Yale: Abortion film is 'creative fiction'

NEW HAVEN, Conn., April 18 (UPI) -- A Yale student's abortion project, which has outraged U.S. anti-abortion activists, was an "an art piece, a creative fiction," a University spokeswoman said.

Alicia Shvartzs, a senior at the New Haven, Conn., university, said she became pregnant several times through artificial insemination and then induced miscarriages, filming herself in the process.

The Yale Daily News reported Friday that Shvartz told administrators she did not impregnate herself.

"She stated to three senior Yale University officials ... including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages," the spokeswoman, Helaine Klassky, said in a statement.

"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. She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art."

Klassky said the project would have been unethical if the pregnancies had been real.