National Affairs Rory Leishman
What is the best means of persuading more of our fellow citizens to understand that the deliberate killing of a baby in the womb is an unmitigated evil?
Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, is a leading proponent of shock tactics. On May 1, he was arrested and charged with criminal trespass for leading an anti-abortion demonstration on the campus of Notre Dame University that involved six protesters pushing baby carriages with dolls covered in fake blood.
In a statement on May 5, Terry denounced those among his fellow Catholics who oppose the use of such graphic anti-abortion images. He wrote: “I fear for ‘pro-life Catholics’ who condemn our actions; I fear for lukewarm clergy who look askance at our measures; I fear for a ‘Catholic press’ that lacks the courage or integrity to even cover our activities, is embarrassed by our tactics, ashamed at our boldness and seduced to silence by the fear of men.”
Calgary Bishop Fred Henry is one of the most outspoken critics of abortion in Canada. He cannot be described as a lukewarm opponent of abortion and has never been known to have been seduced to silence by the fear of men.
Yet. in a pastoral letter issued in 2007, Henry expressed strong opposition in principle to the Genocide Awareness Project. He wrote: “Its usage of pictures of aborted children violates their human dignity, denies human remains the respect that inherently must be accorded them and reduces them to things, albeit, for an arguably good reason. The end, however, does not justify the means.”
Other clerics and theologians have no such qualms. Still, the question remains: is the public display of bloody images of aborted babies a good means of winning support for the pro-life movement when even ardent pro-lifers like Henry have profound moral objections to such tactics?
Barbara Kay, national affairs columnist for The National Post, questions the pragmatic effectiveness of graphic anti-abortion images. In a Feb. 4 column entitled, “Women deserve better than abortion,” she defended the right of pro-lifers on campus to display pictures of aborted babies, but only on the ground that campus demonstrators “have, or should have, the political right to turn people off through shocking images (for that is largely the effect of this campaign).”
Paul Swope takes a more nuanced view. In “Abortion: a failure to communicate” (First Things: April 1998), he maintained that market research commissioned by the Caring Foundation in the United States has found that “graphic abortion pictures can … be used to great effect with certain audiences, particularly among people already disposed to the pro-life message and as a means to activate pro-lifers.” However, he added: “Using language and imagery that will attract, rather than alienate, the pro-life movement must show that abortion is actually not in a woman’s own self-interest and that the choice of life offers hope and a positive, expanded sense of self.”
Who is right in this debate? Certainly, the moral qualms about the use of graphic images of aborted babies, especially as expressed by pro-lifers like Bishop Henry, deserve serious consideration. If these critics are right, the use of such tactics cannot be justified even if they are effective in expanding support for the pro-life cause.
Meanwhile, the pragmatic argument continues. While both the proponents and opponents of Terry’s demonstrations and the Genocide Awareness Project can readily adduce plenty of anecdotal evidence to support their contrasting viewpoints, neither side has any solid market research to draw upon. The study cited by Swope is more than 10 years out of date.
Nowadays, no major corporation or political party would launch a publicity campaign without first commissioning some rigorous, independent market research on the potential effectiveness of the message it plans to communicate. The pro-life movement urgently needs to do the same.
Of course, pro-lifers should never tire of affirming that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. And we should go on insisting that abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia are evils that can never be justified. What we require is better information about how best to win over more of our fellow citizens to a new and deeper understanding of these self-evident truths.
