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FAB undercover operatives an e-mail that was sent to the parents of Liberty Christian Academy, which was previously posted here on FAB.  CBR Florida Director Mike Schrimsher responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Patterson,

I am the Florida regional director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and took part in the recent visit to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. I watched your interview that was included in the abc13 WSET-TV news coverage and read your letter that was sent out to LCA parents last week. Please allow me to provide some details and clarification about our visit.

We agree that the pictures of aborted babies are “very graphic” but I’m not sure what you mean when you refer to them as “insensitive”. I assume you mean that either their public display is insensitive or perhaps that we are insensitive for displaying them publicly. We also agree that our graphic images of aborted fetuses are jarring and offensive to many viewers, precisely because these images accurately portray the horror of abortion, and abortion itself is very offensive, and insensitive, especially to unborn babies. Abortion is an act of violence which kills a baby and wounds his or her mother, and it is worse than many people think, even in the first trimester (first 12 weeks) when 90% of abortions are performed.

Most Americans, including pro-life Christians, are not bothered enough about abortion to stop the killing and they need to be jarred and offended into action to defend those who are being taken away to slaughter. (Proverbs 24:11-12) I hope that the hundreds who complained and sought protection for their born children from our abortion pictures will also take action to protect unborn children from abortion procedures.

While we did not set up any of our displays at entrances to LCA, we know that some parents drove past our display across from Hardees on their way to LCA and that our trucks did pass by the LCA campus on their way to and from the entrances along the east side of Liberty University. Clearly, the focus of our visit was Liberty University as we maintained our displays only at LU entrances and focused the driving of our trucks on the LU perimeter. Undoubtedly, however, people of all ages, young and old, saw our trucks as we drove on Lynchburg roads around Liberty.

You should know that we wrote and called Liberty University, requesting a meeting to work out the details of a visit on the LU campus similar to our frequent visits to secular public universities. This would have enabled us to interact almost exclusively with college students and staff, but we received no response of any kind from Liberty and were left with the choice of doing nothing at Liberty or designing a visit to the borders of Liberty’s campus. We chose the latter.

We know of only one contact with someone who may have been an LCA representative. A lady who parked in the Hardees parking lot came over and spoke to one of our ladies on Tuesday morning and requested that we take down or move the sign(s) near Hardees during the morning drop-off and we did discuss and voluntarily comply with her request that morning. Also, later in the week we dropped that location and focused on the other 2 locations.

Again, I hope that similar time and energy will be invested in efforts to stop baby-killing as were expended to research how LCA and LU might “curb political speech on public property”. On future visits to Lynchburg, I think it would be reasonable for us to coordinate with LCA to limit driving our trucks past LCA’s campus during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up times, and LCA parents might choose to avoid our signs near Hardees by using another route while we are there. However, while it is understandable to shield pre-school and elementary school children from abortion imagery, most middle school students and practically all high school students should be made aware of the reality of abortion in America: who the unborn baby is and what abortion ~legally~ does to him or her. Anyone old enough to make a baby or have an abortion is old enough to see abortion.

Please let me know if you have any additional comments or questions and I will be pleased to respond.

Thank you for your service in the U.S. military to help protect America, and for your ministry with students at Liberty Christian Academy.

Michael A. Schrimsher
CBR-Florida Regional Director

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Earlier, we posted a message from Warren Wilson, a student at Liberty, along with a response written by CBR Florida Director Mike Schrimsher.  Here is my response:

Dear Mr. Wilson,

If you are committed enough to want to end abortion, and I don’t doubt that you are, you owe it to yourself to study the history of social reform. If you look at the work of other reformers (William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, the American abolitionists, Lewis Hine, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few), you will discover that they all used graphic images to help people relate to the humanity of the victims of injustice and the horror of the crime itself. I would challenge you to name one injustice that was ever eradicated by covering it up.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought about dramatic changes in our society, even ending segregation in less than 10 years. Was he wrong when he said this?:

We bring [injustice] out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Dr. King also said, “America will never reject racism until America sees racism.”

