I was at the Fortnight for Freedom Mass last week and outside the basilica a group lined up with graphic abortion signs. To be honest, it was a bit uncomfortable. So I’ve been trying to get my thoughts right on this when I came across a piece by Kristen Walker at Live Action. She’s a strong pro-life voice with more than a dash of snark and I’ve never met her or contacted her but I like her writing. But she doesn’t cross the line with the snark if you know what I mean.
She recently wrote a piece on how a graphic image of an abortion helped to change her from radically pro-choice to pro-life but then she warned against using graphic images.
When I asked her for photos, she produced them. And at the moment I saw that first photo, I knew with a horrible finality that it was wrong. It was not okay and could not be okay, for any reason. It was the mangled body of a baby that had been killed.
I looked at more pictures of even tinier people, their faces almost but not quite featureless, all gossamer skin and pale blue veins and alien eyes. They were not pre-humans; they were humans, in their early stages. I knew this looking at them. “I used to be that,” I thought. I felt the same feeling: that it would be killing to end this life, that it could not ethically, logically, or scientifically be anything else.
When I left my friend’s house, I was pro-life. I hated it. I felt this new identity – this awful pro-lifeyness – twisting in me like a snake. I wanted it out.
So why is she against graphic images of abortions if they changed her life?
…if my friend, instead of having the conversation with me, had thrust those photos in my face before she explained her argument, I would have been disgusted and stopped listening. If she had had a graphic image on a bumper sticker on her vehicle, I would never have brought the subject up, and would not have listened if she had. Would I have been stupid and wrong? Maybe. But it wouldn’t have mattered, would it? I would have remained pro-abortion.
I had seen graphic images of aborted fetuses before. Almost everyone has at some point. But – how do I explain this? – I did not see them.
In one case, I was attempting to find a website, typed in the URL incorrectly, and ended up with a giant photo of a mangled unborn baby in my face. I remember this well, because it helped form my resentment of the pro-life cause, and helped make me stalwart in my support for abortion “rights.”
It sounds crazy, but pretty much every former pro-choicer I know has told me the same thing. The truth is, unless someone is ready to see the image, she will not really see it.
On that I most definitely agree. I think images of the unborn in the womb are much more effective than pictures of dead babies. I think people instinctively turn away from violent pictures but pics of the unborn happily sucking their thumb in the womb draws people in.
But I don’t have a great pro-life conversion story. Even when I was pretty much an atheist I was a pro-life atheist. I just didn’t see the logic of making up a moment when a blob of tissue magically becomes a human being. But I would suggest that there are some people out there who have seen a picture of an aborted baby and it stuck in their brains. Some people are ready to see it but they don’t know they are.
I think the question is whether we should be forcing these images on people. I think probably not but I think at abortion clinics it’s perhaps a last line of defense as women are heading into the clinic. So I kind of get it there.
In the end, I think showing them makes me uncomfortable but I suspect that those pics have saved lives. I’m sure they have.
These folks are pointing out that human beings are being killed and people don’t believe them. So they show pictures. I absolutely understand it. But I think it does contribute to the image of the angry pro-lifer which doesn’t really help us.
In the end, I guess I would just urge folks to think for a few moments about what sign will do the greatest good. Pray on it. Think on it. Whatever you decide we’re all on the same side.
You can read Kristen’s piece by clicking here.
June 27, 2012 at 6:09 am
I recently read a blog post by a woman who is pro-life and in the process of converting to Catholicism. She wrote about how she had recently driven by some protesters with the graphic signs and how traumatic it was for her, since she was dealing with the loss of a baby due to a miscarriage. Although I've never been a fan of using these images on signs, I had never thought about it from that point of view either. Here's a link if anyone wants to read it – http://kiwords.blogs.com/kiwords/2012/06/an-open-letter-to-the-anti-abortion-protesters-i-passed-this-afternoon.html
June 27, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I also had this experience. In my pro-choice (more apathetic than pro-choice, I see that now) days, those pictures disgusted me and turned me a way from even thinking about what the pro-life people had to say. How ironic is that? Showing people the truth about abortion makes them LESS pro-life! They are, I think, just too hard for people to accept. Then, when I had my pro-life conversion (based on numerous things, not at all on photos) I could not bear to look at any of those photos for years, because now I understood what they were — understood it with my being, not just my intellect. Literally, it was years before I could look at even one, and that one was by accident (it came up on a blog post) and I found it horrific. I know some people have been converted by them, but I would never carry a sign with one or show one to people who were not prepared.
