We are thrilled at the work of Deeper Still, a post-abortion healing ministry based here in Knoxville that reaches out to hurting women, not only in Knoxville and East Tennessee, but anywhere in the world.  Post-abortive women from Deeper Still are frequent volunteers at our GAP displays.

I attended Deeper Still’s fundraising dinner last Tuesday night, and one of the speakers was Judy Townsend.  I have known Judy and her husband Jeff for a couple of years.  In fact, Jeff’s company organized our hugely successful event last year that featured Gov. Mike Huckabee as the keynote speaker.

It was our GAP event on Market Square in Downtown Knoxville that captured Jeff’s attention and led him to offer his help in organizing the dinner for us.   Deeper Still had joined us at this GAP event to let hurting women know that healing from abortion is available.

What I didn’t know (until just last Tuesday night) is that this same GAP event captured Judy’s attention and led her to seek healing for her past abortion.  She found this healing through the work of Deeper Still.

Here are her remarks:

I had my abortion in 1985 when I was 19 years old.  I had joined the USAF, and I was just beginning my own independent life.  I had gone back home after my basic training and had become pregnant by the guy I had been seeing just before I entered the air force.  I was completely shocked and scared and couldn’t believe this was actually happening to me.

I didn’t tell anyone except my mother, and she said to me “just have an abortion and it will all be over soon.”  But it would be anything but “over soon.”  I had the abortion in a clinic after one of my shifts.  I remember being so afraid and sick to my stomach.  The details of what happened that day are blurry because I have buried them so deep for over 26 years.

It wasn’t until I attend the Deeper Still retreat that I came to understand why I was so bound by shame, guilt, and self-hatred.  I asked myself,  “How could abortion cause so much pain when society tells me that it’s my choice and it’s all ok?”  Yet, in my heart I knew the truth was that my actions were murderous.

I lived my entire adult life in a shroud of secrecy and shame concerning my abortion.  I denied myself relationship with children, including my own daughter who was born a year later.  I held her at a distance because I didn’t believe I deserved to be her mother.  This caused a great deal of strain in our relationship.  All the while, I kept my secret.  In fact, I buried it so deep, that I was denying to myself that the event even happened.  That’s how strong and deceiving denial can be!  But I trudged on through life and never told anyone.

I accepted the Lord as my Savior on May 31, 2000 and, for the first time in my life, I felt so much joy and comfort.  But still, I could not believe that I was worthy of His love and blessing.  I believed that He forgave me for my abortion, but that He was still very disappointed in me.  I even thought that when I would see Jesus face to face, He would tell me that there was a certain place in heaven reserved for people like me that had had abortions.  I would not allow myself to fully embrace His grace and forgiveness.

I could never bring myself to tell my husband Jeff about my abortion.  Even though he was the one person in my life with whom I was the most intimate, I still felt I could not cross that barrier of shame in order to bring him into my “secret sin.”

In 2008, Jeff began to work for a ministry that helped women facing crisis pregnancies.  I would cringe inside and shake every time I was in earshot of any of the conversations about abortion.  I would say things like, “I feel so sorry for these poor girls. If only they knew how important life is.”  But then I would feel like a hypocrite for even saying that.

Our move to Knoxville seemed to coincide with the Lord’s timing for me to finally deal with my abortion.  One day, while we were walking around Market Square, we came upon a display that showed images of aborted babies along with images of other forms of holocaust.

I was confronted with these awful images starring me in the face.  I was mad, angry and disgusted.  I couldn’t even let myself look at them.  On the other hand, my husband wanted to take a closer look and talk to the people displaying them.  We obviously were looking at them from very different vantage points.

The Lord used that experience to surface the things that I would never have allowed myself to face on my own.  But He also didn’t just leave me there in my silent torment.

It was shortly after that when Jeff and I met Karen Ellison and some of the Deeper Still ladies.  As they shared with us about Deeper Still, I remember instantly feeling like I would love this ministry.  I already loved these ladies.

In the weeks that followed, some other painful things surfaced that rattled my cage enough to make me finally e-mail Karen, tell her my story, and ask her if I could come to one of the Deeper Still retreats.  She of course said, “Yes, you must come!”

I had 7 more months before the retreat would be here and the Lord used that time to prepare my heart in so many ways.  But the enemy also worked overtime during those months to try to discourage me and talk me out of it.

