Children Shouldn’t See Disturbing Photos: Double Standard?
Dear Mr. Fordham,
Thank you for taking the time to write. With all due respect, you are fulfilling the prophesy written by Isaiah in 5:20 when he said “Woe to those who call … good evil, who turn… light into darkness….” Killing babies is evil, showing them is good. Please visit our website to read the enormous numbers of testimonials from people whose minds were changed concerning abortion after seeing our abortion photos. And by the way, you criticize our work for being inconsistent with scripture but you don’t cite one single verse to support that claim.
You ask if we would display a photo of a murdered three-year-old? Of course not. Killing three-year-olds is already against the law. Abortion is legal and we need to convince voters that an embryo is every bit as entitled to rights of personhood as they already know that three-year-old to be. Many won’t believe that unit they see our photos. They also need to be convinced that abortion is an evil on the same order of magnitude as killing a three-year-old. Many won’t believe that until they see it with their own eyes.
You say these photos should only be available to see on our website but most of the people who need to see them never go to our website. So we must take the photos to them. You express concern about born children seeing these pictures. Disturbing pictures of all kinds are seen by children every day in this country. Even parents who don’t allow their children to watch violence on television (as in violent cartoons, etc.) or play violent video games, often take them to the grocery store where check-out lines are flanked with magazine racks whose publications have cover photos which are inches away from young faces and often exhibit bloody photos of dead and dying victims of violence, terrorism, natural disasters, etc. Angry parents are in massive denial about this and almost always dispute these facts, so we have put up scores of examples on our website under “PUBLIC EDUCATION PROJECTS” and then “USING GRAPHIC IMAGES IN PUBLIC.” Some of those magazine covers and newspaper photos are as gruesome as anything we use and they have been seen by countless children whose clueless parents never even noticed. They reason they complain about our disturbing photos but not the disturbing press photos is because many feel a lot more guilt answering their children’s questions about abortion, with which they may well have some humiliating personal experience, than a terror attack for which they bear no responsibility at all.
As noted above, we have had countless women tell us that nothing less shocking than our abortion photos would have sufficed to dissuade them from killing their children. Many more have told us that had they seen these photos before aborting instead of after, they wouldn’t have done it. Large numbers have confided that it took the photos to force them to stop trying to justify a sin needed to confess and of which they needed to repent. And virtually every person I have ever met in serious pro-life activism had admitted that it was pictures which made it impossible for them to remain complacent.
The lives of other children were saved the day the girl you saw was upset by our pictures. Had we not displayed our pictures that day, these children would have been killed. Think about that. Little girls as young as eight and nine-years-old can become pregnant and be rushed to abortion clinics without having any idea what is about to be done to the baby they are carrying. In many Islamic countries, little girls who are raped are then murdered by family members in “honor killings,” to spare born people emotional trauma. In America, we kill the children of rape victims for the same reason. If killing the mother is barbaric, how can killing the baby be any less so? Why are we punishing victims instead of perpetrators? If you still believe allowing a born child to be upset is a greater evil than allowing an unborn child to be killed, we will pray for your soul.
Then you essentially ask “Would Jesus use bloody pictures to make His point?” Jesus controlled every aspect of his arrest, trial and execution. He arranged to have Himself beaten nearly to death before stumbling through the most crowed part of Jerusalem on the most crowded day of the year. His bloody body horrified throngs of Passover pilgrims which included large numbers of families with young children.
He then permitted himself to be stripped naked and tortured to death in full view of still more passersby, including more children. The Romans used executions to intimidate subjugated peoples. They located crucifixion cites for maximum public exposure. Our Lord accommodated Cesar by going out of His way to make this disturbing spectacle of His death as public as possible. And in the process, He chose as the very symbol of our faith, a bloody instrument of torture. His point was to disturb us with the gravity of our sin but bless us with the grace of His forgiveness, despite the fact that many children would be traumatized in the process. Did He get this wrong?
The press uses disturbing photos to expose injustice and it is seldom outlawed until they do. But the press won’t show the horror of abortion. So we show it for them. If the First Amendment allows them to do it, why should be be held to a different standard. Disturbing photos are what got child labor abuses outlawer. They are what got racial injustice outlawed. Who should have the power to censor the press in publishing and broadcasting disturbing images? What should the standards be? If we applied your standards, black people would still be beaten to their knees for trying to register to vote.
You challenge us to give you a Biblical basis for showing abortion photos: Try Ephesians 5:11, “Expose the deeds of darkness!”
Gregg Cunningham
From: Fordham
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 3:41 PM
To: Gregg Cunningham
Subject: ‘Choice’ truck
Hello,
I realize that for the most part this will fall on deaf ears since organizations like yours don’t care for negative feedback in any way. On my way home from work I was accosted by images on one of your anti-abortion trucks. I’m sure that there is a part of you that believes somehow that you are fulfilling the Lord’s work in this way and I just simply do not agree. As someone who not only grew up in the church, but studied the Bible to great extent, I see no passage, no verse that leads me to believe that this is in any way falls in line with the teachings of Christ. If you want to use biblical passages on your web site to further your cause, I suggest you follow the bible and the teachings of Christ to the letter. Otherwise, take the verses off. If you are not going to be an example of the love and compassion Christ gave to people, despite their morals, sin or lifestyle, then DO NOT associate yourself with Him.
I do not think that plastering images of aborted fetus’ and displaying them in public is morally correct. It’s one thing to have them on your web site where people can choose to view them, but to allow little children, who are innocently walking along the street, to be forced to consider things that are beyond their age is inappropriate. Who are you to force yourself upon our innocents in such a way? And yes, there was a young girl walking directly ahead of me while your truck drove by.
Also, if you believe that these fetus are children then why are you displaying their mangled and bloodied bodies in the first place. These are somebody’s children and you are unabashedly exploiting them. Would you post pictures of the mutilated body of a kidnapped and murdered 3 year old in order to stop kidnapping? Probably not, but tell me what the difference is?
It is unfortunate that in most cases, the women who abort their babies need tolerance, love and compassion and you are perpetuating an atmosphere of anger, hatred and violence. Abortion is one aspect of our ever increasingly morally ambiguous world. What we need more than ever is people who are committed to rising above and being an example of something brighter and better. If you are not doing that, then in some ways, you are no better than those who you are trying to harm.
Sincerely
