Justice For All
by Denise Morris on 09/26/2007 at 9:52 AM
I will be out of the office on Wednesday as I head up to Greeley, CO to participate in an on-campus abortion exhibit with the Focus on the Family Institute students.
The exhibit, which is run by an organization called Justice for All, travels to campuses and sets up an extremely graphic abortion exhibit on campus squares. Although they set up signs warning people of the graphic pictures ahead, most people are shocked by what they see when the photos come into view. The pictures include aborted fetuses at different stages. The tiny bodies are bloody, torn apart and mutilated. They are also real.
Needless to say, a day with Justice for All is quite an experience. College students gather around the exhibit for discussion. Many debate with us. Quite often, people begin to yell. Many are offended. Pro-choice groups set up protests.
I first went on this trip when I was an Institute student three years ago. At first I was quite hesitant. I didn't know what I thought of using such offensive pictures. Is it necessary? Is it useful? I didn't know if I felt prepared to talk with people about abortion. Does a woman have a right to choose? What if she was raped? How would I answer these questions?
What I took away from the event is that, even though the pictures are difficult to deal with, they are a reality of abortion. We see pictures of piles of bodies from the Jewish Holocaust, and although they are graphic, they help us to understand the horror of what the Nazis did. I feel that the same thing applies to this situation. Many people are unaware of the realities of abortion -- of the development of a fetus within the first trimester when most abortions occur.
I also learned that the best way to talk with people about abortion is to listen and to ask questions. If you start the conversation combatively, then you will get a combative response. If you listen, ask questions, and use logic, you are much more likely to end up with someone who will be willing to listen to you as well. (If you're interested in learning more about how to talk with someone about abortion, I would definitely recommend this book.)
I am expecting my time at Greeley to be challenging. But I am hopeful that in the end, everyone who comes in contact with this exhibit (including me) will learn something and come away thinking about the realities of life, death, choices and rights.
1. Seth said the following at 11:21 AM on Sep 26:
At what point people's hearts were hardened such that they thought it was alright to take the life of their child I don't know. In my mind there is no abortion debate, it's a choice between good and evil.
2. Jenny said the following at 11:31 AM on Sep 26:
A few years ago when I was in school, Justice for All came to my campus. I appreciated the boldness with which they presented the horrible realities of abortion. I really hoped it would help my fellow students understand and think twice before they chose to abort their own children. But I am ashamed to say I did not exercise boldness on my own part and follow up on my classmates' reactions to the displays. I overheard them talking about how disgusted they were, and one student was even telling people the pictures were fake. I really wish I had joined the conversation and reminded them that those pictures are real, that that is what is happening to little children every day, that abortion is not just a harmless medical procedure on a lump of tissue. But I let fear hold me back. I failed to let those posters have their greatest effect by helping my classmates come to the right conclusion about what they were seeing. I didn't force them one last time to wrestle with the truth.
If Justice for All is coming to your campus, I urge you to pray for wisdom and courage and for opportunities to discuss the truth with your classmates. You could help save a life. And for everyone else out there reading this, I encourage you to pray for the ones who will be seeing these displays, that God would change their hearts and that they would chose life for their children, or chose to remain sexually pure. I myself will be praying for your group, Denise.
3. Christina said the following at 11:42 AM on Sep 26:
The only thing I find disconcerting about groups like Justice For All is how they are so public about it that even young women who have been through abortions and are emotionally struggling with it might be affected.
Does the group provide anything for them other than shock value for what those women have already done?
4. Anu said the following at 1:01 PM on Sep 26:
People learn absolutely nothing from demonstrations like these. This group was outside the Barack Obama rally last year in Illinois when he announced his candidacy. I "lurked" around a corner to hear the comments of passersby. Most people didn't really take it seriously, and made comments like "those crazy Christians" or "thats the stupidest thing I've ever seen," or "what kind of people would shove those pictures in our faces?"
Things like this just contribute to the bad taste a lot of people get in their mouths when someone mentions Christianity. I think we have to ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" Others may disagree, but there is no doubt in my mind that He would never participate in something like that. Ever. What he WOULD do is volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center, or peacefully hand out ENCOURAGING instead of condemning pro-life pamphlets outside abortion clinics, but not until AFTER sharing Jesus with them (think about Jesus and the woman at the well).
