Seth Gruber, self-proclaimed “voice for the unborn,” addressed the relatively empty Beach Auditorium Thursday night as a part of his speaking tour, “Abortion is Genocide.”
Invited by the Students for Life club, Gruber recited previous speeches and blog posts, that compare the practice of abortion to the Holocaust and slavery.
“Abortion has taken more lives than any other genocide,” Gruber said.
Around 15 people were in attendance and no protesters voiced opposition, despite abortion continually being a hotly contested topic on campus.
Mat Mesa, secretary of the club, said he hopes that attendees will take Gruber’s message to heart.
“Abortion is genocide,” Mesa said. “Millions of innocent human beings are being killed every year.”
Gruber repeatedly emphasized that “the unborn child” is, in fact, human, quoting embryologists, or those who study sperm, eggs and embryos.
“Want to know what the unborn is?” Gruber asked. “It’s a human being like you and me.”
Andrea Gonzalez, a third-year recreational therapy major, said she had grown up in the anti-abortion movement.
“I’m here to support babies who don’t have a voice,” Gonzalez said. “Every life is precious and has worth.”
According to Gruber, abortion rights individuals define life according to the acronym “SLED,” meaning size, level of development, environment and dependency. The standard is used by people who support abortion rights to decide when a fetus can be aborted.
“For white racists it was skin color, for Nazis it was ethnicity and religion, and for pro-choice it’s SLED,” Gruber said.
Adrian Urias, treasurer of the club, said he hopes those who aren’t anti-abortion will change their minds.
“It would be great if they changed their minds, but psychology doesn’t work like that,” Urias said. “At least it’ll get them thinking.”
Graphic images of victims of lynchings and of the Holocaust were displayed on the wide-screen to the right of Gruber.
A video depicting alleged aborted fetus parts and a 24-week-old aborted fetus were also shown. According to Gruber, if the anti-abortion movement is to change the minds of people who believe in abortion rights, it must show the communities the “true nature of abortion.”
“Abortion makes Hitler and Stalin look like kids screwing around in a sandbox,” Gruber said.
The speaker claimed that groups like Planned Parenthood are no better than the Nazis and slave owners in America.
“Planned Parenthood has absorbed the racism of the KKK, the strategies of the Nazis and applied it to abortion,” Gruber said.
He closed with an anecdote about Oskar Schindler, a former member of the Nazi party who spent his wealth by employing Jews to save them from death camps.
“Do we take our Holocaust in 2019 as seriously as Oskar Schindler did his?” Gruber asked.
Following the closing of his speech, attendees had the opportunity to pose questions.
Ian Ho-Sing-Loy, a third-year computer science major, asked when an unborn fetus gains the level of personhood.
“Human beings are not valuable because they have virtue and free will, that’s human nature,” Gruber answered. “You can’t ground human value in those things that come in varying degrees.”
Associated Students Inc. Building Manager, Will Carlson, thanked Gruber for bringing a viewpoint that most don’t agree with on campus.
Carlson then asked Gruber how he felt about mothers who decide to abort based upon economic concerns.
“You know what’s not a good way to provide a child with a good future?” Gruber said. “Dismembering them limb from limb.”
Gruber added that the country needs to do a better job in providing support and resources for mothers in need, but maintained that abortion is not an option.
“If sex trafficking was legal or slavery was legal, I’d be fighting that too,” Gruber said. “Legalizing atrocities makes it that much worse.”
Gruber is slated to speak at the Students for Life summit at Cal State Fullerton Saturday, Nov. 16.