Was Dr. King wrong? Other civil rights leaders thought so. They criticized him for making people uncomfortable about injustice. But he knew that unless people became uncomfortable with respect to the status quo, there would be no pressure for change. They told him some of the same things you and other Liberty students are telling us. They told him that he was making it harder for them, that he was undoing all the good that they had done, that he was making them look bad by association, that he was an outsider who should not come to Birmingham. But he went to Birmingham, anyway. He was arrested, and he wrote his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I hope you will read it. If you are going to invest yourself in the work of social reform, you ought to read the works of others who have done it before you.

Because some in the civil rights movement would not expose injustice, Dr. King called them “civil rights moderates” and said that they were more dangerous to the cause of civil rights than the Ku Klux Klan.

You said that we were neither winsome nor loving. But how is it loving to cover up the truth so that people don’t know how evil abortion really is? How is it loving to allow people to sin out of ignorance, when showing them the truth can lead them to obey God’s commands? When Christians see the horror of abortion, they are more likely to obey God’s command not to kill their own children (Mark 10:19). Furthermore, they are more motivated to protect and defend the defenseless (Proverbs 24:11-12). And finally, they more fully understand their duty as Christian leaders to teach other believers to do the same (Matthew 28:20).

You call out materials “extremist, hateful propaganda.” Can you give me one example of an extreme or hateful statement in any of our materials?

You mentioned that our people heckled you and your friends, that we yelled, condemned, and shoved posters in your face. I find that very hard to believe. All of our staff and volunteers sign an agreement that they will never shout at people and that they may offer literature but never pressure people to take it. If any of our people violated our very strict rules, then please provide me with additional details (who, what, where, etc.), so that I can put a stop to it.

[Note: since this e-mail was sent, we have determined that one CBR volunteer may have said something like, “I thought this was a Christian university.”  This comment would have been a violation of our rules, but hardly the yelling, condemnation, shoving pictures in faces, etc. that was described in Mr. Wilson’s e-mail. — FAB]

After you have read Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, please read my letter to Liberty University (which you can link to from www.ProLifeOnCampus.com). I look forward to hearing from you.

Fletcher

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Trucks and signs at Liberty University Bookstore.

We got a message from a Liberty student who objected to our presence outside the campus.  We’ll call him “Warren Wilson.”  Here’s what “Warren” had to say:

I am a student at Liberty University where your organization has been picketing the past week. I need to preface by saying I agree with the message of what you all were saying. I am extremely pro-life. Its an issue I care about. I’ve worked at the Right to Life Booth at the North Carolina State Fair with my family for years. I typically vote for pro-life candidates. I believe abortion is never right and in every situation it is murder.

At the same time, I must express extreme disapointment in you and your organization. Your signs and billboards are disgusting. By using such graphic displays, you are not winsome or loving. Your methods are offensive which cause people to be defensive. If those images were in a film or on a website where you made a warning before showing them, that would be different but thrusting them in people’s faces while they are just walking by is inapropriate. To be convincing, we need to love people and be winsome. The Bible even instructs us to be winsome in our methods of talking to people. You will never shock someone into changing their minds. Perhaps in the future your organization can use more effective methods instead of fringe, extremist, hateful propaganda.

Your people also heckled me and my friends while we were just walking by. Not to mention using their children to hand out your graphic, gruesome pamphlets. We are probably a 97% pro-life campus. It rubs people the wrong way to yell, condemn, or shove posters in their face. I hope you will listen with an open mind and make changes to legitimize your organization in the future.

In Christ,
“Warren Wilson”
1 Tim. 1:15

CBR Florida Director Mike Schrimsher responded:

Dear Warren,

Thank you for writing us about your concerns. We agree with you that our signs and billboards are disgusting and offensive because they accurately portray that abortion is disgusting and offensive, even during the first trimester when most abortions (90% of them) are performed. It is disappointing to us that fellow pro-lifers are just as eager to cover up the horror of abortion as pro-aborts. I’m not aware of any “winsome” way to display abortion, but it is absolutely loving to show young men and women who are the most vulnerable to abortion (18 to 24 year olds) exactly who the unborn baby is and what abortion does to that baby. Folks who are experiencing an unplanned “crisis” pregnancy make life or death decisions over a short time span that are irreversible. Our images regularly save lives and help bring post-abortive men and women to repentance. We hear it and see it again and again. However, when someone knows the truth that abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby, and yet they insist upon making a fully informed decision to have an abortion, or pay for it, or support it, or coerce it, or fail to oppose it, then that individual should feel defensive, and guilty.