5. Bethany Casazza said the following at 1:28 PM on Sep 26:
I prayed with an Institute student about your event this morning...can't wait to hear how God used ya'll. I remember being at the Institute and the effect JFA had on me...I actually remember some of those conversations to this day. What is the unborn? A cherished child of God...and from conception!
6. Christina said the following at 2:49 PM on Sep 26:
Anu,
Though i understand where your coming at in how these kind of demonstrations pour heaps of criticism on Christians' heads, I would like to ask you who we are trying to please - God or the World?
Concerning what Jesus would do, the story of assaulting the temple was a PLANNED event. All the years from the old testament where sacrifice was taught to be special and worth something to the individual were meant to be in preparation for Jesus' own sacrifice. Could men truly understand what Jesus was doing for them when the sacrifices they brought had no meaning to them? He overturned every money table in the temple and drove them out with a whip he made in advance.
Somehow, I don't think Jesus would be so docile as to what you are insinuating...
7. Rachel said the following at 4:30 PM on Sep 26:
Last year this group (or a group like it) came to my school campus. While I don't necessarily agree with their tactics and tried to avoid them as much as anyone else, I did notice that it prompted people to talk about the issue, giving people oppurtunity to speak out about their own opinions on abortion, whether for or against, even in the classroom. And I think opening up a dialogue among students was a pretty good outcome of the event.
8. Denise Morris said the following at 9:23 AM on Sep 27:
Hey Guys,
Just wanted to give you an update on Justice for All. I think it went really well, and our students had some great conversations.
The pictures are definitely difficult to deal with, and they do make some people angry. However, I have noticed that the angry people often come up to tell us what they think, and we are then able to talk with them. If Justice for All just showed the pictures and then yelled at people about abortion being murder, I wouldn't approve of their tactics. However, the organization does not argue with people -- they listen and ask questions. They allow for discussion, and they are genuinely interested in hearing all perspectives.
Also, I know that women who have had abortions do pass these signs. JFA always has a crisis pregancy center along with them, and they have a woman on staff who had an abortion. They are very compassionate, and not hateful about their presentation at all.
They use the pictures to get people's attention. Many people don't understand what an abortion does -- they don't realize what it looks like because they've simply been told that its a lump of tissue.
Although I know the pictures are offensive to everyone, I do think they help start more conversations than if they were just standing around asking people to talk about abortion. The interesting thing is that many conversations don't stick with the abortion topic -- it goes much deeper to issues of faith quite quickly.
9. Patricia said the following at 10:47 AM on Sep 27:
I prefer the approach groups like 40 Days for lIfe Use (http://www.40daysforlife.com/). Prayer it seems to be should be central as well as finding healing for those afflicted by abortion. I think using pictures at times targets young women too much. Because we live in a society that takes advanatage of women's sexuality, often these young women themselves are victims who have made terrible wrong choices. I think generally speaking it's better to target the abortion industry that profits of abortion-if they weren't making money off it they would stop performing abortions.
10. John said the following at 6:29 PM on Sep 28:
If we were to target the funds of abortion clinics, the biggest baby murderers being Planned Parenthood, we would have to stop our taxes from going to them. That's a start.
I thank God for JLA. I hope that this issue is ultimately addressed quickly. Our fore fathers ended slavery, that scurge of several generations, and yet baby killing is responsible for the death of millions more then slavery ever was.
Legal baby murder in the most powerful advanced industralized greatest Western nation that ever existed?
I keep reading on other posts where we shouldn't expect the unredeemed to act like the redeemed. That has got to be one of the biggest copouts I've ever heard.
The blood of martyrs paints quite a different history. Roman civilization was completely changed by Christians, who expected the unsaved to behave more like the image in which they were made, than their sinful self would have them.
Western Civilization is an example, though imperfect, of what societies are capable of when levened with Christianity. (aka expecting people to behaved like they're redeemed)
If the law of the land be not in accord with the Law of the Lord, just it is not.
Redeem the culture. That's biblical!