STR Ambassador
October 17th 2004, 04:31 PM
Why Abortion Is a Yawner
By Gregory Koukl
According to the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, 30 states are poised to pull the plug on abortion if Roe topples. And it’s likely it will if the delicate Supreme Court balance an this issue shifts by a single vote.
This may be the only opportunity pro-lifers have to turn the tide. It all depends on what happens November 2.
But there’s a problem. Waking people up. Here’s what I mean.
On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, Al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi took a large knife and sawed off Michael Berg’s head while a video camera rolled. The clip hit the web like an earthquake. Those who could bear to watch stared, sobbed, or seethed. Nobody yawned.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, we watched—again and again—as jumbo jets vaporized World Trade I and II. The toll for the day, 2,752 American bodies, mobilized a nation for war. Nobody yawned.
Mention the word “abortion,” though, and eyes glaze over.
Ironically, the bare facts are more hideous than Berg’s beheading or thousands of innocent people shredded, burned, or crushed by falling airliners: Every single day for 30 years more innocent Americans perished in abortion clinics than died on September 11, 2001.
Their bodies have been burned with chemicals (saline abortion), dismembered piece by piece (D&E abortion), shredded (suction abortion), or “beheaded” in utero: a living baby’s skull pierced with blunt surgical scissors and her brains vacuumed out mid delivery (partial birth abortion).
Yet many—even pro-lifers—still yawn at the word “abortion.” Why? One word: images.
Americans learn visually, by images, not arguments. Witness the beheading of Daniel Berg and words are unnecessary. Talk about abortion without the right images and people think only of “tissue” removal. No big deal.
To stop the yawns and revitalize interest—and seize this opportunity to change the law—pro-lifers must visually awaken moral sensibilities. They must move the debate from the abstract question of “choice” to the concrete issue of dead babies. They must show what abortion does. Otherwise, this opportunity will be lost and nothing will change.
The impact of seeing is powerful. To research an article on abortion for Harper’s, Verlyn Klinkenborg visited an abortion clinic. There he beheld the remains of a ten-week-old preborn child and recorded his candid impressions:
I felt a profound and unmistakable kinship with the shape implied by the foot and hand in the tray, a kinship so strong that it was like the rolling of the sea under my feet....I was surprised by my own sadness, by the sense of loss that I felt...In that tiny, naked hand there was the imputation of innocence.
I have stacks of letters from people, formerly pro-choice, confirming that graphic images are the single most effective tool to change minds on abortion.
The national debate on partial-birth abortion seriously undermined public support for abortion for one reason: It was visual. Pro-abortion columnist Naomi Wolf wrote, “When someone holds up a model of a six-month-old fetus and a pair of surgical scissors, we say, ‘choice,’ and we lose.”
Pro-lifers showed the seven-minute video Harder Truth to a legislative committee during debate on the bill. The pictures of babies killed through D&E and suction abortion were enough to shift discussions from “choice” to the killing itself. In a dramatic turn of events, New Jersey legislators—including liberal Democrats—vigorously supported limits on abortion.
The pro-abortion case was crippled precisely because legislators did not focus on what abortion does for the mother, but rather on what abortion does to the child.
Pro-lifers had forced abortion backers to do the one thing they didn’t want to do: defend killing babies. Pro-choice advocate Katherine Kohlbert admitted that if the debate is on what happens to the unborn, her side will “get creamed.”
Some say graphic visuals are manipulative. Of course it’s true we ought to avoid empty appeals to emotion offered in place of good reasons. If pictures substantiate the reasons rather than obscure them, though, they’re justified.
Truth is the issue. Wolf observes, “How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real?”
Using graphic images has a long and noble history. Virtually every human rights crusade has vividly depicted the plight of the persecuted, plundered, disenfranchised, and oppressed.
Movie theaters screened Schindler’s List for free to over 2,000,000 students, in spite of its gore. Pictures of mutilated bodies stacked like cordwood communicated the horror of the death camps in a way no lecture could.
Others say the tactic exploits the unborn. But as one of my staff noted, it’s always right for victims to testify on their own behalf. Through these images the babies speak for themselves.
Truthful images that show the human toll of abortion no more exploits pre-born children than a crucifix exploits Jesus when it’s used to show the toll of human sin on the Savior. Both vividly depict the consequences of evil and move us to remedy it.
Dramatic visual aids like Harder Truth must be used carefully, though. Viewers should be warned in advance of the graphic pictures and invited to look away if they prefer not to watch. They should be assured the purpose is not to condemn, but to clarify the truth of what’s actually at stake.
I used this approach with 750 high-schoolers at camp one summer. After making my case against abortion before the restless crowd I closed with this.
“I know many of you are still on the fence on this issue or maybe even pro-choice. Five minutes from now you won’t be. And I won’t have to say another word.”
Then I ran a short segment of Harder Truth showing an actual abortion and its remnants: the dismembered bodies of human infants.
When the lights came up, the only sound to break the stillness was the sound of weeping. And no one yawned.
Stand to Reason - Training Christian ambassadors in the areas of knowledge, wisdom, and character - www.str.org
Notice – The ministries featured in this section are guests of this site and very often not active members of debate forums. Additionally, this area is frequented and highlighted for guests who also very often are not acclimated to debate. As such, the rules of conduct here will be more strict than in the general forum. This will be something within the discretion of the Moderators, but we simply ask that you conduct yourselves in a manner considerate of the fact that these ministries are our invited guests. You can always feel free to start a related thread in general forum without such extra restrictions. Thank you.
