. . . when you devalue human life the way we have since 1973: a college student creating “art” by using blood from her miscarriages induced specifically for that purpose. She underwent a series of artificial inseminations and induced miscarriages just so she could do this project. And she claims she’s not going for shock value, but to start a discussion on the relationship between art and the human body.

Clearly, there’s no connection between this “art” and two parts of her body: her heart or her brain.

Is she going to keep the pieces indefinitely so when she eventually has children she can introduce them to their artistic siblings?

This is simply beyond sick. But things will, unbelievably and undoubtedly, get worse. In fact, I was going to title this post “This is where you end up,” but then I realized we probably aren’t anywhere near the end.

Allahpundit doubts this is real, and has some commenters who say its not even medically possible. Even if its not real, the sad thing is that its totally believable.

H/T: Ace — who, as usual, manages to make some fun of a dreadful situation.

UPDATE: Looks like Allahpundit was right, though nobody’s sure yet, it seems. Ace and Hot Air are both linking to a story in the New York Sun:

“Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art,” a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. “She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. 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.”

Ms. Klasky went on to suggest that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. “Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.”

Well, no kidding, if you’re a decent human being. The problem is, you can no longer assume that of those in the faculties and administrations of American universities. This is the answer to anyone who might find it amusing that right-wingers bought into the story.

The fact that the artist merely said she was going to do this instead of actually doing it doesn’t mitigate matters much for me. She still used the same sick scenario — she just packaged it as a performance art piece instead of a physical art piece. Still twisted, if you ask me.

I don’t think I would have titled this post any differently or labeled it differently if I had known it was performance art in the beginning.

UPDATE (4/19/08): The student is saying that the University’s denial is a lie.  Now she claims she used a needle-less syringe to inject sperm and an herbal abortifacient to induce miscarriages, but isn’t sure if she was ever really pregnant.  At this point, it really doesn’t matter how the story comes out.  She’s twisted no matter how you look at it.