You are correct that it is better when we are able to put up warning signs around our displays. Unfortunately, since we were unable to gain access to a more ideal location on the Liberty University campus, our space was limited and so were our options. Please visit our website abortionNO.org to see a film with a warning at the beginning and other examples of our signs. However, it is not correct to say that we were “thrusting them in people’s faces while they (were) just walking by”. Our signs were stationary and our staff merely offered brochures to passersby. It sounds like you might prefer to limit your pro-life efforts to “loving, winsome” methods that focus on the pregnant woman’s visible crisis and ignore the more urgent hidden crisis of the unborn baby, with primary emphasis on post-abortion counseling. I think it would be very enlightening if we could swap Bible verses. You may want to re-read the gospels and be reminded of Jesus’ teaching methods. You may not believe it, but we regularly “shock someone into changing their minds”. Please let us know about your “more effective methods”. We are eager to abolish abortion as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, you know very well that our materials are not “propaganda” and your use of terms like “fringe, extremist, hateful” to describe our work would enable you to fit right in at a Planned Parenthood or NARAL or NOW meeting.

I sincerely doubt that our people “heckled” you and your friends, but I know that it is possible, so please provide as many details as you can remember so that we may correct the individual(s). I certainly hope that you and your friends are more offended by the gruesome death of aborted babies than you were by having live children hand out “gruesome pamphlets” with pictures of aborted babies. I’m sure you know that there may be some Liberty students who will have sex outside of marriage, have an unplanned pregnancy and consider abortion. But even if Liberty is in fact a “97% pro-life campus” then what better place to find activists who will not only choose life for their own babies, but also protect the most defenseless among them and persuade others not to kill their babies either. We did not “yell, condemn or shove posters” in anyone’s face and these unfounded accusations do not help us “listen with an open mind”. Perhaps the graphic images themselves were so powerful that they made you feel heckled, yelled at, or condemned, etc. Or perhaps the contrast between exuberant children enjoying life right next to graphic abortion images was just too jarring for you. In any event, we don’t really care whether or not you think our organization is legitimate. We care what you think about abortion and what you are going to do to help stop it.

Sincerely,
Michael A. Schrimsher
CBR Florida Regional Director

Class change at UTC.

Another great day of GAP, this time at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  Early in the day, CBR Virginia Director Nicole Cooley spoke with Amber, whose mother had wanted to abort her.  Her father intervened to save her life, but her mother was a drug addict and abusive during her entire childhood.  The mother had even told her that she never wanted Amber.

But now Amber has made it all the way to UTC, where she is majoring in theatre.  She told Nicole that seeing the pictures in the GAP display has made her realize that every day is a gift, and she has resolved to make her life count.

Nicole prayed with Amber and told her that even though her mother didn’t plan her or want her, she had a Heavenly Father who both planned and loved her.

Debbie Picarello and Nicole Cooley speak with clarity about abortion and about our Savior. They are a light to hurting men and women.

Faithful volunteers like Debbie Picarello (right) make this project possible.

I got an e-mail from John Monaghan, the President of College Republicans at Radford University.  They hosted our GAP on their campus, which was a great success.  Here are a few of the things he told me:

I heard a great deal of positive feedback from both students and professors.  A friend of mine informed me that his Philosophy teacher was ecstatic we brought you all to campus and that everyone had a chance to be subject to the issue.  I really want to thank your staff and, of course, you for everything you did to make this happen.

It was a good thing most definitely and like I have told so many (who may have or may not have been in favor of the exhibit) that if only one person who saw that exhibit chooses life over abortion after seeing that exhibit and being more educated, then we have done our jobs and saved a one of God’s miracles, a child’s life.

***

The one thing I was appalled at was how unsupportive my fellow students and Radford professors are of the First Amendment.  Freedom of Speech is what makes this country great and many of my peers and professors fail to understand there is always a differing viewpoint.  In Academia, sadly, the liberal push and spin is spread daily and students must decipher what is to be believed and what is the liberal spin that most professors add on.

