CCBR volunteer Mingy Xu (right) from Ontario speaking one-on-one with a student at North Florida University.

This article from Mick Hunt, on location with the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) in Florida

Genocide Awareness Project 2014 Kicks Off in Florida
by Mick Hunt

Greetings from the only state in the union that didn’t receive snow last Wednesday … Florida.  We have brought the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to Florida for two weeks.  The Canadian CBR (CCBR) brought a team of perhaps 30 young people from all over Canada, from Vancouver in the west to Ontario in the east.  CBR is providing the GAP kit and truck, plus three of us older gentleman to help set up the display.  I’m here with my wife Edie; my specific duty is to make sure all operations are safe.

This week we’ve been one day on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University, way down in the southwest, near Fort Myers.  Then we spent two days on the opposite corner at North Florida University.  Next week it will be Florida State and Central Florida University.  Edie and I are leaving and Lincoln Brandenburg, CBR Project Coordinator for Georgia, will be taking my place for next week.

I’ve been involved in GAP for 10 years on perhaps 50 campuses.  Only one of those GAPs approached the kind of personal outreach I’ve seen this week with the group from Canada.   In Oklahoma, we had about 100 people come to our training session at a sponsoring church. Then during GAP most of those people came to the display.  At any point you could see 50 different conversations going on at any time.  It was amazing.  GAP this week has been like that on a smaller scale, but with great effectiveness.   The CCBR young people are well trained in prolife apologetics.  They are outgoing, and many of them have considerable experience in one-on-one debate/conversation.  I must say that it is encouraging to me to see young people involved on this level, some of them high school students.  The average age on the CCBR team is 23 years, which suggests that even their leaders are young.  Stephanie Grey, the Executive Director is only 33.  They are zealous and compassionate … both.  One of the leaders, Jonathan, told me that they are well aware of the importance of learning from us who have been around for awhile longer.  CCBR, I hope, reflects the future of the pro-life movement.

Youth and openness to wisdom are strengths, and their experience comes from going out to high schools on a weekly basis and talking with students on their lunch breaks.  You can see this in how they handle themselves.  The arguments and style have been honed by many 60-second conversations.  I’ve seen this so much this week.   Jonathan told me that they have notebooks full of testimonies about how people have become more pro-life on abortion.  I hope to be able to share some of those with you in the next few days.

But for now, we have a long drive ahead back home to snowy North Carolina today.

Stephanie Grey at Florida Gulf Coast University debating a professor (the larger fellow in a t-shirt) who brought out his class on “Art and Propaganda”.

Circle of Life

This report was filed by FAB correspondent Maggie Egger, Virginia Project Director, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.

The Circle of Life at GMU
by Maggie Egger
CBR Project Director

Engaging Passersby

Last week, George Mason University Students for Life held their first Choice Chain of the semester.  I joined five Mason students to form a circle with our signs in front of the student center.  We were seen from every angle; no one could miss us.

Johanna Young:  I regret my abortion.

Soon after we got in to position, there was a class change.  In the swarm of people, a young man briefly paused and said,

“I’ve seen you guys out here before. You’ve really changed my mind about abortion. Thank you.”

Wow!

A little later I spoke to a young man who claimed, among other things, that the preborn are not people and don’t have human rights.  I asked him “Why?”

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He said because they are not alive.  After we went through all the scientific evidence supporting the fact that they are indeed alive, he claimed that they aren’t human.

I asked him “What are their parents?”  He looked confused.

“What species do this embryo’s parents belong to?” I asked while pointing to my sign.

“They’re human, of course.”

“Okay, then all their offspring are human, right?  Humans can’t reproduce non-humans, can they?”

“Well, no they can’t.”  I could see the wheels start to turn in his head.  I waited a moment and then asked very calmly, “So, if the preborn are alive and human, why aren’t they people with human rights, too?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and then stopped himself.  He paused for a moment, still digesting all that we had just discussed.  Staring at my sign, again he started to speak, but couldn’t find any answer.  Then he said “I’m sorry, I’m gonna be late to class” and abruptly left.