By Gregory Koukl
According to the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, 30 states are poised to pull the plug on abortion if Roe topples. And it’s likely it will if the delicate Supreme Court balance an this issue shifts by a single vote.
This may be the only opportunity pro-lifers have to turn the tide. It all depends on what happens November 2.
But there’s a problem. Waking people up. Here’s what I mean.
On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, Al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi took a large knife and sawed off Michael Berg’s head while a video camera rolled. The clip hit the web like an earthquake. Those who could bear to watch stared, sobbed, or seethed. Nobody yawned.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, we watched—again and again—as jumbo jets vaporized World Trade I and II. The toll for the day, 2,752 American bodies, mobilized a nation for war. Nobody yawned.
Mention the word “abortion,” though, and eyes glaze over.
Ironically, the bare facts are more hideous than Berg’s beheading or thousands of innocent people shredded, burned, or crushed by falling airliners: Every single day for 30 years more innocent Americans perished in abortion clinics than died on September 11, 2001.
Their bodies have been burned with chemicals (saline abortion), dismembered piece by piece (D&E abortion), shredded (suction abortion), or “beheaded” in utero: a living baby’s skull pierced with blunt surgical scissors and her brains vacuumed out mid delivery (partial birth abortion).
Yet many—even pro-lifers—still yawn at the word “abortion.” Why? One word: images.
Americans learn visually, by images, not arguments. Witness the beheading of Daniel Berg and words are unnecessary. Talk about abortion without the right images and people think only of “tissue” removal. No big deal.
To stop the yawns and revitalize interest—and seize this opportunity to change the law—pro-lifers must visually awaken moral sensibilities. They must move the debate from the abstract question of “choice” to the concrete issue of dead babies. They must show what abortion does. Otherwise, this opportunity will be lost and nothing will change.
The impact of seeing is powerful. To research an article on abortion for Harper’s, Verlyn Klinkenborg visited an abortion clinic. There he beheld the remains of a ten-week-old preborn child and recorded his candid impressions:
I felt a profound and unmistakable kinship with the shape implied by the foot and hand in the tray, a kinship so strong that it was like the rolling of the sea under my feet....I was surprised by my own sadness, by the sense of loss that I felt...In that tiny, naked hand there was the imputation of innocence.
I have stacks of letters from people, formerly pro-choice, confirming that graphic images are the single most effective tool to change minds on abortion.
The national debate on partial-birth abortion seriously undermined public support for abortion for one reason: It was visual. Pro-abortion columnist Naomi Wolf wrote, “When someone holds up a model of a six-month-old fetus and a pair of surgical scissors, we say, ‘choice,’ and we lose.”
Pro-lifers showed the seven-minute video Harder Truth to a legislative committee during debate on the bill. The pictures of babies killed through D&E and suction abortion were enough to shift discussions from “choice” to the killing itself. In a dramatic turn of events, New Jersey legislators—including liberal Democrats—vigorously supported limits on abortion.
The pro-abortion case was crippled precisely because legislators did not focus on what abortion does for the mother, but rather on what abortion does to the child.
Pro-lifers had forced abortion backers to do the one thing they didn’t want to do: defend killing babies. Pro-choice advocate Katherine Kohlbert admitted that if the debate is on what happens to the unborn, her side will “get creamed.”
Some say graphic visuals are manipulative. Of course it’s true we ought to avoid empty appeals to emotion offered in place of good reasons. If pictures substantiate the reasons rather than obscure them, though, they’re justified.
Truth is the issue. Wolf observes, “How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real?”
Using graphic images has a long and noble history. Virtually every human rights crusade has vividly depicted the plight of the persecuted, plundered, disenfranchised, and oppressed.
Movie theaters screened Schindler’s List for free to over 2,000,000 students, in spite of its gore. Pictures of mutilated bodies stacked like cordwood communicated the horror of the death camps in a way no lecture could.
Others say the tactic exploits the unborn. But as one of my staff noted, it’s always right for victims to testify on their own behalf. Through these images the babies speak for themselves.
Truthful images that show the human toll of abortion no more exploits pre-born children than a crucifix exploits Jesus when it’s used to show the toll of human sin on the Savior. Both vividly depict the consequences of evil and move us to remedy it.
Dramatic visual aids like Harder Truth must be used carefully, though. Viewers should be warned in advance of the graphic pictures and invited to look away if they prefer not to watch. They should be assured the purpose is not to condemn, but to clarify the truth of what’s actually at stake.
I used this approach with 750 high-schoolers at camp one summer. After making my case against abortion before the restless crowd I closed with this.
“I know many of you are still on the fence on this issue or maybe even pro-choice. Five minutes from now you won’t be. And I won’t have to say another word.”
Then I ran a short segment of Harder Truth showing an actual abortion and its remnants: the dismembered bodies of human infants.
When the lights came up, the only sound to break the stillness was the sound of weeping. And no one yawned.
Stand to Reason - Training Christian ambassadors in the areas of knowledge, wisdom, and character - www.str.org
Notice – The ministries featured in this section are guests of this site and very often not active members of debate forums. Additionally, this area is frequented and highlighted for guests who also very often are not acclimated to debate. As such, the rules of conduct here will be more strict than in the general forum. This will be something within the discretion of the Moderators, but we simply ask that you conduct yourselves in a manner considerate of the fact that these ministries are our invited guests. You can always feel free to start a related thread in general forum without such extra restrictions. Thank you.