See the photos

INTIMIDATING BUT UNSTOPPABLE

The San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 2001, in an article entitled “Abortion Foes Plan A Convoy, Pictures Of Fetuses Displayed On Trucks,” reported that abortionists want very much to stop our trucks but they can’t figure out how to do it:

Bay Area abortion rights groups are aware the trucks are coming -- Cunningham sent them a hand-delivered letter -- but acknowledge there is little they can do to stop the display.

Although there is some debate over whether the photographs violate obscenity standards and therefore threaten the ‘public peace,’ most free speech attorneys believe the grotesque images are protected by the First Amendment.

Pro-choice activists are preparing for a spate of outrage in a region where the abortion debate has been relatively muted.

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‘Its clear they are trying to use shock tactics and scare people and frankly I think they have picked the wrong area, said Jana Cunningham, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and no relation to Gregg Cunningham. ‘I know that when these people show up, we’ll get more donations.’

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Beth Parker, a San Francisco attorney who does work for Planned Parenthood, said one potential argument against the trucks might include protecting children from obscene images but she acknowledged most political speech is protected. ‘The way people have typically gone after these issues had been from a safety or traffic stand point,’ Parker said. ‘Are they so large that they make it difficult to navigate? Are they parking in the wrong areas? But it’s quite difficult to go based just on the photographs.’

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Belle Taylor-McGee, executive director of the California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said her group plans to ignore the truck campaign but questioned the group’s tactics in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

She said she felt the hand-delivered letter warning them of the coming campaign was akin to intimidation and she thinks the group misleads the public by using the word ‘choice’ when it wants to ban all abortions. ‘This is in poor taste and I think the timing is not good to try and frighten people and advertise distorted images when people are already feeling distressed’ Taylor-McGee said of the trucks. ‘We are not going to be intimidated by their tactics.’

We think it is at least “poor taste” to torture babies to death. We can’t, however, imagine a better time to scare abortionists and are they ever "running scared.” What they most fear is the truth. As to Ms. Taylor-McGee’s decision to “ignore” us, it obviates the necessity for us to expend resources overcoming their opposition. If, on the other hand, they oppose us, doing so will focus more attention on our cause. Nice dilemma, eh?

ANGRY ABORTIONISTS

Debbie Blair, of Planned Parenthood, Lexington, KY told Channel 36 News in October “I find … [CBR’s] flagrant, vulgar pictures offensive.”

Channel 7, the ABC television news affiliate in Orange County, CA interviewed Jon Dunn, president of Planned Parenthood of Orange County and San Bernardino County, CA in July. "I think it's awful that they are parading them [aborted baby pictures] around on the sides of trucks," he lamented.

NOW maintains a Legal Defense Education Fund which publishes Women's E-News. This online journal declared our truck project the "Outrage Of The Week" for September 21, 2001. The real “outrage” is public indifference to dead babies, not that the public is being inconvenienced by pictures of dead babies.

The Palm Beach Post, September 10, 2001, in an article headlined “Shock Trucks,” reports the dismay these pictures produce on the other side:

‘Our right to choose is again under attack by this quote public information campaign unquote’ says Lillian Tamayo, Palm Beach and Treasure Coast Planned Parenthood president and CEO.

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‘The use of graphic, gory photos,’ she adds, ‘is appalling to me. I speak Spanish and English and sometimes I don’t have words to express my sense of outrage.’

Planned Parenthood speechless? Ms. Tamayo is right about one thing. The “right to choose” is under attack as never before.

Television news on Channel 25 in Palm Beach, Florida also interviewed Ms. Tamayo in September and without missing a beat, she continued her tirade:

But I don’t believe Americans will be fooled by it to be honest with you. It is an attack on women’s reproductive health and a woman’s right to choose. Women don’t make these decisions without considerable exploration in their hearts. And to portray it as something flippant like this is just unfair and fundamentally hateful of women.

“Portraying it as something flippant?” First of all, there is nothing polemical in these pictures. Just the facts in photo form. Secondly, pro-aborts always argue the non sequitor that a bad thing can be made less bad if you “agonize” about it before you do it. Thirdly, this “hateful of women” nonsense is just more “identity politics.” “If you oppose my political agenda, you attack my person.” This is crybaby stuff, but it does intimidate our mostly craven conservative brethren (who act more like weak sistren). And finally, what really angers Ms. Tomayo is that our photos have reframed the abortion debate by exposing "choice" as homicide. As she shouts "It's my body," Ms. Tomayo can no longer hide the presence of a second body – the one that has been dismembered, disemboweled and decapitated.

DISTURBING

The Michigan Daily (The University of Michigan), October 26, 2001, reported a story entitled "Trucks Bring Anti-Abortion Display Back To Ann Arbor."

'The nation is in a delicate position right now,' said LSA sophomore Clair Morrissey of Students For Choice. 'We feel it is grossly inappropriate and uncalled for. It is incredibly harmful to the state of mind of women on campus. 'It won't change the mind of someone wanting to have an abortion, it only hurts women who have.'

Actually, it does both. But since the Centers For Disease Control say that 45% of women who abort have already had one or more previous abortions, post-abortive women are the women most likely to abort. This group is at such high risk for abortion that we certainly don't want them to “feel good” about the "procedure."

The Oracle (Univ. South Florida) September 5, 2001, in an article headlined "Fetus Truck Tour Rolls Into Tampa" reports:

Sara Clark, a student at USF who is involved with the campus chapter of NOW said … "It is incredibly disturbing…."

Good.

TRUCKS SCARY BUT INEFFECTIVE?

Abortionists keep telling us that the trucks are ineffective but if they really believed that, why would they tell us that and why would they keep saying the pictures are “scary?” The Detroit Free Press, October 20, 2001, published a story headlined "Abortion Foes Plan Campaign" with a subhead which read "Planned Parenthood Calls The Caravan's Start Poorly Timed."

We’re all in a different sphere right now than we were a year ago. People are frightened and scared. Now is not the time’ said Robin Menin, president of Planned Parenthood, Mid-Michigan Alliance.

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Planned Parenthood's Menin said the campaign is not likely to be effective in the short – or long term and may be counterproductive. 'These are people who are pushing a religious view of the rights of women. We feel terrorized' she said. 'We think of them as the domestic Taliban.'

Then when would be the time? Planned Parenthood didn’t stop killing babies on September 11^th. They gave abortions away free in bizarre “door-buster” specials. So why should we stop saving them?

And if abortion is no big deal, why would the trucks upset anyone? Even those who are “frightened and scared” should just shrug us off if our tactics are as unconvincing as our detractors suggest. Concerning the Taliban, we thought they are the ones who selfishly kill innocent people – with neither mercy nor remorse. Isn’t that what abortionists do? Isn’t it the U.S. military that is trying to save the innocent victims of the Taliban? Isn’t that what CBR is also trying to do for the babies? I don’t think “Taliban” means what this lady thinks it means.