of less than 5,000.

According to Kathy Knepshield, a staff member of the Armstrong County YMCA, several of the trucks rolled past the YMCA on North Water Street around noon and one of the drivers was allegedly taking photos of children in an outdoor day camp. Knepshield said the posters, bearing images of an aborted fetus, upset many of the children in the camp.
:::
One parent, Brenda Sarambo of Kittanning, had her six-year-old twins attending the camp. Sarambo said the images upset her children and prompted her to contact the sponsoring organization, The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, based in Lake Forest, Calif., by e-mail.

"I was really irate," Sarambo said. "I gave them a good piece of my mind. I was so upset, I even threatened to assault a driver if those trucks should comeback again."
:::
Center for Bio-Ethical Reform spokesperson, Gregg Cunningham, speaking from his home in California," said he intends to turn Sarambo's comments over to local law enforcement and to the FBI. He added that because of the reaction by Sarambo, Knepshield and others, including Kittanning police, his organization may now "target' Kittanning.
:::
"Apparently the people of Kittanning aren't getting the message. If we get the impression that the people of Kittanning need to learn more about the First Amendment, then we will focus on Kittanning in a way that will make their heads spin. We will lavish unwanted attention on them with our fleet of trucks and aircraft."
:::
"Let's say this," [Cunningham] said, "we have a fleet large enough to swamp Kittanning. Not one resident will be able to go out their door without seeing one of our trucks."
:::
In an e-mail reply to Sarambo, Cunningham told her she was a "pagan' for sending her children to a "Christian' camp (the YMCA) then being upset by the Center's anti-abortion campaign.

"All we're trying to do is to educate people about what abortion really is," He said. "Perhaps we need to come back and drive our message home."

Mark Harrington is the Midwest director for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. He also has his own radio show and his own web site.  Harrington's site promotes the Genocide Awareness Project and some of CBR's very special friends, such as Flip Benham of Operation Save America ...

"Operation Rescue's Flip Benham challenges the group"

... and, of course, Ken Blackwell.

"Ohio Secretary of State Ken Balckwell (sic) urges people to vote"

Now, like the villagers of Kittanning, PA, Ohio had better get ready to shut up and pay attention as Gregg Cunningham drives his in-your-face message home.  After all, it's not as though it was political or anything.

[Title photo from Center for Bio-Ethical reform]

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