I also knew that it was time to tell my husband my story, and when I did, he was so full of grace and compassion for me and he wholeheartedly blessed me to go on this retreat.

The week before the retreat, I asked Karen if I could possibly just attend one day of the retreat and leave early on Sunday morning.  But she encouraged me to attend the entire retreat.  I thought to myself, “Uh, oh.  This isn’t going to be a superficial meeting with ‘church women’.”  I knew deep inside that this was going to be important and I was scared to death.

Somehow the Lord guided me there.  I remember telling myself, “I’ll just drive into the parking lot and check things out; if it looks scary then I can just leave.”  I parked the car and the next thing I knew, this beautiful, blonde, bubbly, smiling woman came toward me.  I thought “Oh, no!  Here she comes!  I can’t leave now.”  That was Jenna Collins.  She was so kind as she greeted me and she made me feel so welcomed.  I knew there was no turning back now and I am forever grateful.  Almost immediately, I found myself weeping and weeping.  I looked around and I discovered that was that I was not the only one crying.  We all were.

The Deeper Still team was a conduit of the love of Christ for me that weekend.  I had an encounter that I will never forget.  My self-imposed walls of separation were abolished and I found myself seeing and accepting the true love of Jesus.  I understood so much more fully the enormity of His sacrifice for me.  I understood that my abortion was a violent sinful act, but that Jesus was bigger than my sin.  His sacrifice covered it all and my debt was PAID IN FULL!

I am now walking in freedom that I never thought possible and I’m ready to walk out the destiny that He has ordained for me.  Praise His Name!

A week and a half ago, the U of North Florida (UNF) Spinnaker (student newpaper) printed an op-ed piece critical of the GAP project.  A few days later, I offered a rebuttal, which was printed in its entirety in the most recent issue.  Awesome!  Next to my letter was another pro-life op-ed piece, this one by another Spinnaker editor.  Hurray for The Spinnaker!

I was pleased that The Spinnaker printed my letter.  They also appended to my letter some final comments of their own, essentially a rebuttal to some of my points.  No problem; we welcome debate.  But I did want to respond, so I sent them this e-mail over the weekend:

Dear Spinnaker Editors,

I just wanted to sincerely thank you for printing my letter in your February 29, 2012 edition, along with another column from the pro-life side of the debate. I do appreciate you allowing commentary from both sides of the debate on our Genocide Awareness Project. Even if we disagree on key points, you were fair to print both sides.

I did want to respond to your comments that appeared at the end of my editorial in the paper. Not trying to be argumentative, but I thought I should address some of the points you raised.

Think of it as a friendly chat over coffee. In fact, I’ve attached a cup of coffee. From several hundred miles away, e-mail is the best I can do. Please feel free to print it out on your printer and share a cup with each member of the staff! You’ll note that it’s a bit flat, but still steamy. Try that with the US Postal Service!

Anyway, you said that your reference to “bloody babies” made no link to abortion victims, just to the photos the GAP displayed. I can’t think of any bloody babies we displayed other than abortion victims. Most people don’t think about abortion victims as “bloody babies”, and that is exactly why we want them to be seen, because that is exactly what they are.

As to the differences between the miscarried fetus, the aborted fetus, and the fetus in the womb, they are very different. The aborted fetus has generally been torn into pieces. In fact, one part of the abortion procedure is to reassemble the pieces to make sure that no part of the fetus has been left inside the uterus, which could create a serious infection. On the other hand, the miscarried fetus is generally not torn apart, although it can happen, depending on how the baby is removed. Miscarriages can occur spontaneously, which normally results in an intact embryo/fetus. If they find the baby dead and have to induce labor, that also can result in an intact fetus. At least it did for ours, who died at 19 weeks. We had another that died earlier in pregnancy, and the removal did (I was told) damage the body beyond any recognition or recovery.

Regarding living babies in the womb, obviously they have not been torn apart and therefore look nothing like the aborted babies we displayed.

You say that you did not describe a fetus as “just a blob of tissue.” Perhaps you didn’t explicitly make that claim, but when you advocate a debate about abortion in which the facts of abortion are hidden, you invite people to believe the myths that the abortion industry has advanced, including the myth that the unborn child is just a blob of tissue. It isn’t necessary for you to claim that the fetus is a blob of tissue, because for so many, that is the default assumption. That’s why it is up to us to prove otherwise. Pictures are, for most of our audience, the most effective proof we have.