***

I was able to sign up an additional 38 names during Club Fair last Friday.  I think a lot of that was due to the GAP exhibit, so thank you for that.  My roommate will also be sending out an e-mail to all of the pro-lifers CBR signed up and either asking them to join College Republicans or asking one of them to step up and create Radford for Pro-Life Group.  I think either way, it would be a benefit to this campus.

Once again, thanks so much. Please tell your staff it was wonderful meeting them all.  If you are ever near Radford or Blacksburg, give me a call–I still owe you lunch!

Thanks, John.  You may owe me lunch, but we all owe you so much more!

Radford University announced our presence with this inscription etched in the wall of the Student Center, overlooking the GAP display.

Students tell us that the opinion among Liberty U students was divided.  Some appreciated our efforts to expose the deeds of darkness (Ephesians 5:11); some did not.  That was not a surprise.

But several of our staff members noticed something very different about the reaction of Liberty University students to our presence.  The people who objected were almost all men.  They seemed to believe that they were all pro-life enough, and we shouldn’t bother them any more about it.  (They didn’t realize that one of our our primary goals was to bother them about abortion, so that they would do something about it.)  They listened politely to our explanations, but you could see the skepticism was still there.

The women, however, all seemed to get it.  They didn’t claim that their classmates were all pro-life.  They understood the need for students to see the pictures, even at a Christian school like Liberty.

Could it be that the men didn’t get it because, as a group, men are much more adept at hiding (from each other) their involvement with sex, pregnancy, and abortion?

We are not being critical in this regard; we are just being realistic.  CBR’s Executive Director Gregg Cunningham recalls listening to a broadcast of James Dobson’s radio program, during which Dr. Dobson interviewed six Christian college presidents.  Dr. Dobson asked them if they had ever seen a pregnant student on their campuses.  To a person, they said no.  To a person, they all believed this was evidence that their students were living chaste lives.  Dr. Dobson was incredulous.  We are not.

Perhaps the women need to speak, and the men need to listen up.

Virginia Director Nicole Cooley can speak of her experience; the photos speak of the baby's experience.

On Thursday, we wrapped up our trip to Radford University in Radford, Virginia.  CBR Virginia Project Director Nicole Cooley spoke with many students who asked questions and concluded by saying that we had changed their minds.  She said she told her story of rape, abortion, and healing more often than ever before.

We were covered by the Roanoke Times, both here and here.

WDBJ-TV, which had reported earlier in the week on our visit to Liberty U, did a very slanted hit piece on our visit to Radford.  Although one-sided reporting is SOP for the national media, local media are usually much more even-handed in their reporting.  In all our years of being covered by local media, this was only the second story that could easily have been written by Planned Parenthood.  The other was in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2004, where a TV station covering our Key States Initiative referred to us as “anti-choice extremists.”

Perhaps we are naive at FAB, but we give you the benefit of the doubt.  You have to be really bad for us to notice.  This time, we noticed.  Not one of our people were interviewed for the WDBJ-TV story about our visit to Radford; only the pro-aborts were interviewed.  We offered to speak with them; they weren’t interested.  They also didn’t take note of our poll table, in which the results were fairly evenly divided between pro-life and pro-abortion.  Not good reporting … good comedy, though.

Meanwhile, back at Liberty U, we continued to reach students.  WSET-TV covered our continuing presence.  We placed several of our Scripture signs along a pedestrian route from dorms to the main part of campus.  More to come!

Signs at Liberty University Bookstore expose the reality of abortion.

GAP at Radford University

On Wednesday (yesterday), some of us slipped away from Lynchburg to take our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to Radford University.  We were invited by the Radford College Republicans.

This GAP was a bit unusual because we displayed during the very first week of classes.  We’ve never visited a school in August before, let alone two.  We have two more scheduled for week after next.

This is important for a couple of reasons.  First, we are reaching so many freshmen before they’ve even had a chance to get (or get a girlfriend) pregnant.  Also, by completing 4 GAPs this early, we still have time to visit even more schools later this semester … but only if we get the funding.  We depend solely on you, so please give generously; a baby’s life depends on it.