I know he continued to think about it.  Maybe next time he will say, as one did earlier in the day,

“I’ve seen you guys out here before. You’ve really changed my mind about abortion. Thank you.”

The best way to protest abortion is to let abortion protest itself.  CBR’s Gregg Cunningham:

We don’t protest abortion.  We expose abortion.  Abortion protests itself.

It was certainly true at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) yesterday.  Link to TV news coverage/video here.  Quote:

The images are so graphic and disturbing some students left school for the day.

Wow.   They really can’t handle the truth.  But if abortion is such a great thing for women and for society and even for children, why do pictures of it make people so upset?

Interesting student comments:

1. Kaley Dietrich: “It makes you feel uncomfortable.  It makes you not feel safe on campus.”  [FAB: Dietrich feels uncomfortable because she has a functioning conscience.  She feels “not safe” because she can’t handle the truth and wants it to go away.]
2. Mike Malat: “It’s pretty disruptive … to have these big things shoved in your face all the time.  I mean you’re hear to learn objectively on what you want to learn.”  [FAB: Malat thinks that truth is disruptive.  He’s right; truth disrupts lying.  Note how effective the pictures are.  We go to FGCU every year or two, but in Malat’s mind, it’s “all the time.”]
3. Kaley Dietrich: “Were not trying to limit their free speech, …  But we do want students to be able to choose whether they see these images or not.”  [FAB: In other words, Dietrich wants to choose which images get seen and which do not.]

Above: Mark Wolf (Ohio) speaks to one student as CBR volunteer Julie Thomas (Georgia) looks on. Julie is wearing a t-shirt that says “I regret my abortion. Ask me about it.”
Below: Mark speaks with Alex Godbey, the president of Students for Life at EKU. Alex is already a great leader for the pro-life movement.

“Do you believe in welfare for women who become pregnant?”

Olivia, a student at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) asked this question of CBR volunteer Mark Wolf.  Usually, questions like this are simply attempts to change the subject.  They don’t want to talk about the decapitation and dismemberment of little human beings, so they bring up every conceivable societal problem known to man.  If pro-lifers can’t solve all of them, then abortion must be retained as the solution of final resort (the final solution?).  And not just for mothers who face difficult circumstances, but for all mothers.

EKU was our third stop on a 2-week GAP trip through Kentucky.  It was our third visit to that campus, the latest being in April 2011.  It was cold, but we didn’t let that deter us from winning hearts, changing minds, and saving lives at EKU.  Media coverage:

• Anti-abortion display on Powell Corner

Olivia pressed her point, “Do you support free access to contraception?”

Mark pointed to one of the 10-week abortion photos (a picture of a hand and an arm on a dime) and asked, “Is it ever morally justifiable to do this to another human being?”  Her eyes moved to the picture and focused on the remains of the child, and she struggled with the reality of abortion as if she saw it for the very first time.

Mark gave her time to process the image.  When she again tried to change the subject, Mark described what happened in a D&E abortion, and asked her if it is ever morally acceptable to do that to another human being.  She again stared at the image and struggled with what she saw.  Finally she said that she would have to “get [her] sources” and then she walked away.

Of course some people change their minds right there on the spot.  But many, like Olivia, need time to consider the facts and weigh the arguments.  Let us pray for Olivia and many more like her who are struggling with the truth they saw on campus last week.

Maybe Olivia will become the next Julie:

Meredith Hunt and the other CBR volunteers are the true reporters and journalists at Berea College.

CBR volunteer Meredith Hunt reports on CBR’s recent Choice Chain at Berea College.  Hunt is a veteran GAPper, having taken our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to more than 50 universities.  Read more of his thoughts and works at www.lifeadvocates.blogspot.com and www.chaoticterrain.com.

God Made All Peoples
By Meredith Eugene Hunt

Taking our handheld “Choice” signs to Berea College on Friday, November 8 was a homecoming for me.

