As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've been watching a lot of documentraries lately, and one that caught my attention is "Fault Lines: The Abortion War." There's not so much new here (for me anyway), but one scene stuck out. In it, a group of kids and young teens are protesting against abortion in Los Angeles in front of a Disney store. Some of their signs and pamphlets included graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, and a passerby vehemently opposed the use of the disturbing pics. I had to agree with her reasoning.

 

 

 

 

I hate the use of these photos. I recently read a post by Simcha Fisher about the March for Life a few weeks ago that highlights my complete and utter disdain for the use of gory signage at public events:

 

 

 

There will be children at the march.  Do you let your kids watch gruesome war movies or slasher films?  No?  Well, those movies show actors with fake blood, pretending to be tortured and killed.  Why would you let them see the real thing?  The pro-life cause is about protecting innocent life, and that includes protecting the innocence of young children.  Studies show that violent images stay with us for a lifetime, and damage us.

 

There will be post-abortive women at the march.  Imagine their courage in being there at all.  Then imagine what it does to them to see, once again, the dark thing that keeps them from sleeping at night -- the thing that often keeps them in decades-long cycles of self-loathing and despair.  We don't ask victims of rape to look at videos of rape in progress.  We don't ask holocaust victims to look at huge banners showing the piles of emaciated bodies.  As pro-lifers, we must remember that every abortion has two victims:  the child and the mother.  We must never be on the side that hurts mothers.  Never.

 

Mothers will be there.  Thousands of the women at the March are mothers -- mothers who have already given birth, mothers who are pregnant as they march, and mothers who have miscarried, delivered dead babies.  For many of them, the grief over a miscarriage never goes away entirely.  Many women stay away from any public march for fear of being subjected to these images so similar to the thing that caused them so much pain.  Motherhood makes a woman's heart tender.  The pro-life movement should be a shelter that protects that tenderness -- because the world needs it desperately.

 

Those are real babies.  Christians are almost alone in affirming the dignity of the human person.  Catholics, especially, understand that the human body is mortal, but still worthy of respect.  When we use pictures of real babies as a tactic or a tool, we are in danger of forgetting that these are children with an immortal soul, and who have a name that only their Heavenly Father knows.  They have already been killed.  Let us treat their poor bodies with respect.

 

Read the whole thing. I agree. I get that pro-lifers want people to see the reality of abortion, but along with truth, there must be love.