Cracking The Abortion Consensus: Changing Hearts and Minds With The New Abortion Caravan Part II

 

At “Choice” Chain in Regina a man walked by and in response to my question what he thought about abortion, he said he hadn’t really thought about it. “However,” he added, “I was adopted as a baby so I guess my mom chose life. But there’s still circumstances that justify abortion.” I asked him what he thought those were and we discussed each of them, while looking at the prenatal and abortion images. After a long conversation he said, “I know those pictures are real and in my heart I know you are right. And I’m going to think about what I can do about abortion.”

 

 

While doing “Choice” Chain by the hospital in Brandon, MB, a young man named Jason walked by our display. Jojo, who was holding a sign with the word “LIFE” and prenatal imagery, asked him what he thought about abortion. His response: “Oh, I think it’s everyone’s own decision.” Jason then walked past Catherine, who was holding a “CHOICE” sign with abortion imagery. Jason was clearly disturbed by this and asked what happened and why “they” looked like that. Catherine explained that this is what abortion does to pre-born children, contrasting it with the prenatal image. After finishing his conversation with Catherine, Jason walked towards me. I remarked that I had heard his initial comment and asked what he thought after seeing the images. He said, “After seeing these pictures I can never support abortion again.”

 

 

At “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg, a young man stood in front of my “Choice” sign looking at the image of an 11-week old aborted fetus. I asked him what he thought about abortion, and he immediately said that it was wrong. I offered him a pamphlet and he told me that he was going to show the pictures and website to someone in his family who was considering having an abortion. 

 

 

At “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg I noticed an older fellow looking at my graphic abortion sign. I asked him what he thought about abortion and he said that he believed in a woman’s right to “choose.” I asked him if he also believed in a woman’s right to “take,” explaining that we need to examine what a woman is taking or choosing before we can support it as a “right.” After a few more moments of looking at the pictures and sharing basic apologetics, he said, “Thanks, keep up the good work.”

 

 

During “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg, I decided to approach two girls who were looking at the graphic images. I asked if they had thought much about abortion before and they said no. I asked if they had thoughts now and they both said, “It’s stupid.” 

 

“Why is abortion stupid?” I inquired. One girl replied, “Why would you have sex if you’re not ready for a baby and then would kill it if you get pregnant?” I decided to challenge her and asked, “What about in the case of rape?” She responded with, “Why wouldn’t someone place the child for adoption?” I told her I agreed that adoption is the right thing to do and dismembering a child is wrong. I also told the girls that I learned from a professional who works in adoption services that the number of families waiting to adopt is roughly the same as the number of children killed by abortion. They decided to each take pamphlets with them, plus an extra one for a friend. 

 

 

A woman approached staring intently at the signs. I inquired what she thought about abortion, and she told me I probably didn’t want to hear it. I asked her to please tell me. She told me her mom had tried to illegally abort her with a coat hanger. Because of her experiences, she was completely against abortion and in her course of work as a counselor, told young girls her story and how her mother’s choice affected her life. 

 

 

During “Choice” Chain in Thunder Bay a teenage girl yelled at me about the obscenity of our display in a town where many teens are addicted, abused and unfit to parent. “What you guys do with your bloody pictures is tell girls who had abortions that they killed their babies!” 

 

“We’re not here to judge women,” I responded, “but if you draw that conclusion after seeing the images, maybe it is because the pictures tell you that abortion ends lives?” “That’s exactly it,” the girl said, “but I don’t want to see it. I had one.” Again I expressed my sympathy and asked if I could introduce her to Anita Sonntag. Though she listened to Anita’s story, she refused to take a Silent-No-More Awareness card and continued to swear at me. 

 

“I think of my baby every day, and I just want you to take them down,” she repeated over and over again. This is when I said, “I can’t take them down. You know why? If I do, I would value the feelings of born people more than the lives of pre-born people. And that’s wrong. Just like I value my son and would do anything to protect him, in the same way I value pre-born children and will stand here to protect them. And, in the same way, I value you.” She looked away while I continued. “People may have treated you badly but that was wrong. Each human being is worthy of protection and that’s why I care for you as much as I care for pre-born children. And if you really love someone you won’t spare them the truth, even if that’s hard.” At this point she turned around and got into her vehicle.