When Fletcher told me about the GAPs planned for Northern Kentucky U, Eastern Kentucky U, and the U of Kentucky, it seemed natural to go to nearby Berea on the extra in-between day.   That weekend, quite literally was Homecoming at Berea.  Since my youngest son is now a student there, my wife and I, both of us alums, have special impetus to become involved in the college again.

Years ago, when I was a Berea student, I attended a convocation at which the speaker spoke on abortion as a silent holocaust, and that presentation, I’m sure, was a factor in leading me into full-time pro-life work.  My son said that the college, having become far more liberal since then, would never have such a speaker now.  Not that they would boast of it, but Berea graduate Dr. Willie J. Parker (class of 1986) is an outspoken abortion advocate and practicing late-term abortionist.  He’s been the “medical director” of Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC and he is the 2013 winner of the “2013 George Tiller, MD, Abortion Provider Award,” whatever that is.  Parker is not only an abortionist but is also a “Christian,” he says.  He explained last year (May 27, 2012) in the New Jersey Star Register (link here),

In listening to a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, I came to a deeper understanding of my spirituality, which places a higher value on compassion. King said what made the good Samaritan “good” is that instead of focusing on would happen to him by stopping to help the traveler, he was more concerned about what would happen to the traveler if he didn’t stop to help.  I became more concerned about what would happen to these women if I, as an obstetrician, did not help them.

Parker doesn’t seem to notice that in the Good Samaritan story, he is the violent robber who leaves the traveler in the ditch, naked, and bleeding.

Berea College, too, projects a skewed, incomplete perspective on certain aspects of Christianity.  When college president Roelofs learned of our intention to bring Choice signs for students to see them as they crossed the highway that intersects the campus, he sent out a campus-wide e-mail.   In the e-mail he wrote these words:

“In 2003, our community (persons from Berea College, the City of Berea, local churches, and others) developed the following statement expressing our collective commitment to “love over hate,” and it seems appropriate to revisit this thinking:

“For God so loved the world .. . that’s all of us!  United and Diverse.  We believe all people have been created in the image of God and are loved by God.  We believe this divine origin and love invests each person with an inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  We believe God’s love toward us is not dependent upon our condition or actions.  God loves all because God is love.”

It seems clear from the rest of the letter that Berea College does not include children before birth in the human family.  That they are not created in the image of God, are not loved by God, do not have inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  That love for pre-natal children is dependent on conditions.

Or maybe they weren’t thinking about abortion at all when they composed their statement.  Perhaps they should have been.  But that’s why we brought the images and printed arguments to Berea.

During our GAP tour I led a short devotional with the team each morning.  Before Berea, my text was, from Philippians 4, “Let your gentleness be known to all.  The Lord is near.”

The students who passed us were respectful.  True, a couple female professor types stood back out of brochure range as they waited for the light to change, but by-and-large everyone else was either friendly or receptive to our presence.  We handed out more than 1000 brochures entitled “Unmasking Choice.”  A black student asked one of our people, “Is this a religious organization?”  The answer essentially was no.  “That’s why your arguments are so cogent!” he said with enthusiasm and waving one of the brochures.  CBR is an organization of Christians, but we primarily make secular and scientific arguments as to why abortion is wrong.

Passersby (that is, drivers in vehicles) often responded, and most indicated strong support.   Berea is a liberal college in the middle of a rural, conservative region, and you could see that clearly.  A few people pulled over to get out and make a comment, or people just gave a thumbs up or called out encouragement.   A few didn’t know if we were for abortion or against it, but it’s hard to imagine how anyone could think  people who supported the choice to abort a child would show pictures of that dead child.  But some people get confused that way.  Innocent unsophistication, I guess.

We also had the Choice Truck driving up and down the road for most of the four hours we were there.  A US Marine Corps medical corpsman in dress uniform and at Berea for homecoming stopped to talk and thank us.  I spent a good deal of time talking with the director of campus safety.  He was my age and had had long experience as a police chief and with security for governmental leaders.

