Opinion

Image

TORONTO, August 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Every summer in Calgary, Canadians get the chance to experience an all out hog-killin’, bull ridin’, lasso- slingin’, good time at the ultra-famous Calgary Stampede. It’s no secret to those who know me that I am a firm supporter of the use of graphic images when it comes to pro-life activism.  However, when I signed up for the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform’s Summer Crash Course and was told we would be using them outside of the Calgary Stampede, I have to admit I was a little hesitant. 

My first question was: who exactly are we targeting?  My Ontario naivety being what it is, I thought the only people who went to the stampede were the cowboys who competed and the families who watched them.  My opinion was that by targeting events like this, we would be turning people off; forcing families to look at disgusting pictures while trying to take their kids to milk some cows and pet some horseys. I went nonetheless with an open-mind to see if my hesitations were unfounded.

I don’t think words can properly express to you how wrong I really was.

I guess I forgot that abortions don’t stop while the Calgary stampede is in town, and realized that just because there is an event going on doesn’t mean we should stray from our mandate to convert hearts and minds to the pro-life cause. Just as the American suffragette, Alice Paul did not stop protesting outside the White House during World War I, so too pro-lifers should not stop protesting just because Will and Kate want to kick up their boots in some hoedowns.

Throughout my week-long venture with CCBR doing the “choice” chain, I had some pretty interesting conversations that convinced me of this.  One young woman, wearing a cropped, plaid, belly- shirt and a jean skirt I could have used as a headband, told me in her drunken state (yes, it was the middle of the day) that she was on her way to the stampede and hoped to “get pregnant tonight”.

The next day, a group of rambunctious teenagers, openly chugging their alcoholic beverages in the middle of the street almost choked when catching a glimpse of our display. With intoxication masked as courage and the power of the mob behind them- they approached me asking various questions as to why I felt “the need to tell others what to do”. After a few minutes of conversation and a thorough interrogation of the pro-life position, they quietly left being forced to decide whether they would continue to be lackadaisical when the slaughter of innocents was being perpetrated daily.

These conversations, along with many others, reinforced my position that whether it’s the Calgary Stampede or the Canada Day Parade, this pro-life initiative needs to be at the forefront of Canadian life.  It is an outdoor classroom where education about abortion is dispensed to all, teaching, challenging and convincing them to make it unthinkable.

As I stood there, with the pervasive aroma of cow manure and alcohol swirling around me and the faint twang of Garth Brooks in the distance, I realized that we should never back down. There are more people working full-time to kill babies than to save them. If abortionists are not going to stop during these events, neither should we. 

They say that pictures are worth a thousand words and these images cut down on the rhetoric that is alive and well in the culture today, bluntly illuminating the grisly menace that is threatening our families and society as a whole.  Showing pictures of happy, smiling, Jewish people does not accurately display the reality of the holocaust which is why abortion imagery is so essential.  A very sure way that people will know abortion is to see it.  The strategy worked for Wilberforce, it worked for Martin Luther King, and it will work for us.

American Cultural Anthropologist Margaret Mead once wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”. Can I get a “yeehaw” for that, y’all?

This opinion piece was first published in The Interim. To read more from Alissa Golob, be sure to check out her up-coming blog found here.