 

While this conversation didn’t end in a conversion to the pro-life position, it tells the story of one of the many people we meet that are wounded and justify abortion to maintain the lie that it was a good thing. In the case of this young woman, she has been treated badly and felt she had no other option. However, realizing what abortion did to her pre-born child may very well be the beginning of her healing process. And because a pro-lifer valued her, hopefully she will come to value herself and her pre-born child as well.

 

 

I was doing “Choice” Chain outside a high school in Sault St. Marie, and I approached a group of students who were standing nearby, many of whom were pointing at the pictures and joking around, laughing loudly. I asked one young man who was joking around what he thought about abortion. After glancing at the pictures he stopped laughing and said, “That’s disgusting.” He told me he had never seen the pictures before, and has never really thought about it before. After our conversation, one of his friends started joking around about abortion, saying it was ok. The man I had spoken to turned to him handed him one of our pamphlets and said sternly, “Just look at this man! You can’t look at this for more than 30 seconds and not say this is totally wrong!” He took more pamphlets and started handing them out to his friends, defending the pro-life perspective.  

 

 

• I spoke to a young woman probably on her early 20’s who agreed that abortion kills a human but that women should have that choice. I asked her if she would say the same about rape or abuse of born children and she replied, “I never thought of it that way...that’s a great point”

 

• I spoke to a woman likely on her early 50’s. She claimed that as a Christian she is against abortion but that she had no right to tell anyone else what to do, furthermore, she told me that if her daughter was pregnant she would support her either way because she loves her.  I then told her that there cannot be love without truth and that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is the hardest. So if in abortion the end result is the death of a child, this cannot be love. We then spoke about eliminating the sufferer vs. alleviating the suffering and at the end of the conversation I said to her, “Anyways, these are just some of the points I wanted to make to you today” and she said back to me, “Points very well taken, thank you much for what you do”.

 

• I spoke to a woman likely on her early 40’s. She initially claimed to be pro-life but then confessed to me that there are circumstances where abortion can be justifiable, like poverty. I then told her than being born and raised in Colombia I have seen so much poverty in a way we don’t even see in Canada. I told her that this very much breaks my heart to see and remember but that I would never think of killing the poor to end their suffering and to eliminate poverty but that instead I would want to help. So in a similar way just as we never desire to fix a difficult circumstance by killing the afflicted when we deal with born people, we should when it comes to the pre born.  And then she replied, “Well, that’s different because...wait a second, I think I see where you are going and it makes so much sense, wow, you are so right”

 

 

Today, at “Choice” Chain I asked a woman, “What do you think about abortion?” She immediately responded that she thought abortion was stupid, and asked me what we were doing here. I told her that we were here showing people what abortion really does to children and that abortion also hurts women. She said, “I know, because I did it.” 

 

I immediately acknowledged her loss and expressed to her how sorry I was for her loss. I inquired as to the circumstances she was in that had prompted her to choose abortion. She said that her boyfriend didn’t want her to carry the pregnancy to term and because of that, other people in her life had pressured to her abort.

 

I told the woman that we had a woman travelling with us who also had had an abortion and regretted it. I asked her if she wanted to talk to her, and when she said yes, I called Anita over. Anita and the woman (Solange) proceeded to talk about the pain they had been living and that to this day they still think about the child they had aborted. Anita said to Solange, “After my abortion, I vowed never to tell anyone about it.” Solange responded, “Neither did I, until today.” Anita and I both hugged Solange and gave her a card so that she could seek further healing and be in touch with the local Silent No More representative, Heather.

 

 

• I talked to a woman in her early 20’s who initially claimed to be pro-choice because every circumstance is different. When I asked her if she would be OK with killing toddlers because of difficult circumstances, she said that this is different because toddlers are born. I then asked her where she thought life began and she said that in her opinion life begins once you are outside of the womb. I then quickly explained to her what sex-selection abortion was and asked her what she thought about it and she replied, “I am definitely against it. Oh wait, that doesn’t make any sense does it? You have proved me wrong.” I then explained to her how scientifically speaking life began at conception and then she said, “That makes sense, and you have proved me wrong...thank you so much for talking to me.”  

 

• I asked a woman in her early 20’s what she thought about abortion and she replied saying that she is pro-choice. I then asked her if she thought that some choices are wrong such as rape or child abuse, and she said of course. Then I pointed at my sign and I asked her how can we be pro-choice to do this (pointing at my “Choice” sign)? She paused for a few seconds and then she replied: “I don’t even know why I’m pro-choice, abortion kills a human being.” As she was walking away I asked her if she was still pro-choice and she said, “Not when it comes to abortion.”

