Pro-birth terrorists (a rant)

First, head on over to Coat Hangers At Dawn for The Scoop on the Very Desperate Anti-Choice Activist Conference Call.

Read it? OK, good.

So what this means, folks, is that we can now look forward to more bloody-supposed-fetus pictures. (They're fakes, by the way. They're using the same pictures they've been trotting out for years, and they were fakes back then.)

But let's suppose, just for a moment, that they aren't fakes. Let's suppose they're the real thing.

So if they're real? You know what? I have no problem with the anti-choice/pro-birth movement wanting people to know what an abortion looks like. I think we should know. We should also know how to use condoms and birth control pills and emergency contraception. And if I had ovarian cancer and was pregnant and was refusing treatment, someone should show me what OVARIAN CANCER LOOKS LIKE.

But I do have a problem with the anti-choice/pro-birth movement forcing my four year old to look at them. This has nothing to do with what I personally believe about when life begins or any such things. It has to do with what is appropriate to show a young child. A four year old cannot vote. S/he can't read, most of the time. S/he doesn't know where babies come from (at least, mine doesn't - we're just getting to that discussion). S/he won't be getting pregnant or getting anyone else pregnant anytime soon. In short, s/he has nothing to say about this issue.

And a four year old does not have the emotional or cognitive ability to see those pictures as anything beyond horrific and traumatic. "Good," say the pro-birth terrorists. "That's what they are."

And your purpose, then, is to get across to pro-choice adults the "evil" of abortion by traumatizing KIDS?! Tell me, what do you gain by exposing my child to these pictures? Are you, in some sick and twisted way, hoping my now-traumatized child will be savvy enough to convince me to go to the polls and support the abortion ban? What's next - will you be targeting pre-schools and daycares?

Let me echo a friend, who had a beautiful response to a pro-birth terrorist:

"What evil is in your heart that you would subject my small child to such hate and violence?"

Before you rant and rave, think about it. What Would Jesus Do? Somehow, I don't see him hanging out on the corner exposing children to bloody pictures. (Jesus loves the little children, remember? He doen't love them BUT think it's just fine to traumatize them in order to upset their parents. That's a passive-aggressive trick, and it's also child abuse. (You wanna argue that abortion is child abuse? Go ahead. That still doesn't make you innocent of abusing my child.))

You have nothing to gain by traumatizing children with ghastly pictures. You have everything to lose. If you truly cared as much about children as you claim to, you would put them away.