While dropping off our graphic post-cards in Abbotsford as a part of CCBR’s “New Abortion Caravan,” I was approached by a man who asked what I was doing. I told him that I was dropping post-cards to expose Canadians to the injustice of abortion. He said to me, “That’s interesting. Up until a couple of weeks ago I didn’t have an opinion on abortion, and I didn’t think I needed one. Then I saw your ‘Choice’ Chain images. I realized that I needed to have an opinion on abortion, because dude, that’s a baby.” He proceeded to tell me that he was going to give the post-card I had left in his mail box to someone who needed to see it.
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I was doing “Choice” Chain on Granville and Robson, and a guy walked by. I asked him what he thought about abortion and he said he had never really thought about it. So I pointed to my sign and asked him what he thought about it now and after looking at it for a bit he said, “Well, I’m against it now.”
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During a "Choice" Chain display downtown Kelowna I asked a young man who was walking by what he thought about abortion. He said that although he didn't like abortion he was pro-choice. After discussing the issue further he said to me, "You're right... I guess there should be a law... it's always wrong".
Feminists have a very strong advantage in the abortion debate: The disappearance of an unwanted fetus is extremely convenient for a lot of people.
This practical advantage is why they won the abortion debate forty years ago. When pro-life moral arguments are pushed to the background, feminists win the abortion debate every time. The pro-life stance does not have a lot of practical advantages going for it, save that keeping pregnancy might prevent future mental anguish (and even then people are willing to sacrifice their mental health.)
However, in the moral discussion about abortion-- the more abstract and more difficult debate to win-- pro-lifers have the advantage.
Because no matter what arguments feminists advance, the bottom line of abortion is that an innocent, vulnerable and completely helpless human being is killed, and it is the mother-- his main protector-- who consents to this killing.
You can put forward every single argument in the world, the response is easy: human beings should not have to die for the sake of another person's empowerment.
This is why Choice Chain is powerful. Feminists can argue that abortions don't look like this. But their argument is pretty damned weak if they won't show what a dismembered embryo or fetus looks like.There is one picture of an abortion on the internet that shows more non-embryonic tissue than anything else. But if the feminists do not counter with a substantially different picture that compares apples to apples, i.e. dismembered fetuses to dismembered fetuses, they're being misleading themselves.
That's why abortion pics can and do change opinions. I'm not saying they're a magic bullet. But they're one weapon in the pro-life arsenal. And that they're the reason why many people have changed their minds.