The editor of the student newspaper, The Pinnacle came by for a while.  He wrote an editorial that favorably compared our use of graphic imagery with a similar approach for issues important to him, such as war and mountain-top removal in coal mining.  He did however say that our “protest” was not much newsworthy.  “I didn’t see anything particularly timely or gripping about this demonstration,” he wrote.  “Did this particular group break any new information about abortion?  No they did not.”

Probably he’s right.  But it’s a sad state of affairs when the aborting of children in the womb is so customary, routine, and “old” that it can’t be news.   We are in a sorry condition when cogent arguments against the ongoing legal killing of children don’t break any new information.

In the instance of us bringing the graphic images to Berea College, we were the true reporters and journalists.  We were the media, the “guardian of the student’s right to know,” (echoing the byline of The Pinnacle).  This information about abortion was new to most of those students.  We brought that missing convocation out on the sidewalk, and hopefully some student will make a decision for life for her baby, or will someday become a pro-life activist, or won’t become another misguided Dr. Willie J. Jackson.  By advocating for children in the womb, we represent a missing element in the fulfillment of Berea’s motto, taken from the Bible, “God made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

Let’s go back again soon.

We passed out more than 1,000 pro-life brochures in just a few hours at Berea College.

A Choice Truck at Berea College expands our reach many-fold.

U of Kentucky student studies the similarity between abortion, the Holocaust, and Slavery. In each case, the highest court declared the vicims to be non-persons.

I posted this comment on the Kentucky Kernel story on our GAP at the University of Kentucky.  Please go and add your own comments!

For the people who don’t like us to compare abortion to the Holocaust, the answer is simple. This is all you have to do:

1. Overturn Row v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that declared preborn children as non-persons. (In 1936, the Reichsgericht declared Jews to be non-persons.)
2. Don’t use dehumanizing words to describe the human beings you advocate killing, e.g., words like products of conception, parasite, potential life, mass of cells, blob of tissue, not a person, etc. (Nazis called their victims rats, pigs, vermin, untermensch, etc.)
3. Don’t say that abortion makes our society better by getting rid of unwanted children. (Nazis declared that they were making their society better by getting rid of inferior … i.e., unwanted … people.)
4. Don’t frame your argument in the language of “choice.” (Nazis asserted that the racial makeup of the German nation was an internal matter for the German people to decide; they also emphasized Hitler’s choice, his “Will to Power,” as a Nazi propaganda film put it.)

If the abortion industry and their apologists would quit saying and doing things that remind us so much of the Nazi era, the similarities might become less obvious.

Stay tuned to FAB for more on GAP at the U of Kentucky.  Read the Kentucky Kernel story here.  Please go and add your own comments!

Bryan McKinney with daughter Elizabeth.

A group of Black women approached CBR volunteer Bryan McKinney at Northern Kentucky University (NKU).  Bryan had joined us for the entire Kentucky GAP tour, along with his wife Christy and his 2-year-old daughter Elizabeth.  What an awesome family!

Shirby Ferguson, President of the Black United Students (BUS), told Bryan that BUS officers and members had e-mailed and texted her about the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) display.  They were upset about the use of lynching photos in our display.  Shirby said none of them had the courage to come out and speak with us, so she was there representing all of them.

Before long, Shirby and Bryan were engrossed in dialogue that lasted well over half an hour.  Bryan explained that CBR’s entire operating philosophy comes from the King family.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) said that America would never reject racism until America saw racism.  Dr. King’s niece, Dr. Alveda King, now says that, in the same way, America will never reject abortion until America sees abortion.

MLK compared racial injustice to the Holocaust on many levels, particularly with respect the dehumanization of their intended victims.  Additionally, MLK knew people needed to see pictures of racial injustice to understand the plight of the Black man, just like they needed to see pictures of the death camps to understand the horror of the Holocaust.

