Let me express a pet peeve of mine I’ve had for a while. In my humble opinion, one of the biggest mistakes the pro-life movement in general has made over the past few decades has been to make their point with pictures of babies and toddlers. I understand the purpose is to get people to think about what their preborn child would look like within a year or two if they don’t abort. I get it. But there are two main problems with this approach: 1) Many people get the false impression that it is an attempt to equate what a preborn child presently looks like with that of a one or two year old; and 2) It doesn’t make people think enough.
Regarding #1, human beings in their early embryonic and fetal stages of life do not look like a post-natal baby or toddler. The latter is more maturely developed. Embryos from the moment of conception are equal in dignity to post-natal babies and people like you and I, but those who support abortion think you are being disingenuous by portraying them as presently looking like a Gerber baby.
Regarding #2, portraying a post-natal baby does not portray the fullness of the truth, only a minute fraction. When you kill a person in their embryonic stage of life you are killing the person and his or her entirety of potential. In other words, the embryo killed in abortion with his or her unique and unrepeatable personality is a baby, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, middle-ager, and senior citizen – not yet lived out. That is what you kill in one abortion, not simply a pre-born child or a post-born child at one or two years old. This is a pertinent point.
Roe vs. Wade occurred 46 years ago, which means approximately one-third of us today under 47 are missing due to legalized prenatal homicide. That’s over 65 million (and that’s only from surgical abortion). Since Roe, we are now missing countless middle-aged people, young adults, teenagers, children, and babies. Pictures representing these people and these stages of life, what they would (and should) be presently living, is important to be displayed if we are to allow the full truth to penetrate people’s minds and hearts. We need to display the entire human life cycle in pics, or at least people of various ages. This is who you kill in an abortion, this 44 year old father of three and soccer coach, for example.
When you abort one human being in their embryonic or fetal state of life you destroy an entire lifetime, along with all the endless potential effects and contributions that reverberate through time and generations. Each preborn child is destined to be a member of society and humanity for their entire life cycle. This simple truth we need to share – in words and pictures.