In 1955, a 14-year-old black boy named Emmett Till was abducted and murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman.

His body was badly disfigured, and the funeral director recommended a closed casket.

Till’s mother instead requested an open casket and refused to even let the body be cleaned for viewing.

She allowed the press to photograph the body and the pictures were distributed to major newspapers and magazines and became a symbol for the Civil Rights Movement.

Till’s mother wanted the entire country to see the truth of what happened to her son because of racism.

People were outraged that their society could allow such cruelty and they were moved to create social change.

Last week, the Center for Bioethical Reform brought the Genocide Awareness Project to BGSU’s campus, showing pictures of victims of several mass killings next to pictures of abortions in order to accomplish the same goal.

The pictures were not intended to “gross people out,” but to show what injustice looks like. Anyone who is skeptical of the accuracy of the pictures can look in any biology textbook and find that they are accurate.

The pictures show the truth about abortion and make the bold statement that the unborn are people who deserve the same rights as others who have had their personhood denied in the past.

The point of the Genocide Awareness Project is that all human beings should be treated with respect.

According to basic biology, an individual human life is created at the point of conception. However, according to the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, “the word ‘person,’ as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn.”

The pro-life movement seeks to include all humans as persons that have rights, especially the right to life.

There are 1.3 million abortions in the United States every year and 46 million worldwide every year.

The goal of the pro-life movement is to raise awareness about injustice, especially abortion and to create social change.

A recent letter to the editor pointed out that our society should be more concerned about those with HIV/AIDS, and others have said that we should be more concerned with victims of violence in Darfur.

These are very important issues, and if these are the issues you choose to focus on, then I encourage you to get involved with them.

Those in the pro-life movement believe that all humans have the right to life, not just the unborn.

We choose to focus on abortion for many reasons, but that does not mean we don’t have compassion for other groups.

It is important for people to keep fighting for the human rights of all people who have their rights stripped away from them, and I encourage all of you to get involved in some way and make a difference.

Gina Tortorella is a Graduate Accounting student, [email protected].