Finally, you said that you didn’t encourage readers to be pro- or anti-abortion. Perhaps not explicitly, but the effect of your message is still pro-abortion because you don’t point people to the most important issue … whether or not the pre-born child is a human being whose life we must respect in the same way that we respect the life of a born child. We are more than willing to have a debate about our strategy and tactics, but the debate over abortion really centers around the questions of (1) who the pre-born child is, and (2) how must he be valued.

You were skeptical of our comparison of abortion to genocide. Obviously, abortion is nothing like genocide … IF. If pre-born children are not living human beings, then abortion does not kill humans and there are no relevant similarities between abortion and genocide. But if pre-born children are living human beings – science tells us they are – then abortion kills 1.2 million living humans every year in the US. If not genocide, what else would we call it?

UN General Assembly Resolution 96, adopted in 1946, describes genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings …” Resolution 96 goes on to say it is a crime “whether committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds …” (emphasis added). With abortion, the “entire human group” denied the right of existence is unwanted, pre-born children.

If it is wrong for whiter people to kill darker people for something they can’t control (the color of their skin), how can it be OK for older people to kill younger people for something they can’t control (their age)?

Blessings to all of you,
Fletcher

Brad Staffon helps a student at the U of North Florida understand that life is a better choice than death.

On Sunday, February 19, CBR Project Director Nicole Cooley spoke to two Sunday School classes at the First Baptist Church of Hinesville, Georgia.  After she spoke, Brad Staffon, a 19-year-0ld young man, expressed interest in joining us on campus for a future GAP event.  Nicole said, “Pack your bags, we leave in 2  hours!”  Three days later, Brad was back in Hinesville, reporting on his GAP trip to the University of North Florida.  Here are his remarks:

Last Sunday Nicole came into my Sunday school class and told us about the Genocide Awareness Project, or GAP.  She showed us images that were not only graphic and disturbing, but were also inspiring.  I decided to not look but listen to what she had to say instead.  What she had to say was just this: killing unborn children is wrong.  She proceeded to tell us how many unborn babies were killed each year and it shocked me.  I spoke to her after class and asked her when then next time I could help was.  She said, “Pack your bags, we leave in two hours.”

When we first arrived at the University of North Florida, we attended CBR’s Pro Life Training Academy, where we learned what to say when we spoke to people about abortion.  They taught us a few questions to ask so we could have them questioning their own views.  The questions were, “What do you mean?,” “How did you come to that conclusion?,” and “Have you considered the implications of your views?”  Once you have all the information they have given you on their views, you can respond with your rebuttal.

One thing that will stick with me until the day I die is an encounter I had with a polite young lady who I’m almost sure had had an abortion.  She came to me with haste and much energy to ask why abortion is genocide.  I began to explain that by the UN definition, if any specific group of humans is killed on a massive scale, then it is genocide.  I also told her that in this case, the group in question is a specific age group.  So she understood that, however she was pro-choice and almost couldn’t stand near the display for long because of her choices in life.  I and three others got her to understand why we show these graphic displays.

When she finally understood, she walked away after thanking us for our time.  Her lips quivered and she walked away slowly thinking about what we had said and done.  What we had done is change her mind on how she felt about abortion.  She will forever have problems with her situation but now she knows we aren’t only trying to give knowledge and information but we are also here to help.

So you see, it may not always end in this way, but it really helps those who need it now more than ever.  It’s time for us to make a change.  Whether it’s changing hearts and minds, or changing lives and saving others in the process.  The time is now to stand up and speak for those who can’t.  Stand up my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and give your support.  Save your siblings from death.  If there was ever a cause more worthy of all our support, this would be it.  So please support us in any way that you can, whether it be donations or volunteering your time.  Thank you.

Please let us give a talk in your church!  We can show your brothers and sisters how to be heroes.  We can show them how to save babies within your own church and within your own community.  We can show them how to help reform the culture.  If you are willing to help arrange a talk in your church, please e-mail me at fletcher@ProLifeOnCampus.com.  Thanks!

Nicole and Stephanie at Open Mike.

As I reflected on the range of emotions from our GAP excursion to Florida, the opening lines from Charles Dickens’ great novel came to mind:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …

Hope that’s not too literarial for all you people in Rio Linda.

