Can Science Get to the Bottom of the Aliza Shvarts-Abortion Fracas?

Earlier this week, Yale senior Aliza Shvarts made headlines with her performance art project, which consisted of artificially inseminating herself as often as possible while simultaneously ingesting abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. She reportedly preserved some of the blood from the process, which she claims to be storing in a freezer. After the blogosphere erupted in outraged shrieks over the project, the university countered with a claim that the whole thing was a "creative fiction," and that Shvarts was never actually pregnant. She maintains, however, that the project was real, though she couldn't be certain whether the bleeding events were from abortions or just regular menstruation. So can we turn to cold, hard science to determine which party is telling the truth? Possibly. If Shvarts did indeed preserve the blood and freeze it immediately after it was collected, it could be tested for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), the hormone produced ...