Once Bryan explained that MLK and other social reformers in US history had used images to help change hearts and minds, Shirby immediately changed her mind about our display.  She had been pro-life already, but she had not understood why our display used the comparisons that we did.  She stayed for over an hour to speak with other volunteers and staff members, accompanied by BUS members.

Bryan also mentioned that, as a white man, images of racial injustice were the closest he could ever come to understanding her personal connection with the injustice of racism.  On the other hand, images of Holocaust victims were the closest she could ever come to understanding his personal connection with the Holocaust, a time during which several of Bryans relatives were killed.

CBR Southeast Director and FAB author Fletcher Armstrong trots out an imaginary toddler to ask if “personal choice” were a sufficient justification to kill a toddler. (There isn’t, because the toddler is a human being.) “So, if a preborn child is a human being in the same way that the toddler is a human being, wouldn’t it be wrong to kill him as well?”

At Northern Kentucky University (NKU), we were treated to a steady stream of passersby who saw the pictures and were forced to think about abortion in a new way.

One such man said that there was no abortion in the Middle East, where he comes from.  (We doubt that, by the way.)  However, because abortion is legal in the USA, he had come to believe it must be OK.  Seeing abortion pictures changed all of that.  He told CBR Project Director Maggie Egger, “I hadn’t thought much about it, but it’s legal so I assumed it was okay.  These pictures are terrible.  You’ve really opened my eyes.  Abortion is not okay.”

CBR volunteer Laurice Baddour spend several hours breaking down the pro-abortion protesters who showed up.  She has a unique way of endearing herself to people by simply loving them, right where they stand.  Several admitted to her that their signs of protest didn’t mean they completely supported abortion.  One said, “I’m only holding this sign because my friend told me to!”

Please keep in your prayers a young man who saw the pictures and told CBR staffer Renee Kling that he had gotten a girl pregnant in his home country.  Even though he knew abortion was horrible, he didn’t understand just how evil it was, so he and his girlfriend chose abortion.  He said, “I carry that guilt with me.”  Renee invited him to speak with Lisa, our post-abortive volunteer and showed him how to connect with people in the community who could help.

Renee Kling uses the photos behind her to prove abortion is a savage act of violence that kills a living human baby.  In the background, a crowd gathers to talk about the GAP display and what it means.  In between, a young lady studies the photos.

It’s important to show people what abortion really is, because until people feel uncomfortable about it, and realize what it really is, they’re not going to change.  You are not going to get the laws changed, or people’s hearts changed.

So said Ella Beckman, President of Northern Right to Life (NRL), the student pro-life group at Northern Kentucky University (NKU).  Ella is an excellent spokesperson, as you can see.

NKU was the first stop on our November tour through Kentucky, which will include stops at Berea College, Eastern Kentucky U, and the U of Kentucky (Lord willing).  More about those later.

We are always amused at the arrogance of people who believe freedom of speech is for them alone, but not for anyone else who dares to disagree.  Stephanie Knoll, an undecided freshman, was quoted in The Northerner (the student newspaper), “Whether or not people agree, abortion is their choice and they shouldn’t be trying to shove their opinions down everyone’s throats, especially not with images …”

In other words, killing a baby is OK, but to express your opinion against abortion is not OK.  To support your opinion with evidence is even worse.  Riiiiiight.

The Northerner reported that Rosa Christophel posted via her Facebook account, “NKU is a learning institution not an abortion clinic.  I can’t believe this is allowed.”  We agree on both counts:

1. NKU is a learning institution.  On Wednesday and Thursday, thousands of students learned the truth about abortion.
2. We also can’t believe abortion is allowed in a civilized society.

Sign-holding protesters (right side of walkway) draw big crowds at Auburn University. They tried to defend the indefensible, but could not. Having failed that, they called us names or simply tried to change the subject. But all of it focused attention on GAP and abortion.