Anyway, I am hopeful for the future when I think about the team of young people who accompanied us to the U of North Florida (UNF) and Florida State U (FSU).  They gave of themselves so freely, so that others might live and live more abundantly.  I was blessed to be with them.

But I can’t escape despair when I reflect on some of the students we encountered – students who believe that unrestrained sex (anywhere, anytime, with anybody) is another “entitlement” to be demanded, rather than a curse to be avoided.  They don’t know about — indeed, they don’t want to know about — the physical, emotional, and spiritual dangers inherent in the lifestyle they’ve embraced, not only for themselves, but for others as well.

The ups and downs of the week were personified by two young women we met along the way, Julie and Brandi.

“I cried until I couldn’t breathe.”

We had been to UNF in 2009.  As with every GAP, many students had said our pictures had changed their minds.  But we didn’t know about Julie.  She was a freshman at the time.

Fast-forward to February 21, 2012.  CBR staffers Nicole Cooley and Stephanie Gray had been holding “Open Mike” for nearly 2 hours.  They had withstood an intense barrage of pro-abortion artillery.  Just before they were about to close it down for the day, a young lady stepped forward and asked for the microphone.  She remembered when we came before.  She had been pro-choice.  She had been really angry.

“I thought your pictures were disgusting,” she said of that first encounter, “but they followed me home.  They followed me for several days.  And I went online and looked up a video of abortion.”

After seeing that video — likely the Choice Blues video featured on AbortionNo.org, a CBR website — she said, “I cried until I couldn’t breathe.  I changed at that moment from pro-choice to pro-life.”

What a blessing to hear those words!  On this day (in 2012), Julie had actually left campus for the day but had come back to complete a forgotten errand.  She parked where she doesn’t usually park.  She didn’t know why.  She walked a route she doesn’t usually walk.  She didn’t know why.  Then, she saw the Open Mike and decided to speak.  I told her that God had arranged it for her to come and give us much-needed encouragement!

She said we were changing many more hearts and minds than we could imagine. See Julie tell her story in the video below!

“That’s what vaccines are for.”

At FSU, it was clear that Brandi is quite intelligent, but like most of us, she struggles to blindfold her own prejudices, even for a few minutes.  She was much more interested in lecturing than listening.  Nothing I had to say could possibly be worth considering.  I’ve been around teenagers before, so I’m familiar with the disorder.

She did, as I recall, accept our position that preborn children deserve protection in the 3rd trimester, but I don’t think she ever told me what morally relevant criteria makes it OK to kill a 2nd-trimester child.

It is difficult to advance a coherent argument when you’re being interrupted at every turn.  We think it was their plan to come out en masse and interrupt each of us in mid-sentence so that nobody could hear us finish a complete thought.  Most of the time, she was interrupting to lecture me on things I had already tried to say myself.  Finally, I interrupted her, “Brandi, I’ve got a PhD in engineering, I know the difference between science and philosophy.  I know the difference between facts and conclusions.”

She asserted that even though the preborn child has structures you can see, they are not persons because the cells are yet undifferentiated.  (Which isn’t true, by the way.)  Anyway, the obvious question, which I did manage to get out, was, “Why should we accept your assertion that personhood should depend on degree of cell differentiation?”  I got no answer.

At that point, she changed the subject to contraception.  (CBR takes no position on contraception, but we do oppose any agent that acts as an abortifacient.)  She asked why we don’t hand out contraceptives, as if they are the silver bullet that would end abortion, if only we would distribute our fair share.  I replied that 54% of all abortions were performed on women who used contraceptives in the month in which they got pregnant (source).  People at FSU have ample access to inexpensive (if not free) contraception, but they still get abortions.

She countered with the unsubstantiated claim that the 54% reported by Guttmacher were largely people who ran out of contraceptives mid-month and could not afford to buy more.  [Note how silly this is: people are too poor to pay for a $1 contraceptive, but they can afford a $500 abortion .]

I told her that contraceptives fail, and it is not our goal to merely reduce the number of abortions.  Our goal is to get rid of the whole bloody mess.  And besides, I said, we have no desire to encourage people to put themselves at risk for deadly STDs.  Condoms fail, and even when they work properly they are only marginally effective against some diseases, particularly human papillomavirus (HPV).

That’s when she said, “That’s what vaccines are for.”

