"warning: abortion photos ahead"...
I caught the bus today at the same time, at the same stop. It was like any other bus ride. And then we went over Priestman Street and there was a woman with a big yellow sign and in big black letters it said:
WARNING: ABORTION PHOTOS AHEAD
And all down Regent Street were these GIANT photos (giant as in five feet high and three feet wide) of aborted fetuses at different stages (two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, ten weeks, three months...) and they were DISTURBING! I know that that was the whole point, to disturb people into thinking that abortion is wrong, but what if that is also really traumatizing for some people?
What broke my heart is that one of the giant photos was being supported/held up by a girl who look no older than twelve. Maybe I'm naive or old-fashioned, but at twelve you should not have to stand on the side of the street and hold a giant photo of a bloody fetus head on a pair of tweezers. There is something just so wrong about that. I felt awful for her.
Abortion is such a touchy, sensitive, delicate issue and this protest or demonstration was done in such an insensitive and crude way. Maybe that was the point, but part of me can't help but think that this demonstration was not a good idea, at least the manner they chose in which to demonstrate. Something tells me that the people who were holding this demonstration were people who have never had an abortion or have never personally known someone who's had an abortion.
I don't want to open up a can of worms here and I'm really not that well educated to open cans of worms anyhow. I love Jesus and I pray and go to church regularly and go to Bible study and all those healthy Christian activites. So I know that fundamentally, abortion is wrong. But what if a woman is raped by a man with HIV/AIDS? And her baby will be born with HIV/AIDS and suffer it's entire life, not really having a life at all? What if a woman were to die giving birth and her baby would be an orphan? The Canadian Courts then say that it's OK to have an abortion. Are the Canadian Courts right? Do they have the power to dictate who can have an abortion and who can't? Does a woman have the right to decide to have an abortion or not? What about the father?
We live in one fucked up society, that's all I know.
I don't know if the demonstration got shut down or if the police came by or what have you, but I hope that that poor little twelve year old girl got to go get some ice cream or go to the beach and hang out with her friends and at least finish being twelve, instead of 23 with an opinion on everything.