Truck Campaign re-ignites debate on graphic images

Pro-life opinion was divided once again this past summer with the introduction of the Reproductive Choice Campaign (RCC) in Calgary. The Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, headed by Stephanie Gray, has been running a truck throughout Calgary Monday to Friday during morning rush hour to remind (or educate) people about the horrors of abortion. It is a horrific reminder. The 11-metre box-bodied truck has billboard-sized photos of aborted fetuses on the sides and back with the word “Choice” and the group’s web address, unmaskingchoice.ca.
They are gory, graphic and attention grabbing. The debate they provoke within the pro-life movement and in the larger community is interesting. Are the signs effective and is this kind of campaign ethical and moral? The issue has pitted Miss Gray and Calgary’s Roman Catholic bishop, Fred Henry, on opposite sides.

They are both good questions and worth discussion. On the first point, I suppose it depends what one means by effective. If it means attracting attention to the issue of abortion, there is no doubt the truck campaign is effective. The RCC campaign was featured on CTV, in the National Post and the Calgary Herald, and broadcast on several radio stations across the country. CCBR estimates that the campaign reached almost 2 million people based on the audience numbers for those media outlets. In the case of the Calgary Herald, a column in support of the RCC set off two to three weeks of vigorous debate in the letters to the editor page.

Attention and exposure aside, “effective” can also refer to whether all the attention was positive and changed minds on abortion. That is, after all, what all pro-life groups seek, I think. We want to change the culture in Canada to one that respects the dignity and sanctity of all human life. So does the truck campaign advance that goal? That’s a tough question to answer scientifically. However, CCBR has collected comments from people who spoke to the media and/or discussed the campaign with them. Some have certainly said that the photos have changed their opinion about abortion. Some say they were pro-choice before they saw the images and heard the case that CCBR advances. You can read the newsletter and the CCBR rationale for their use of graphic images at www.unmaskingchoice.ca.

The reaction is certainly not universally positive. Many people are shocked and off ended by the graphic photos. They don’t want their children exposed to the images. Many post-abortive women find them devastating. Pro-abortion people say they are “rude” and “misleading.” And many pro-life people think it casts all pro-life people in a negative light and leads the rest of society to think of all of us as extremists, an image many of us have worked hard to dispel.

I think we can dispense with the pro-abortion objections. It is incomprehensible to suppose that “rude” in any way equates to the societal sanction of killing babies.

One cannot, I think, dispense with the discomfort of parents who don’t want their children to see these horrific pictures. One shouldn’t have to face such images when driving to school or grocery shopping with little ones. I’m off ended by sexually provocative billboards and don’t think children should be exposed to them so I sympathize with parents who feel this way about the truck photos. However, when over 100,000 other “little ones” are killed every year in Canada with the support of doctors and taxpayers, I think the outrage over graphic reminders about the carnage is misdirected. The pictures would not exist if we did not encourage the killing of these children with our dollars and our votes.

As a pro-life person, I have worked hard to try to present a rational voice to those outside the pro-life movement. In my experience, extremists are few and far between in this country and the real extremists are rarely associated with a group. I believe Canadians need to hear facts and reasoned arguments on life issues and that in this essentially secular society, religious or Bible-based claims will not do the job. I have heard Stephanie Gray’s presentation several times and I find it to be rational, fact-based and convincing. The images are disturbing, but I think they are effective.

That leaves us with the ethical/moral question and this is the one on which Bishop Fred Henry weighed in. Last winter, the bishop sent a letter to parishes and groups within his Calgary diocese explaining his decision to withdraw support from the CCBR. Bishop Henry referred specifically to CCBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) which displays large posters of aborted babies on university campuses and compares abortion to other atrocities like the Holocaust, slavery, Rwanda genocide, etc. His comments apply equally to the RCC. “GAP in 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.” Bishop Henry also said, “The project is misguided, it’s offensive and I don’t think one should be using this kind of means to achieve an end…. I think you would accomplish more if you showed a picture of a human child in the womb of the mother.”

I cannot pretend to have the background or education to challenge Bishop Henry on this point. I agree that images of the child in the womb are effective. We know that 3-D ultrasounds, for example, have been used very effectively in crisis pregnancy centres to convince women not to have abortions. Many mainstream companies use ultrasound images now to promote products. I cannot say if these achieve “more.” I agree that the photos of aborted fetuses do not accord human dignity or respect that is owed these little people but since that is precisely the point that CCBR is trying to make, I’m not sure this is immoral. There is no intent to show indignity or disrespect. The violation of human dignity occurred when the babies were aborted, not when the photograph was taken.

I am somewhat comforted to know that another priest, Father Frank Pavone, the head of Priests for Life, supports the use of graphic images. He believes that people must see the reality of abortion. In fact, Fr. Pavone sits on the board of the U.S. Center for Bioethical Reform and has a lengthy defense for the careful use of graphic images on his website, www.priestsforlife.org. I know too that many pro-life people, some of whom are my friends and colleagues, disagree with me on this point. They believe these campaigns undermine good work that has been achieved by more mainstream prolife initiatives. I’m open to hearing more on that front (feel free to send LifeCanada News your comments) but for the moment I’m not convinced they are correct. I think there is room in this battle for both sides of this debate.

Joanne Byfield is the President of LifeCanada.