I was surprised by her candor.  “Brandi, is that the best you can do?  Counsel people to put themselves at risk for deadly diseases and depend on a vaccine for protection?”  As any safety engineer will tell you, the first rule for minimizing risk is to remove the hazard altogether.  But Brandi would encourage teenagers to engage in potentially deadly behaviors with only a thin layer of latex as protection.  Oh yes, the latex and a vaccine.

Or is it 25 different vaccines?  When I was Brandi’s age, there were really only two STDs.  It had been that way for centuries.  Now, a mere 40 years later, I’m told there are more than 25 different STDs.  The Associated Press reports that 1 in 4 teen girls has at least one.  What changed?  More contraceptives?  More Planned-Parenthood-style sex education?  More reckless and deadly behaviors?  Yes, yes, and yes. Of course we don’t oppose truthful education, but we do oppose encouraging teenagers to engage in reckless and self-destructive behaviors.

Perhaps latex and vaccines are the best Brandi can offer.  People on the Left apparently believe that people are so helpless, they cannot possibly control themselves where sex is concerned.  So instead of addressing reckless and deadly behaviors, they insist on latex and vaccines.

And they insist on it, not only for their own children, but for ours as well.  And the rest of us should pay for it.  And when our children get sick anyway — many will — too bad.  And when they get pregnant anyway — many will — the rest of us should pay for the abortions.  No thanks.  Leave me and my family out of it.

Our culture has become a cesspool, deadly for some, and I fear that the worst is yet to come.  Our only hope is a miracle.  Fortunately, God is in the miracle business.  If we pray and fast and sacrifice much, who knows what He will do?

Perhaps the Brandi of today will be the Julie of tomorrow.

Notes:

1. Wikipedia reports that the typical failure rate for condoms is 15%, and the perfect-use failure rate is 2%.  Those numbers are for pregnancy prevention over a 1-year period, not the prevention of STD transmission.  A woman can become pregnant only a few days a month; a person can contract an STD on any and every day of the month.  The more times a person engages in sex, the more opportunities for condom failure, so a person’s cumulative risk for catching an STD increases every time.
2. Since returning from Florida, I have run across a 2011 paper by Peter Arcidiancono (Duke University), Ahmed Khwaja (Yale University) and Lijing Ouyang (Centers for Disease Control).  They concluded, “Programs that increase access to contraception are found to decrease teen pregnancies in the short run but increase teen pregnancies in the long run.” (Source)  More good information here.

UNF GAP Team

Got a nice e-mail from Michael Oliveros, a student at the University of North Florida (UNF):

It was really nice to see you on campus, since I am around a very pro-choice environment so much.  I am really excited about the pro-life club that you are starting!  It will give me a way to express my pro-life views, as well as a place for support, and to be around people of like mind.

Again, I’d like to reiterate how appreciative I am of you all coming out.   I commend all of you for your courage in being a voice for these babies, and for standing up for life.   I hope and pray that I can have the same courage and dedication that all of you have as I become a part of this pro-life club.

God bless, and all of you are in my prayers!

Michael Oliveros

Thanks to all of you who support our work!  You make it possible!

CBR's staff member (and our hero) Sarah Cleveland speaks to group of FSU students with Edmund Burke on her back. Now that's heavy!

Day 1 of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) at Florida State University (FSU) was a huge success.  Large crowds gathered to view the signs and listen to our team explain the facts about prenatal development and abortion.

Media coverage here (includes video) and here.  Both stories implied that “hundreds of students” were “fired up” and “outraged,” but compared to recent trips to FSU, it was pretty tame.

I was able to pray with one student who had been abused as a child.  I prayed that God would reveal himself to this young man in a powerful way.  As an atheist, he was probably skeptical, but he let me pray for him nonetheless!  I hope you will pray for him as well.

The FSU crowd was large and engaged, but peaceful.

When they see us on campus with the “Genocide Awarness Project,” they are incredulous.  They storm over to us and insist on educating us about the definition of genocide, as if there is only one.

They imagine that we have never looked it up for ourselves.  They don’t realize that there are at least three different classes of definitions of genocide:

1. legal definitions, intended to support prosecution in court,
2. popular definitions, intended to convey meaning to a general audience, and
3. scholarly definitions, postulated by scholars to help them understand and study the phenomena more completely.

