Every pro-life Canadian detests graphic images of the victims of abortion. They are horrific and stomach churning, provocative and divisive. But, most troublingly of all, they accurately depict the reality which is cloaked behind surgical drapes and equivocal language. Images of the murdered unborn reveal what the popular euphemisms about abortion conceal: the ugly reality of child-murder before birth.
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (1 Tim 3-4). Paul’s warning to Timothy perfectly describes our present moment, one in which images of aborted children are denounced while the practice itself is defended.
Recently, the city of Hamilton passed a unanimous resolution requesting that both the federal and provincial governments somehow curtail the rights of pro-lifers who distribute these images. The city’s gesture is meaningless, since neither government can abrogate free speech, but it is telling that the city councilors were willing to trample such a fundamental right because of their irritated, itching ears.
Hilariously, the motive for the city’s motion was “to protect children.” Hamilton’s politicians want to prevent the young from seeing images of their younger, murdered fellow children – yet they do not want to help the victims which these same images so vividly depict.