At Radford, nearly 30 pro-life students declared their support at our poll table.  We hope some of them will start a Students for Life club on campus.  The College Republicans were also busy, signing up at least 20 new members on Day 1.  GAP is an excellent membership recruiting platform, because it gets the attention of the most serious students and lets them know they can make a huge difference in the lives of others.

Work at Liberty University continues.  We’ve been joined by the Hardin Family GAP Team from White House, Tennessee, and the Hardwick Family GAP Team from Columbus, Ohio.  Darius Hardwick is CBR’s Midwest Region Director.  Several Liberty students have commented on earlier FAB postings.

More to come!  Please keep those cards and letters coming!

WDBJ-TV, the CBS affiliate in Roanoke, broadcast a story on our RCC/GAP at Liberty University.  It was very well done, except for their unwillingness to show what the display was all about: abortion.

But you gotta hand it to WDBJ.  They did something we were unable to do.  They got Liberty University to state their official policy toward abortion.  Unfortunately, Liberty is just like the pro-life church; they oppose abortion, but they also cover it up.  Out of sight and out of mind.  Liberty was quoted as saying this:

Liberty has always taken a strong pro-life position on the abortion issue, but it does not encourage the public display of the horrific images of the deaths of aborted babies in order to further the pro-life cause.

In other words, we can talk against abortion, but we won’t show people what it really is, even those who desperately need to know.  But can anybody provide even one example of a deadly social injustice that was ever eradicated by covering it up?

Compare this policy to that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who brought about dramatic changes in our society, even ending segregation in less than 10 years.  Was he wrong when he said this?:

We bring [injustice] out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.  Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Dr. King also said, “America will never reject racism until America sees racism.”

Was he wrong?  We’ve been asking that question for many years, and nobody … not one person … has ever stood up to defend the proposition that Dr. King was wrong.   We can name many historical examples that prove that his strategy of exposing injustice works.  People who criticize our our use of King’s stragegy to fight abortion can’t provide even one example to suggest hiding injustice works.

This all reminds me of that regular feature on Monday Night Football …  Liberty, you’re a university.  You’ve got a whole department of history.  C’mon man!

Hardin Family GAP Team

Did you know that White House is home to a family of pro-life missionaries like no other?  Ask yourself this question: Would you do this with 7 of your children?  Read on; it’s even more incredible than you think.

I’m talking about the Hardin Family of White House, Tennessee, just north of Nashville.  Yes, Mom and 7 children (3 teenagers and 4 younger children) are coming to Lynchburg, Virginia, for CBR’s outreach to Liberty University.  (See photo at right.)  They’ll drive 8 hours to get here, just so they can stand out in the hot sun holding GAP signs for members of the Liberty community.

Bright Eyes in the center of the photo is Karine, the newest member of the Hardin family. You may remember our story of her arrival from Armenia earlier this year.  This will be her first GAP!

This will be more Hardin’s than we’ve ever seen at one time! Because of the them and the rest of our traveling team, students at Liberty will see abortion in all its horror.  When Christians see the horror of abortion, they are more likely to obey God’s command not to kill their own children (Mark 10:19).  They are more motivated to protect and defend the defenseless (Proverbs 24:11-12).  They more fully understand their duty as Christian leaders to teach other believers to do the same (Matthew 28:20).

The Hardin’s are willing to come to bring truth in love to Liberty students.  (Others are coming from Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina.)  They offer themselves freely.  All they ask is their expenses.  Could you help us cover their expenses?  Here’s what it will cost to bring the Hardins:

• Gas: $250 (500 miles in a van big enough for 8!)
• Lodging: $250
• Food: $480 (ever try to feed 8 on the road?)

Your tax deductible gift to CBR (link here) will transport the Hardins and the rest of our team to Liberty University next week.  This is one of the most important GAPs we’ve ever done.  Please be as generous as you can, maybe even more so.  Thank you for saving babies and moms.

The "Art" of Abortion display at Artscape 2011 was visible to thousands.