We, of course, are looking at the term more conceptually, as a scholar might, as opposed to more concretely and more narrowly, as a judge and jury might if they were being asked to incarcerate somebody for life.

How do we answer the angry student?  First of all, we agree with him, “You are right, abortion is nothing like genocide … IF.”  You can imagine the expressions we get.  They don’t hear the “IF” at first.

We go on to say that if pre-born children are not living human beings, then abortion does not kill humans and there are no relevant similarities between abortion and genocide.

But if pre-born children are living human beings — science tells us they are — then abortion kills 1.2 million living humans every year in the US. If not genocide, what else would we call it?

UN General Assembly Resolution 96, adopted in 1946, describes genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings …” Resolution 96 goes on to say it is a crime “whether committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds …” (emphasis added)

With abortion, the “entire human group” denied the right of existence is unwanted, pre-born children.

In 1948, the UN adopted a more narrow legal definition of genocide to support prosecution in court. As a concession to the Soviet Union, who feared Stalin’s mass murders might be considered genocidal if broader language were employed, the UN omitted references to social and political groups.  (The Study of Mass Murder and Genocide, Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, in The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 18)

However, others have adopted more comprehensive language. For example, French law adds “[any] group determined by any other arbitrary criterion.”

Abortion is a form of age discrimination, in that it targets unwanted children of a certain age. Their destruction is justified based on arbitrary age- related factors such as size, level of development, environment (location), and degree of dependency.

Warning signs at UNF.

Got a comment today on a previous FAB posting.   Read Mari’s comment here (Comment 1).

My response follows:

Marie,

Thanks for commenting on the GAP project at UNF. Yes, we know that the abortion pictures are extremely disturbing. They are difficult for you to look at, because you have a functioning conscience. That’s a good thing.

Please permit me to address some of the specific points you raised.

You say that you would have no problem with us handing out pamphlets to people who wanted them. But these methods appeal to you because they would make it easy for you to ignore the injustice you now find so disturbing. Your complaint reminds us of what they said to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he marched against racial injustice. They wanted him to confine his activities to the Black church, so they could ignore the injustice he sought to correct. They didn’t want to be bothered. And as long as Dr. King didn’t bother them, they were OK with it.

But Dr. King knew that in order to change the status quo, he had to show people that racism was much worse than they imagined. It was pictures of Black men and women being attacked with dogs and water cannons—those pictures appearing on TV and in magazines reaching millions of American households—that turned the tide against segregation in the South. We have no hope of correcting the injustice of abortion unless we expose it.

Our operating principle actually comes from the King family. Dr. Martin Luther King said that, “America will not reject racism until America sees racism.” His niece, Dr. Alveda King, now says that “America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion.” That’s why we are working to make sure that every American sees abortion for what it is, an act of violence that destroys a growing child.

The fact that you and others find baby-killing disturbing is actually encouraging. The people who worry us are the ones who don’t care about it.

You said you came to the campus to learn. You learned something today. First, you learned that the preborn child is a living human being, even in the first trimester of pregnancy. Second, you learned that abortion is an act of violence that destroys a living human child. This information will be very valuable to you, if you want to do the right thing.

Speaking of learning, doesn’t it bother you that so many people and institutions have conspired to tell you only lies … lies about who the preborn child is and lies about what abortion does to her. The education system, the media, the entertainment industry, the government, and others have all conspired with the abortion industry to make people believe that the preborn child is just a mass of cells and abortion is just removing a benign medical procedure. Had they told you the truth, we would not have been compelled to come to your campus.

You say that we are exploiting unborn children by showing their pictures. How so? If we are exploiting these children, then isn’t it equally true that the Holocaust Museum in Washington is exploiting European Jews by showing pictures of their dead bodies? You can’t go to any Holocaust museum or read a book on the Holocaust without seeing a disturbing photo of dead Jewish bodies.

You say you had no choice in the matter of whether to look at the photos or not. Actually, you could have turned your head away from the pictures and walked right on by. We watched many people doing exactly that. Apparently, you didn’t turn your head; the fact that you are so disturbed suggests you studied the images very carefully. We’re glad you did, but it was clearly your choice to study them or not.

And even if it is true that you had no choice but to see the photos for a few seconds before you were able to avert your gaze, are you so selfish as to be unwilling to endure a few moments of discomfort in other to save another person’s life?

