The mall seemed a little quieter this week as many students seemed to avoid the area displaying large posters protesting abortion.

For yet another year, the Genocide Awareness Project visited Penn State, displaying graphic images of aborted fetuses juxtaposed with images of Holocaust victims, a black man being hanged and the Oklahoma City bombing, just to name a few.

While the large poster boards graced the areas in front of Willard building and the library, the event seemed to be more successful at making people angry instead of provoking conversation about a hot-button issue.

The message that Students for Life tried to convey was lost among the shouting over the pictures. If the group wants to have a real dialogue about abortion rights, then it should have one.

Dialogue comes in many forms; it can come in a classroom or it can come on the steps of the Willard building where Gary Cattell, the Willard Preacher, regularly debates with students the merits of several controversial issues.

It does not come, however, in the form of tasteless pictures that do nothing but cause people to avoid the area and simply criticize the project.

Though the display is blatantly tasteless, Students for Life, which sponsored the project, has every right to make their stance known and use tactics like the Genocide Awareness Project to promote discussion about abortion. However, they are hardly promoting educational dialogue. Passersby used words such as "tasteless" and "unnecessary" to describe the exhibit.

The graphic images turned people away and could hardly be considered "comparable" at all.

Is it a wonder that Tuvia Abramson, director of Hillel, expressed his opposition to Holocaust pictures juxtaposed with aborted fetuses? There is no comparison between the mass execution of 11 million people at one time and abortion.

Many people in the Penn State community already have a firm position on abortion, so it would take something that is really convincing and thought-provoking to get them to reconsider their position.

Instead, the project used free speech zones to display images that are more harmful than good. What about the possible trauma the display could have caused women who have had abortions for medical reasons or have miscarried?

Abortion rights will continue to be a part of the vernacular for years to come, so students at a university should discuss it, debate it and comment on it.

There is no reason for a distasteful display that does not promote meaningful debate.