 

• A young man on his mid 20’s walked by and when I asked him what he thought about abortion he said to me, “I have a 3 year old boy that I love to death. However my girlfriend and I were thinking on aborting him until we watched a video of an abortion on the internet and we said “No way, that is messed up.” Keep up the good work guys!”

 

 

While doing ‘Choice’ Chain outside the Portage Plaza in Winnipeg, Manitoba I spoke to a guy that initially identified as ‘kind of pro-life’. He told me ‘I some times honk for the people outside the clinic, but I don’t really know why and my wife and daughter don’t really get it.’ He told me he was personally opposed to abortion. He also told me that he supported abortions when the child was disabled or wouldn’t live very long. We spoke about this for a couple of minutes, and after staring at the images for a couple of minutes he left saying ‘the pre-born are totally deserving of human rights like us’.

 

 

While doing ‘Choice’ Chain outside the Portage Plaza in Winnipeg, Manitoba I asked a young woman what she thought about abortion. After staring at the images for a long time she responded ‘Ummmmm……..I have honestly never thought about it before.’ We spoke for quite a while, and at the end of the conversation she said ‘thank you for opening my eyes.’

 

 

 While I was participating in a ‘Choice’ Chain display outside of the Portage Plaza in Winnipeg, Manitoba I was approached by a man who said quite loudly ‘Man you are wasting your time out here, abortion ain’t gunna stop until it’s illegal’. He said that what we were doing was pointless because everyone already had access to the pictures that we had, and that people would find the truth on their own. I asked him “sir, have you ever searched for these images before, and if not, how many other people do you think want to know this truth?’ He replied ‘Man, I guess you’re right”. We spoke for a little longer, and he left saying ‘man you the one the ones that are gunna change the world. You the ones who are going to stop this’.

 

 

I was doing “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg when a lady named Kathy who stopped. I asked her what she thought about abortion and she said “I don’t like it, but I had one. Sometimes it’s necessary.” We spoke for a while and she admitted that she believed the abortion was an act that intentionally kills an innocent pre-born child. Tears welled up in her eyes as she told me about how she already had one child and she now thinks she could have handled two children. Afterwards I introduced her to Anita from Silent No More Awareness who regrets her abortion. Kathy and Anita exchanged information and Kathy said “We’ll be in touch, I’d love to hear your story.” Before Kathy left she asked to give me a hug and said “thank you so much. It was nice to meet you.”

 

 

I was doing “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg when I asked a woman named Jasmine if she had ever seen a picture of a child who was killed by an abortion. She said, “No.” I asked her what she thought about abortion, and she said she didn’t like it. I asked her if she was doing anything to EndtheKilling in Canada and she told me she wasn’t. At the end of the conversation she took three pamphlets and a plastic 11-week old fetal model I offered her. She told me she wanted to get in contact with her local pro-life organization, send a letter to her local MP, and go to our website to learn pro-life apologetics so she could have the abortion conversation with her parents and sister. 

 

 

I was doing “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg when a woman approached our display and asked what the pictures depicted. I said, “This is a child who was killed by an abortion. We talked for a while and she told me that she didn’t like abortion. I asked her what she wanted to do to help EndtheKilling in Canada and she said she would go to our website for more information, Google the local pro-life organizations and phone about activism opportunities. She took our pamphlet and said that she was a teacher and would discuss the issue with her students.

 

 

While I was doing “Choice” Chain in Winnipeg I spoke with a man named Chris who said he was personally pro-life. When I asked him what he wanted to do to help end abortion in Canada he said, “Get more information and write a letter to my MP.” I told him about the “Letters 4 Life” campaign and he took our pamphlet and thanked me for doing what I was doing and encouraged us to, “Keep it up.”

 

 

While doing “Choice Chain” in Winnipeg I spoke with a woman who told me she had had an abortion. She took our pamphlet and a Silent No More card before going on her way.

 

 

I was doing "Choice" Chain in Sudbury, Ontario, when a young man walked past me. I handed him a pamphlet and asked him if he had any opinion on abortion. He said he did not. I pointed at the abortion imagery, explained what abortion did to a pre-born child, and asked him if he thought he should have an opinion. At that point he said, "That's crazy--abortion is totally wrong."