You say that we should be ashamed. It reminds me of something Louis Hine said. In the early 1900s, he displayed photos of very young (adolescent) children working in coal mines, textile mills, etc. He wrote in his memoirs that some people were more angry at him for showing the pictures than at the industrial bosses for abusing the children. It is the abortionist who should be ashamed for killing the children, not us for exposing the truth.

For more information about abortion—no matter what you decide, you want your decision to be informed by the facts—visit www.AbortionNo.org.

GAP display at the University of North Florida (UNF).

CBR's Nicole Cooley explains the comparison of abortion to slavery.

We’re up and running with our pro-life display at the U of North Florida (UNF), an important and growing university in Jacksonville.  Our pro-life GAP display is situated on the main sidewalk leading from the Student Union to the academic buildings.

It’s a busy day on campus.  We’re seeing lots of student tours.  In fact, this might be the perfect day to reach high school students.   We’re guessing many of them (and their parents) are out of high school (and work) for Presidents Day, so this is a logical day for them to schedule a university tour.

A crowd gathers at the University of North Florida.

Student at Forida Gulf Coast University learns a lesson he will never forget: abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby. He can never be lied to again.

CBR’s campus outreach for the Spring 2012 semester got off to a great start at Florida Gulf Coast University earlier this week.  Great video on the Eagle News (student newspaper) website.

Notice how the pro-aborts agree with us on the most important aspect of our display: abortion is “terrorizing,” “grotesque,” “shocking,” “aweful,” etc.  Unlike the abortion industry and many college professors, pictures don’t lie.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f19xe1ESFH4

Question:  If abortion is such a great thing, then why do pictures of it make abortion advocates so angry?

BTW, CBR will never agree to hide the truth of abortion.  That is Planned Parenthood’s schtick, not ours.

She looked at the pictures and exclaimed, "You came to my school! You sure changed my mind."

I’m in the Jacksonville Airport, headed back to Knoxville, wrapping up my 4th week on the road.  We’re getting ready for our campus outreach (GAP) at the U of North Florida (UNF) and Florida State U (FSU) later this month.  Lots of enthusiasm for our Pro Life Training Academy on February 19.

Thanks to God for all the families in Jacksonville and Tallahassee who will house and feed our traveling team of 26 missionaries, including 14 Canadian students who will be learning how to win hearts, change minds, and save lives.

After I landed in Jacksonville, Kenyana fixed me up with a rental car.  As she filled out the paperwork, she asked, “What brings you to Jacksonville?”

I told her, “I’m a radical right-wing lunatic troublemaker.”  I gave her my card.

She looked at it, “Pro-life.”  Then I showed her the photo of our GAP project on the back of my card.  She got excited, “You came to my school!”

“Where did you go to school?” I asked.

“UNF!”

“Yes, we were there about 3 years ago.”

Without any coaxing at all, Kenyana offered, “Well, you sure changed my mind.  I didn’t have any idea what abortion is.  None of us did.”

GAP at the University of Michigan Diag.

Great article written by a pro-chioce student who saw GAP at the University of Michigan (UM) Diag and decided to attend a Students for Life meeting.  Full story here.  Excerpts:

At the time it seemed like the pro-lifers were seriously screwing themselves over.

But I do remember seeing one young woman, a student, standing nervously behind the display, pro-life pamphlets in hand.  I wish I had talked to her instead of openly laughing at what I perceived at the time to be really poor activism.  (emphasis added)

***

The Genocide Awareness Project] got us angry, but it also got us talking (albeit in raised voices) about a topic that for a lot of people is just another item on the political agenda.  The abortion issue periodically garners national attention, like when pro-lifers attempted to defund Planned Parenthoods across the country last year.

But in an era when people are constantly bemoaning the lack of student activism, look no further than the intense, ongoing pro-life/pro-choice debate, which is less about politics and more about deciding what we value as a society.

***

It’s pretty easy to be pro-choice at the University. …

It’s easy to get trapped in an echo chamber when you think the Truth belongs to your side.  But even if we can’t agree, we can occasionally step across the protest line, stop the chanting, and listen.