History is clear on this point: injustice can be defeated only by reformers who confront evil and accept persecution from angry defenders of the status quo.  People who exploit others are enraged when their cruel tyranny is threatened.  When William Wilberforce used pictures to win the debate over slavery, he was attacked in the newspapers, physically assaulted, and even threatened with death.  But he showed the pictures anyway.

Conflict is not only an indicator that the status quo is threatened; it is also a facilitator of change.  It focuses public attention in ways nothing else will.  Dr. Martin Luther King said, “I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’  I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.”  This tension created a public forum in which racists were forced to defend segregation.  They could not do it, so the reformers won.

Images like this educated the public on the evils of slavery. Additionally, they created the kind of tension/conflict that (a) forced the public to think about slavery and (b) created a public forum that forced slave traders to defend the indefensible.

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When funding or timing prevents us from taking our huge GAP display, we can still win hearts, change minds, and save lives by invading campus with a few “Choice” signs!  Here we are at Tennessee Tech University (TTU).

This was an excellent target because TTU is another school which allows citizens to reserve space for displays, without requiring a student invitation.

On this day, we identified 5 freshmen willing to form a pro-life club on campus!

At upper-right is CBR SuperDuperVolunteer Gary Johnson, who is in a special category all his own!  He is a real blessing to everywhere he goes.  We just need to take him more places!  That’s where your support comes in.  Link here to send Gary to more places … to bless more students!

Below, Deeper Still and CBR volunteer Debbie Picarello can engage students at a very different level than Gary ever could do.  Link here to help Debbie bring hope and healing to post-abortive women … and  men!

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We would love to display our huge Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at every major university ever year.  But when funding or timing prevents GAP, we can still win hearts, change minds, and save lives by invading campus with a few “Choice” signs!  Here we are at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU).

This was an excellent target because MTSU is one of many schools where we can reserve a good space without a student invitation.

At upper-right is long-time CBR volunteer Kathy Hardin.  She and her whole family have been a huge blessing to CBR and to many babies and moms.  Below is Kathy’s daughter Karine, who first graced the cyberpages of FAB in 2011.  She’s come a long way since Armenia!  At MTSU, Karine was a force to be reckoned with.  She asked anyone and everyone to take a pro-life pamphlet (bearing abortion photos, of course) and almost nobody refused.

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A simple country boy who can give a decent interview

Great video covering our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

Please help us take this message to more students.  Support Pro Life on Campus with your generous gift of $1000, $500, or $100.

Or even better, join our monthly support team.  Whatever you can afford to give your local cable TV company, you can afford to spend on winning hearts, changing minds, and saving lives.  Remember, a little baby’s life is at stake.

Anna Maher and another SFL member talk about “choice” with a GMU student. They use a CBR “Choice” sign because they know the word has no meaning without the photo.

Social reformers like William Wilberforce and Dr. Martin Luther King knew they must avoid, at all costs, one particular sin.  They could not allow themselves to be ignored.  They could be unpopular, but they could not be irrelevant.

Anna Maher explains how she is forcing students to think about abortion at George Mason University (GMU):

Since having GAP 2 years ago at George Mason University, we aren’t popular on campus … but everyone knows who we are.  Our last event was packed out.

Not only did they display GAP, the GMU Students for Life regularly display hand-held “Choice” signs.  What an inspiration for all of us!

This photo was taken earlier this month. We thank God for young warriors like these!

GAP creates modulated conflict that draws a crowd and creates a forum in which abortion advocates are forced to defend the decapitation and dismemberment of little human beings.

In Part 1, FAB reported on a recent column in the University of Alabama student newspaper attacking the Bama Students for Life, apparently for hosting GAP in April.  I responded, and now John Speer has answered:

Sir, you don’t present any reasoned arguments. You offer an emotional appeal which is heartfelt, but lacking in any substantive evidence. You want to shame me by reducing the discussion to absurdity-either I want to kill babies or I don’t. There is more substance to the argument than my feelings. I don’t like abortions, but I have no right to tell an individual what they can or cannot do with their body. Please research some facts on infant mortality, lack of access to prenatal care, and the dangers of pregnancy.

