The dead baby picture dilemma in South Dakota

Does showing graphic images change hearts?  YES, there is no question that showing graphic images is effective to wake people up to the reality of just about any atrocity. For centuries, graphic images have been used to change public opinion.

The picture of the runaway slave with scars on his back was used in church gatherings in the North prior to the Civil War to muster support for the abolition movement. Gross pictures of butchered, tusk-less elephants rotting in the African heat were used by animal right advocates to spark a world outcry against the black market ivory trade. The American Cancer Society makes us look at distorted faces of those who got lip cancer from chewing tobacco. Mothers Against Drunk Driving puts pictures of smashed cars in high schools to wake youth up to the dangers of drinking and driving. This famous picture of this scared and naked Vietnamese girl running from her napalm'd village turned many hearts against the Vietnam War. 

There is even Biblical precedence for this in Judges 19:30.  A Levite cut his murdered wife into twelve pieces and had the bloody pieces sent throughout the land.  Read the passage yourself to see why he did it…

When he reached home, he took a knife and cut her up limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. And he ordered the men he sent out; "Say to every man in Israel: Has such a thing as this ever happened from the time the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until now? Think about it! Talk it over. Do something!"

Think about it! Talk it over. Do something! This is the purpose of displaying graphic images!  And who isn't moved by the graphic depictions of Jesus on the cross? Perhaps then, in trying to wake people to the reality of what abortion really is, there is a public place for pictures of babies ripped apart in their mothers wombs. I continue to be stunned to meet people, even in their fifties and sixties, who are shocked and horrified when they see what abortion really is.  I wonder where they have been all these years.  But what has happened is Planned Parenthood has been pretty successful at veiling and sanitizing what abortion really is - the violent taking of innocent human life. Dead baby pictures are a helpful tool in seeing the respectability facade over Planned Parenthood lift.

In our 2006 efforts to ban abortion, the dead baby picture people from all over America descended on South Dakota. This time VoteYesForLife campaign director Leslee Unruh is saying up front she hopes they stay home.

In South Dakota, that doesn't work. Certainly people have a right to do what they want. But as leader of this campaign, I'm asking people to not come to South Dakota with pictures of dead babies…. It's very difficult to have to look at those pictures for women who've had abortions, I feel that they cause a lot of us to have serious backlashes. It brings us back to that experience. A lot of us have gotten to a point of healing, where we don't see the child that way. When I think of my aborted child, that's not what I want to think of.

Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, an pro-life organization that has ten dead baby picture "Truth Trucks" that continually drive around the nation has agreed to not come to South Dakota this year with his trucks.  (Actually, his trucks probably were not among these here in 2006).

'I think the polls show that South Dakota already is pro-life. And they have a strategic vision for how to overturn Roe,' Newman says. 'I don't think the people of South Dakota need to be convinced to be pro-life. So I'm going to focus our resources elsewhere.' Not everybody is going to agree with every tactic, but as a movement, we agree on the ultimate goal. Obviously we believe that those trucks are incredibly powerful in changing a person's heart and mind. But again, in South Dakota, the polls are pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of people are pro-life,' Newman says.

There is a time and season for everything. You don't fight every battle with the same weapon. Graphic pictures are certainly an effective weapon, but we are fighting a war here on behalf of women too - not just babies. Since abortion became a statewide focus in 2006, post-abortive women have come forward in droves and we are working with them to see them healed. The graphic pictures aren't helpful to these women- they already know deep down abortion is an evil. They tell stories of how abortion destroyed more than just their baby - something in them was destroyed too.