Christian Awareness week culminated last night in "Is Pro-Life Pro-Woman?" in Rapaporte Treasure Hall.

Awareness week explores Christianity

By: David Dagan

Posted: 4/30/02

A nine-day stretch of public discussion, movie nights and social gatherings came to a close last night as pro-life advocates presented their views in the final event of this year's Christian Awareness Week.
The week was intended as a statement of Christian values and an encouragement for students to explore the religion, Brandeis Christian Fellowship Co-president Jenell Clarke '02 said yesterday.
"I think we were a lot more bold in our statements" this year, Clarke said. "I think we had a lot more events."
She added that the week featured "things that were really out there, vivid for the whole campus to see. We wanted to tell the truth to the extent that we felt we could and … just open the lines for communication."
The week began with an April 13 sleepover movie night. The next morning, Sunday, the University's Voices of Praise gospel choir performed at a service. Monday evening, the 80-odd seats set up for a discussion titled "Who is Jesus?" overflowed as Father David Michael, Rabbi Alan Lehman, and Khaleel Mohammed (NEJS) presented Christian, Jewish and Islamic perspectives on the question.
Two nights later, students gathered for a discussion of the book "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. Thursday evening brought a coffeehouse held in the Intercultural Center, and the weekend was ushered in with a Friday barbeque outside the Usdan Student Center.
Leaders of the BCF said they were disturbed at the theft of two crosses that had been set up in visible locations on campus. But, Clarke added that she is trying to see the incident in a positive light.
"It piqued their interest to some extent, whether positive or negative," she said of the thieves.
Last night, at an event headlined with the question, "Is Pro-Life Pro-Woman?" four speakers made a case against abortion. Two of them related personal experiences with the procedure.
Christine Gaudreault, a former member of the pro-choice Planned Parenthood Federation of America, discussed her decision to have an abortion several decades ago and her later conversion to a pro-life stance.
"I did see it as just another form of birth control," Gaudreault said of abortion.
But, she said, "My abortion ripped me off of my college education, and my child, and put me on a road of drinking and drugging that I had not anticipated."
It was only years later, Gaudreault said she "began to know and believe that life is really, really precious. And, it does not begin at birth."
Eric Keroack, medical director of A Woman's Concern Health Centers, a pro-life counseling organization, said sexual activity today is comparable to warfare.
"Sexual activity is a war zone," he said. "What we have is this ongoing war. So we're constantly coming up with better equipment," he said, referring to contraceptive strategies and abortions.
"And the truth is that somewhere along the way people die in war," Keroack added. He acknowledged that deaths from abortion-related complications are rare, but that "they die emotionally."
Thomas M. Harvey, an attorney with the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, offered a brief history of abortion rights in the United States. He argued that judicial intervention has prevented voters in some states from acting on their preference to ban abortions.
Like Donovan before him, he pointed to what he described as "contradictions" in the pro-choice stance.
"An unborn human life can be destroyed," he said. "You can't destroy an unborn American eagle."