June 27, 2012 at 2:07 pm
The key here is that different people respond to different things. While graphic images might lead some pro-aborts to tune out, there is plenty of documented proof showing they have converted others.
Changing hearts is not a one-size-fits-all game–no matter what Abby Johnson's book says. Any method that is licit is valid.
June 27, 2012 at 2:13 pm
I was there too and saw the images in front of the Basilica. I recognized the people holding the signs since I joined them a few months ago for the first time on Johns Hopkins campus (with the GAP display which is slightly different). If you would like to know, this is my little take on the the issue (I wrote the reflection after joining them for the first time; just posted it now though).
June 27, 2012 at 2:29 pm
The Nazi regime is judged by the photos of naked emaciated bodies piled like cordwood in pits. So will our society be judged by the photos of these babies murdered in the womb – 50 million while we did nothing (or complained about the pictures). What were those people thinking? Why didn't they do something? school children will ask in horror.
My defense at judgment when he shows me the picture: Well, what I did God, was I
wrote articles trying to convince people not to show the pictures of these murdered babies.
Why doesn't someone write a blog suggesting we put a large blown up picture of one of these murdered children where the crucifix is in our sanctuaries–and keep it there until abortion is ended in our country?
Because God loves that dead child as much as he loves us — and that's child blood is on our hands as much as Abel's is on Cain's.
June 27, 2012 at 4:10 pm
My experience was exactly the opposite. Seeing graphic images put my feet on the street. Some people are Aristotelian Realists and embrace reality through empirical evidence. Some are Platonic Idealists who access the true through a lot of poetry and talk first.
They'll eventually end up in the same place, no matter in what order they are exposed… The major difference is if they love the truth or not. The wonderful thing about images is there is no going back, as there frequently is with arguments. It is more difficult to claim that there has been an error with an image. You can't mess with an image like you can a propositional argument.
I deeply suspect that women, even pro-life women, hate these images because they hurt. It hurts when they look at them, and you hurt others when you display them. Women, in their innate gentleness, never want to hurt.
But, these are times of tragedy, times of extremity, times when the truth is cosmetically altered to abet murder. Images are our only way out.
June 27, 2012 at 5:30 pm
The graphic images are what kept me from taking my young kids with me to the March for Life. They know what abortion is, but I did not want those images stuck in their minds.
We are called to be the "Light of the World." However think about what happens when you turn the light on in a dark room. Often you have to cover your eyes a moment to let them adjust to the light. I think the graphic pictures are like that- they cause a person to cover their eyes, but instead of adjusting to the light (truth about abortion), some just leave the room. Maybe there is a place for them, but I am in the opinion they do more harm than good when forced in people's faces.
June 27, 2012 at 7:34 pm
What exactly is the "harm" that is done to a person when they see these images?
We may experience disgust, horror, fear, revulsion, anger, pity, nausea… yet this is not harm when directed at an appropriate object. Something appropriate and proportionate is happening in our souls.
That's the great thing about an image. No one ever gets to "leave the room." The image is there forever. Those who claim they can, lie.
June 27, 2012 at 8:15 pm
I think this is true of liberals, across the board. The see only what they agree with, and hear only what they agree with, and then get surprised when a candidate they elected for things they chose to hear does the things he said, and which they chose not to hear, because he wore the right label.
I have attempted rational discussion with liberals, and they can't reason because they only hear what they like. Mentally, and often literally, they are shouting down what they dislike. But as my wife would say: they turn off their ears.
June 27, 2012 at 8:15 pm
"Something appropriate and proportionate is happening in our souls [when they see these images]." Blackrep
I agree.