“You should have been aborted.”
Of all the random insults tossed at pro-lifers, this is probably the most frequent, tiresome, and predictable. When faced with people who say we shouldn’t kill other, inconvenient people, the knee-jerk reaction of these winsome ambassadors of Third Wave Feminism is to find that inconvenient, and suggest you should have been killed yourself. Thanks for proving our point, I think.
It seems that nothing quite unhinges an abortion supporter like someone who disagrees with them. (Violence and vitriol are not only leveled at pro-lifers who use abortion victim photography, like some would claim—one of my friends was assaulted for side-walk chalking pro-life messages, while at Life Chain this year a woman was attacked by a knife-wielding activist who figured that a post-birth abortion was just the thing to solve the irritating problem of an alternate viewpoint.)
We’ve had many, many encouraging developments over the last year—last month, I collected over 100 testimonies of people who changed their position on abortion as the result of our projects. Many people across the country have come into contact with the reality of abortion, and rethought or have begun to rethink their position on this issue.
And then, of course, there’s this guy commenting on our Facebook page (unedited):
Nobody needs to see that and its not paid for by tax dollars get your facts strait i see more crack babies that are negleted And mistreated everyday by unfit parents and they would have been better off not being born some people make bad choices and its not fair to subject a child to that. Not to mention its plain ignorant to force your beliefs on others they way you do its discusting. None of you are any better than a bunch of jahova witnesses. I dont care what any of you people have to say PRO CHOICE ALL THE WAY!. And dont convince yourself that i am un educated on the topic beleive me iv read all the facts i know exactly what its all about thanks.
Yeah! Kill all the crack babies! And abused kids and stuff, because killing people is always the answer!
Click “like” if you are PRO-LIFE!
Or not, of course. I hate to question the commenter’s education on the matter (or literacy in general), but abortion is paid for by the Canadian government (and you, the taxpayer). Also, the pro-life movements holds to the quaint idea that when we see someone in a bad situation, we take steps to improve their situation, not chop them up and chuck them out. It is doing that—the dismembering a small human thing—that we find “disgusting.”
Some people grapple with ideas, and others seem content to merely poke at them. And there is no human rights issue more compelling in its demand for our attention than this one. We fully realize it’s not going to be popular to force a nation into having a discussion they don’t want to have. It never has been. The abolitionist William Wilberforce had to travel with bodyguards, while his colleague Thomas Clarkson was nearly killed by angry slave traders. The National Child Labor Committee faced public backlash for constantly publishing pictures of child labor victims. Civil rights activists faced near constant violence in their struggle to expose and confront what was happening to African Americans. As Gregg Cunningham has often said, “Liked reformers are rarely effective and effective reformers are rarely liked.”
So when an angry commenter begins a tirade with the phrase, “Nobody needs to see that,” we would beg to differ. Everyone needs to see it. And with a lot of hard work, everyone will.
Reprinted with permission from UnmaskingChoice.ca.