This report from CBR Maryland Directors Kurt and Samantha Linnemann:

Artscape is the largest art festival in the country, bringing 350,000 people to Baltimore over a 3-day weekend.  We were strategically located in the center of the festival, where thousands upon thousands of people walked past our display.  In addition to 4 GAP signs and 3 hand-held “Choice” signs, we also displayed a banner that said, “The Art of Abortion, The Slaughter of The Innocent.”  All of the signs featured graphic pictures of abortion.  CBR volunteers handed out pro-life literature to passersby.

When we showed the signs, the Baltimore City Police threatened to arrest us.  We simply asked what we were going to be arrested for.  Knowing they had nothing to charge us with, they backed down.  Fifteen police officers stood by and watched our display go up and stay up for the following 3 hours.

Our photos precipitated many meaningful conversations.  But more importantly, thousands of young people, many of whom said they support abortion, were faced with the reality of what abortion does to an innocent human being.   Many were challenged to re-evaluate their pro-“choice” position.

Click here to view pictures from Artscape 2011 

The "Art" of Abortion at Artscape 2011 in Baltimore

A plea to the pro-life church.

I sometimes have the occasion to visit with pro-life pastors on behalf of the 1.2 million children being killed by abortion annually.  My plea is always the same: We can help you stop abortion in your church; we need your help to stop abortion in the culture.  The result is almost always the same: “No, thank you, we’re doing enough already.”

After one recent e-mail from a pastor, I wrote back (edited):

Thanks for getting back to me.  I wish that I could just delete your e-mail and go seek help where I can find it, but I feel as if it’s my duty to respond.

I don’t know much about your ministry, so some of what I have to say might not apply, but I would ask you to consider how much of this, if any, might be useful to you.

In all candor, I have to tell you that abortion is happening in America with the permission of the “pro-life” church.  We say we believe abortion is systematic murder, but we don’t act like we believe it.  I don’t know what you are already doing on behalf of unborn children at your church.  I can’t know all that you are doing.  But I can tell you that when we look at what the “pro-life” Church is doing as a whole in this country, it all adds up to almost nothing.  The lone exception is the network of pregnancy support centers that are run by Christians.  They do heroic work.  They are woefully under-funded, under-staffed, and under-visited by Christian couples who, in large numbers, patronize abortion clinics instead.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 1 in 5 women having an abortion identifies herself as a “born-again” or “evangelical” Christian, and the rate of abortion among practicing Catholics is almost the same as the rate of abortion in the general culture.

Christians are aborting their babies in staggering numbers and Church is not doing much at all to stop the killing, neither within the walls of the church nor in the culture at large.  Christians are complicit and/or complacent, in large measure, because nobody has shown them pictures that prove abortion is an act of violence.  They know only what the abortion industry has told them: that the preborn child is a blob of tissue and abortion is just the removal of some cells.  If we don’t show pictures of abortion in our churches, then babies are dying that might have been saved.

If we don’t show pictures of abortion in our communities, then babies are dying that might have been saved.  Every pro-life Christian leader with whom we converse believes that he, his ministry, and his church are doing everything they should be doing.  They are doing everything that God is calling them to do.  They make these claims despite the fact that they are not even warning their own young people of the horrifying truth of abortion.  Nor are they doing very much at all, if anything, to stop the killing outside the church.  This compels us to one inescapable conclusion: Either (1) God doesn’t care about abortion and truly is not calling His church to respond, or (2) God is calling His people to be a witness against evil, and His people simply are not answering His call.

We believe the latter to be the case.  In your e-mail, you mention that there are “widespread concerns about the approach” that we take to educating people about abortion, yet you never articulate what those concerns are.  I am particularly perplexed when I reflect on the fact that we are taking the exact same approach as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, the abolitionists of the 1800s, Lewis Hine, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In fact, even Jesus Himself used a horrifying graphic image to help us understand the consequences of sin.

Not trying to be flippant here, but what did all these guys do wrong?  If anybody on your leadership team would be willing to meet with me to discuss that question, I’d welcome the opportunity.   Frankly, if I’m wrong, I’m desperate to know that I’m wrong, so that I can change.  But if I’m right, then babies are dying that could have been saved.

If there is any progress to be made, I’m open to whatever next step you suggest.

