I recently bought a truck. A big one, like the ones you see delivering
supplies to the
supermarkets. And the other day, I got to ride on it for the first time.
What's important about it is not what's on the inside, but what's on the
outside. The
truck is actually a traveling billboard, and anyone looking at it sees the
images of
children who were aborted within the first 11 weeks of pregnancy.
The Center for Bioethical Reform (CBR), on whose Board of Directors I
serve, has
launched the "Reproductive Choice Campaign", which utilizes the highway
system, a
key means of transportation, as a vehicle of education. I
have worked with CBR and its director, Gregg Cunningham, for years, and
this is one
of the projects we are now launching around the nation. Four of these huge
trucks
have been traveling the highways of Los Angeles all summer and will soon
appear in
other states.
The project is based on solid research about the principles of social
reform. If you
analyze how the Civil Rights movement achieved its goals, or the movement
to
reform child labor laws, or any number of other movements, you will see
that they
visually dramatized the injustice they were fighting, and confronted the
culture which
was unwilling to see that injustice. Both CBR and Priests for Life are
deepening the
research into these principles, and will present that research to those
who
undoubtedly will express their opinions that the use of graphic images
somehow
turns people away from the pro-life cause. The question at issue here is
not how we
feel about the use of such images, or how others will feel about it. The
question is
whether the pro-life movement is somehow exempt from the principles by
which
social reform movements achieve their goals.
Reformers do not succeed by being popular. Those who use graphic images
don't
care what people think about them; they care about what people think about
abortion.
And if giving people a negative opinion of abortion means having them also
reject
the messenger, that's a small price to pay.
For some time, I've had graphic images on my website
www.priestsforlife.org. No
single item on that site, which consists of thousands of pages, has won
more
converts to the pro-life cause. They write to me with gratitude for
shaking them out
of their denial. And even those who are angry will never be able to erase
those
images from their mind, nor ever feel the same about abortion again.
The truck project, moreover, makes full use of the First Amendment, a tool
which
we in the pro-life movement need to better understand and more fully
utilize. The
Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right of people to convey verbal
and
graphic messages despite the fact that they offend others, and despite the
fact that
children may be among the viewers. We are also making available the
research on
this angle of the project.
The truck I recently rode in was the first I ever bought. I assure you, it
won't be the
last.