Every UCSB student knows that the strip between the Arbor and the library is a crowded area. Different clubs and organizations settle here daily, usually to just offer sign-ups for some activity, promote a show or event, campaign for signatures, etc.
But, last week, this spot was the site of a pretty intense clash between anti-abortion and pro-choice demonstrators. The anti-abortion organization called Project Truth arrived on Monday April 17 and their presence wasn’t subtle. If the large crowd that formed around them didn’t already draw your eye, their posters, which included gory images of fetuses and contentious phrases such as “Am I human?” and “Is this inhumane?” certainly would.
Immediately, a counter protest organized. Pro-choice advocates lifted up their own posters, which conveyed pro-choice and pro-women sentiments, and drowned out the noise generated by Project Truth. This counter protest seemed spontaneously organized and, as the day continued, erupted into something that dwarfed Project Truth.
Walking past Project Truth during their two-day stake out, I wondered why these people had come to UCSB. I figured that it had to do with the recent mifepristone debate. National tensions have been incredibly high since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, which now leaves the legality of abortion up to states.
Since then, new court cases have attempted to further scale-back the accessibility of abortion. Most recently, the Supreme Court has been reviewing the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. Mifepristone is an abortion pill that, according to a New York Times article, accounts for more than half of the abortions in the U.S. On Friday April 21, the Supreme Court ruled to maintain the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. However, the weeks leading up to this outcome were fraught with suspense and fierce debate. Because mifepristone has been the reigning conflict between the “pro-choice” and “pro-life” factions, I suspected that Project Truth was here to protest medical abortion.
I had been intending to ask Project Truth some questions directly. I was curious. . . why were they at UCSB, who invited them, what was their end goal? But, by Wednesday April 19, Project Truth had cleared out. And so I tracked down their website in an attempt to piece together answers.
Similarly to the demonstration, the Project Truth website is provocative to say the least. There isn’t much text, only a few small paragraphs that, upon reading, informed me that Project Truth travels to high schools, colleges, and abortion clinics throughout the U.S. The bulk of the website is pictures and videos that document their travels. In one of these pictures, a group stands in front of a bus and holds a sign that says “West Coast Justice Ride.” I see some familiar faces. I guess that UCSB was a pitstop on Project Truth’s anti-abortion crusade down the West Coast.
As its name suggests, the self-proclaimed mission of Project Truth is to engage high school and college students with “the horrible truth about abortion.” However, their videos indicate an ulterior motive: harassment. In these videos, demonstrators intentionally aggravate passerbyers (by hoisting up the graphic images, shouting out anti-abortion jingles with intent to incite, sometimes straight up asking “what do you think of our display,” etc.) with the goal of eliciting a post-worthy reaction. I want to add that none of these videos appear to have been taken consensually.
The most bizarre are the few videos that are slow motion compilations of counter protests that have gathered around the Project Truth demonstrations. Eerie opera music plays in the background as incensed pro-choicers tear up the Project Truth pamphlets that they’ve been handed, shake their own posters, and shout back responses. I have to ask, what purpose do these videos serve? Surely they aren’t educational. In my opinion, these videos, and Project Truth’s tactics in general, are simply weak gimmicks that attempt to paint anybody who does not support the anti-abortion agenda as foolishly “woke” and unhinged.
All of this is to say that Project Truth’s methods don’t seem productive. Watching snippets of each video, it is easy to sense a pattern of action: rile up onlookers, either record any outbursts that unfold or initiate a “debate” that is really just a one-sided monologue, and upload the incident with a snappy, clickbait-y title.
To wrap up, I want to briefly touch on Project Truth’s argument. When the videos do include dialogue, every conversation revolves around the rudimentary debate of “is the fetus a human life?” While a valid point to consider when discussing abortion, any attempt by a counter protestor to move beyond this and add a “what if” (What if the mother is not ready to have a child? What if the mother became pregnant against her will? What if the mother does not want to have a child?) is immediately shut down. Project Truth dwells on the fetus and refuses to consider any other factor that might drive a mother’s decision to have an abortion. I believe that Project Truth, and other anti-abortion organizations like it, relies on a reasoning that is overly simplistic. Maybe it’s the sociology student in me, but I have a difficult time accepting a way of thinking that is as reductive as “pregnant mother + abortion = bad.”
A legitimate discussion of abortion is more wholistic, one that takes into account the root of the issue: what is the cause of unwanted pregnancies? To talk about abortion effectively means to talk about lacking sex education, inaccessible contraception, and sexual violence, amongst others. Project Truth doesn’t do this and, rather, resorts to blame and name calling. Ultimately, the goal of Project Truth isn’t to solve social problems, but to be inflammatory. It is an organization that is, in my opinion, completely devoid of genuine purpose and validity.