Several points to be gleaned from this article:

1. Even angry pro-aborts can be softened, if not converted.  The anger wears away; the education does not.
2. There is a sink-in factor at work here.  After seeing GAP, it was weeks later before Balfour was ready to attend a pro-life meeting.  She isn’t pro-life yet, but Balfour has an open mind and this isn’t over yet.
3. The pictures work in many different ways.  They neutralize our opposition, they convert the neutral, they activate the converted, and they energize the active.
4. The key elements here are (a) the truth, as presented by abortion photos, (b) abundant courage and the love of Messiah Jesus, as demonstrated by the UM Students for Life, and (c) an open mind, which Balfour provided herself.
5. We pro-life activists probably have more in common with pro-aborts who don’t know the truth than we have with pro-life Christian leaders who do know the truth and cover it up.

Here’s a photo of Jonathan Darnel displaying one of CBR’s GAP signs in the DC metro area.  This was at the Ballston Metro stop.  Your gift of $200 will purchase another sign!

Jonathan Darnel at Ballston metro stop in DC area.

Strategic pro-life activism means being at the right place, at the right time, with the right message.  That’s what we do at CBR.

A decisive blow for ObamaCare and other pro-abortion legislation in the US Senate was delivered in the state of Virginia, way back in 2006.  In November of that year, the pro-abortion candidate won a seat in the US Senate by fewer than 10,000 votes.  Had just 5,000 voters switched from pro-abortion to pro-life (just over 2 voters/precinct), then the pro-life candidate would have won in 2006 and ObamaCare would have been rejected in 2009.  Remember the midnight vote in the US Senate two years ago?

Just as Virginia was key to the pro-abort victories of 2009-2010, it is also key to undoing the damage in 2013-2014.  Don’t take our word for it.  Listen to the pro-life former Senator from Virginia, George Allen:

Virginia’s key.  Our U.S. Senate race here in Virginia is one that objective observers say is crucial.  If we win Virginia, the Republicans, the conservatives, take over the majority in the U.S. Senate and everyone recognizes that whoever wins the presidency, they need to win Virginia.

That’s why CBR is focused like a laser on expanding pro-life activism in Virginia and other key states.  CBR can’t endorse any particular candidate or party, of course, but we can put abortion on the election-year agenda by forcing people to see what abortion is and does.

Abortion advocates and their allies in the media portray pro-life candidates as “extreme,” “arch-conservative,” “right-wing,” etc., but they portray pro-abortion candidates as “moderate.”  By helping us take abortion pictures to Virginia, we can show young people that killing babies is an extremist act of terror, whereas saving babies is a rational act of compassion.

In 2011, we took GAP to 3 major universities in Virginia.  We started 2 new pro-life clubs on campus.  These students will constantly remind their classmates that abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby.  We have invitations to take our GAP project to George Mason U and Virginia Commonwealth U in the Spring.  But we can’t do it without your help.  Please help us show voters in Virginia that voting for abortion is absolute evil.  Click here to join us!  No gift is too small; no gift is too large!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEcFozPm3KM

CBR's Jane Bullington poses for Rodin at JMU.

On my way back home from the Rhode Island, I attended last night’s meeting of the James Madison U (JMU) Freethinkers. They were discussing abortion. I arrived early and introduced myself to the President of the group; she was most gracious to welcome me to their meeting.

Result of GAP.  Their selection of this topic was a direct result of our GAP there last week, and it was exactly the kind of discussion we hope to stimulate with our project. Members of the JMU Dukes for Life were in attendance, and they did an excellent job of articulating and defending the pro-life position.

Sound Bytes.  I tried to keep quiet, responding only when a critical point needed to be made. The pro-abortion arguments were just as easily rebutted as ever, but in this kind of large group discussion, you have to speak almost in sound bytes.

A faux pas.  The discussion was respectful, for the most part. There was only one ad hominum attack launched at the meeting, that by a professor who attended. He said it was contemptible (I think that’s the word) of me to mention slavery in the context of an abortion discussion. I responded badly. I should have just addressed his allegation, but I rolled my eyes. (In my defense, I had been working on a response to a Rhode Island professor who had accused us of “hate speech,” whatever that is.)

Fair-minded.  It was a small transgression, but I apologized to the group, anyway. As the discussion went on, this professor revealed himself to be a fair-minded person—he verified the accuracy of our photos—and we shook hands at the end of the meeting. On my way to the car, I had to laugh, because in a room full of college students, the only people who acted out were the adults.

On the road again?  Please support our work. I love going home, but I need to be on the road, winning hearts, changing minds, and saving lives. Click here to send me back out!