Moreover, I did not call for censorship, I said guidance, also known as teaching.  In other words, we should lead by example and demonstrate to students what respectful debate should resemble. I cannot respect students who engage endorse BSFL tactics. I apologize, but that is the reality. There are pro-life groups I respect, BSFL is simply not one of them.

I responded:

Mr. Speer, thank you for your reply. I’d like to address your points.

The most important objection you raise is that we offered no arguments nor evidence for our position, only an emotional appeal. But in fact, that objection is easily rebutted because the pictures of abortion are the very best evidence that abortion is a violent act that decapitates and dismembers a small human being. I’ll take for granted that we all agree killing human beings is wrong, so why is it OK to kill certain human beings that are smaller and more defenseless than ourselves? Call me crazy, but it seems to me that the burden of proof lies with those doing the killing. Pejoratives and ad hominems do not make your case.

You are right to object to telling an individual what she can do with her own body. We all agree to that. But when an individual intends to carry out an act of violence that kills another human being without justification, then a civilized society is compelled to intervene, to protect the weaker from the stronger. We have a whole host of laws that prevent one person from acting to kill another (laws against murder), harm another (e.g., laws against assault, fraud, etc.), or put another person at risk of harm (e.g., laws against speeding).  All of these laws restrict the choices of people who would harm others.

People who advocate systematic injustice often couch their arguments in the language of choice. Even Stephen Douglas stated that he was opposed to slavery, but he believed that the Southern states should have the right to choose whether to be slave states or free states. At a personal level, people in those states were completely free to exercise choice in whether to own a slave or not. With systematic injustice, everyone gets a choice but the victim.

I know of no facts on infant mortality or lack of access to prenatal care that would justify killing an innocent human being. Regarding the dangers of pregnancy, we make a compelling case that abortion is justified when the life of the mother is in danger. In the case of ectopic pregnancy, for example, removing the baby to save the life of the mother is the only bio-ethically sound alternative.

You absolutely did call for censorship. You said that the BSFL should be “monitored” and given “strong guidance” because they are “uninformed.” Apparently, uninformed means “disagrees with Mr. Speer and his friends.” Of course, you wouldn’t submit to monitoring and “strong guidance” for your own column. In your mind, that wouldn’t be necessary because you are not “uninformed.” Let’s apply your rule both ways. If I claim your column offended me as much as our pictures offended you, and if I claim that your leftist views are a “high-profile disaster” for the entire country, shouldn’t you be subjected to special government monitoring and “strong guidance” as well?

Who is going to decide whose speech needs to be monitored and strongly guided and whose is not? You? Would you be for “strong guidance” if I (or somebody like me) were assigned by the government to monitor you and strongly guide you in the preparation of your column? Call me a simple country boy — which I am — but the line between “strong guidance” and censorship is impossible to discern, especially when it is applied only to certain people (i.e., those who disagree with Mr. Speer and his friends).

You say that you want respectful debate. Imbedded in that claim are two false assertions. First, you imply that the debate surrounding our GAP display was not respectful. On what do you base that claim? Despite enduring many ad hominem attacks throughout both days, we were able to have hundreds of respectful encounters with people who disagreed with us. Some resulted in changed minds. Some concluded with a handshake and a promise to respect each other despite our differing points of view. If you didn’t see that, you just were not looking. Second, your version of “respectful” is that you control the terms and conditions of the debate. You seem to be saying that showing pictures in public is not respectful and comparing the mass slaughter of preborn human beings to the mass slaughter of other people groups is not respectful. In other words, you want a debate in which we don’t present our evidence nor make our arguments. Or maybe you just want the debate to happen behind closed doors, where few people will see it. We don’t think it is disrespectful to show people pictures of reality.

Finally, regarding respect, we ask for none. Social reformers don’t expect to be popular, especially among defenders of injustice. We don’t care what people think of us, nearly as much as we care what people think of abortion. However, we do insist that our unalienable right of free speech be respected.