This offer is open to all pro-life pastors.  Please contact me here to see (1) how we can help you stop abortion in your own church and (2) how you can help us stop abortion in the larger culture.

For many months, we have celebrated the conversion of Abby Johnson from abortion clinic director to pro-life activist.  Her conversion is highlighted in her new book, UnPlanned.  We’ve noted here that her conversion was based on seeing pictures of ultrasound.

Despite her support for using graphic image displays (like GAP and the JFA exhibit)  to educate college students about abortion, she has spoken against their use outside abortion clinics.  She reasons that the photos had no effect on her, nor on the women who saw the photos and had abortions anyway.  Of course, this reasoning fails to account for the women who saw the photos and never came into the clinic at all.

We were intrigued by this statement that she made on her Facebook page:

It wasn’t the graphic nature of the ultrasound that turned me away from abortion.  I had seen graphic images before. … I had worked in the lab where the body parts of babies were reassembled.  It was the humanity.  Seeing a child suffer and die, a child who should have been protected.  Humanity is present from the moment of conception.  We must fight to protect it!

This reminds us of something that Joel Belz (World Magazine) wrote a few years ago that we all thought was quite strange at the time:

… when I take issue with Mr. Cunningham’s gruesome pictures, it’s not because they are overly repugnant.  I take issue because they aren’t repugnant enough.  But gripping the heart of the viewer is a subtle matter.  (Not dramatic enough, Joel Belz, World Magazine, January 11, 2003)

Nobody but Belz had ever suggested that our abortion photos were not dramatic enough.  But he was hoping for an image that would capture the precise moment between life and death, the kind of image that Johnson saw on that ultrasound screen.  He went on:

Real emotional involvement comes not with an overly explicit portrayal of death—but with a nuanced portrayal of the delicate balance between death and life.  That’s why the candid photo of a young Vietnamese girl running naked down the highway to escape the horrors of napalm probably had as much influence in the late 1960s as any other single factor in turning American public opinion against the war in southeast Asia.  When the photographer snapped that picture, there were almost certainly plenty of dead bodies lying around.  But what memorably captured the hearts of onlookers around the world was the reality of a young woman teetering between life and death.  And that subtlety changed the course of a war.

Such subtlety has generally eluded us in the war against abortion.  We came close, perhaps, in that wonderful and widely circulated operating room photo a year ago showing a tiny baby’s hand reaching up through the incision in his mother’s abdomen.  But that very pro-life picture, breathtaking as it was, said nothing of the terror of abortion.

There were two other images from Vietnam that he could have mentioned (source):

1. The “Burning Monk” photo, taken June 11, 1963, when Thich Quang Duc sat down in a busy Saigon intersection and set fire to himself to protest the South Vietnamese government.
2. The “Tet Execution” photo, taken February 1, 1968,  captured the precise moment that a Viet Cong prisoner was executed at point-blank range by the chief of the South Vietnamese National Police.

Both of these photos also capture that moment between life and death that Belz was talking about.  We’re guessing that’s why these three photos were perhaps the three most influential photos of the Vietnam era.  Belz hoped that our movement would capture a similar image of abortion.

But until somebody takes that photo, we’ll keep showing the ones we have!  And to be fair, it would be wrong to assume that most people who see our pictures are operating at anywhere near the level of denial that Abby Johnson exhibited when she was running that clinic.  Her case is very atypical and not at all like most people we encounter.  Most people who see the photos, particularly young people, have not yet had one abortion, let alone run a clinic where thousands were performed.  They cannot sustain, at least not for very long, the level of denial that Johnson conjured up each of the many times she looked at abortion pictures outside, and dead bodies inside, that clinic.

Further, we’re convinced that Johnson’s seeing the abortion photos could have had a subconscious effect that actually did contribute to her eventual conversion.  That’s conjecture on our part, but it is quite possible that the photos played a role at the subconscious level that even Johnson doesn’t fully appreciate.

After seeing the images on the truck, she said, "I knew I had to choose life for my child."

We hear from lots of supporters (including my own mom) who tell us, “I love your work on campus, but I’m not so sure about your truck!”

Well, Mom, this baby’s for you!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXbvfWIpOs