Q1. What is the connection between the Holocaust against the Jews, the lynching of blacks, and abortion?

A1. At the time the Holocaust happened, were the Jews considered to be valuable human beings equal to Aryans? At the time blacks were lynched, were they considered deserving of the same rights as whites? Today, as abortion occurs, the unborn are considered inferior to the born. In each of these cases then, there is a vulnerable class of people targeted for killing.

Societies that commit and permit genocide begin the atrocities by dehumanizing the victim class, calling them non-persons, parasites, cockroaches, sub-human, animals, etc. In Germany, the Nazis made it lawful to kill Jews. In the United States, slave owners and racists made it lawful to enslave and even kill black people. In Canada, the Supreme Court has permitted the killing of the unborn throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

Although the atrocities are not identical, there is a strong similarity: huge numbers of dead victims who have been denied their personhood on the basis that they are a burden and/or have something that is useful to the rest of society.[i] Jews were considered responsible for the social ills in Germany, and yet the Nazis also considered this “burden” to be a “benefit”: the Jews had bodies that the Nazis used for medical experiments. Whites considered blacks useful for slave labour yet when they became a “nuisance” they would lynch them. And today in Canada, the unborn are often deemed a problem (“unwanted, unplanned pregnancies”) and yet society is now finding a supposed “benefit” from the burdensome group through embryonic stem cell research.

Q2. How can you be so insensitive to people of Jewish and African ancestry? These signs offend them.

A2. Are all Jewish and African-Americans offended? Of the ones that actually are offended, are they offended by atrocities being compared to one another generally, or specifically that abortion is compared to historical atrocities?

At the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., there is an exhibit that shows images of recent atrocities including pictures from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. A quote in that section by Holocaust-survivor Elie Wiesel says the following: “A memorial unresponsive to the future would violate the memory of the past.”

If it is legitimate to compare what happened during World War II to what happened in Rwanda, why not also to what happens in Canada? Are people offended by the comparison of abortion to the Holocaust because they don’t believe the unborn are humans? Do they believe, as Paul Spiegel, the head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, says, “there is an enormous difference between mass genocide and what women do to their bodies”?[ii] That perspective is precisely why the comparison is being made: many in society today do not acknowledge the humanity of the unborn just as societies of the past did not acknowledge the humanity of their victims. The pictures themselves are offensive because injustice is offensive. The comparisons are offensive to those who are guilty of committing or permitting a less-acknowledged injustice that is conceptually similar to a more recognized one.

In the fall of 2000, the Jewish Association at the University of British Columbia, Hillel, set up their annual exhibit entitled, “Holocaust Awareness Week.” They displayed disturbing images of the horrendous slaughter of Jews and others during (and preceding) WWII. Also that week, they hosted several presentations, one of which drew attention to the recent genocide in Rwanda. One of the presenters said, to paraphrase, “‘Never again’ doesn’t just mean ‘never my people.’ It means never again for all people, for all of humanity.”

Q3. How are these pictures the same? The Holocaust involved murdering human beings who had lives and families. Abortion is a matter of “choice.”

A3. Actually, the parallels are great. No form of genocide exactly mirrors another, but in the Holocaust against the Jews, it was the “choice” of the Nazis to kill Jews; it was also legal. Now it is a legal “choice” to kill innocent unborn babies. These babies do have lives and families, but their families are taking away their lives.

Q4. How dare you compare women to Nazis?

A4. Where on the posters do you see a picture of a woman next to a picture of a Nazi? The posters are a comparison of the victims of historical atrocities and victims of present atrocities. Comparisons, by their nature, have similarities as well as differences (otherwise they would be categorized as identical rather than merely comparable). We recognize there are differences between abortion and the Holocaust just as there are differences between the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. However, there are also significant similarities, one of them being that the victims are denied their personhood status. The victims of abortion, like the victims of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, are stripped of their value and viewed as sub-human, even animalistic. Jews were considered to be “vermin” and “parasites” and Tutsis were called “cockroaches.” Today that dehumanizing sentiment remains, only it is directed towards a different group: the unborn.

Q5. Why are you calling this the Genocide Awareness Project? Abortion isn’t genocide.

A5. Webster’s New World Encyclopedia defines genocide as “The deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or other group defined by the exterminators as undesirable.”[iii]

Abortion is most definitely deliberate, with the intent and action directly targeting the unborn for death, as well as the killing machines (e.g., suction machines) being designed for that purpose.

Abortion is also systematic: one in four unborn babies’ lives is ended by abortion in Canada.[iv] Since its legalization, almost three million babies have been killed. In a country where private health clinics are not allowed, exceptions are made for abortions which are performed in clinics across the country, as well as at certain hospitals. In fact, according to the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League’s website on September 30^th, 2004, there were 196 locations in Canada that provided abortions.[v] Furthermore, the people doing the killing are trained medical professionals: doctors and nurses. Finally, the cost of the killing is paid for by Canadians’ tax dollars. You can’t get more systematic than that.

Imagine that abortion, however, is not the issue. Society once considered women to be non-persons (who could not vote, for example), so let’s imagine society is once again in that situation, but where men can beat and kill their wives if they want to. Imagine such behaviour is permitted by the government. Imagine the government is paying for men to kill their wives. Imagine that “Men’s Rights” groups are established all over the country, where they proclaim, “Every wife a wanted wife.” But if you don’t want your wife anymore, you can “terminate” the marriage by taking her to a hospital or clinic and have a doctor kill her (after all, if you don’t want her, you want to be sure no one else gets her either). Imagine that this isn’t the outcome for all women (although it could be because no law states otherwise), but that it happens to “only” 1 in 4 women and that the other 3 are just lucky enough to be married to fine men. Would you not consider this organized mass-killing to be genocide?

Q6. Why are you here? How dare you bring these ugly signs to my campus!

A6. The university campus is a marketplace of ideas. Our point of view is held by millions of people, but it is not being taught in the classroom. We are here to expose the truth about abortion. We want to spare unborn children from extermination and we want to spare women from the grief that follows abortion. The academic institutions and the media aren’t showing people what abortion is and does, so we are here on tax-funded property exercising our freedom of expression rights on behalf of defenseless unborn children.

Q7. Your signs just make people angry. How is that going to achieve your goal?

A7. Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” We know that some students are intellectually honest enough to examine the issue and change their minds as result of seeing these pictures and talking with us. Furthermore, if people are angry they need to ask themselves: “why?”

In 1908, an American photographer, Lewis Hine, was hired by the U.S. National Child Labor Committee to photograph images of children working long hours, often in dangerous conditions, being robbed of their childhood.[vi] When speaking to an audience Hine once remarked, “Perhaps you are weary of child labor pictures. Well, so are the rest of us, but we propose to make you and the whole country so sick and tired of the whole business that when the time for action comes, child labor pictures will be records of the past.”[vii] We echo that sentiment when it comes to exposing the reality of abortion.

TIME Photographer James Nachtwey documents images he took in the 1990s in his book “Inferno.” Nachtwey traveled to many dangerous parts of the world and photographed disturbing scenes in places like Rwanda, Sudan, and Bosnia. He said, “I am trying to upset people. I am trying to interrupt their day.”[viii]

In the same way, the fact that people get angry is not a deterrent to our exposing these images. People should be angry about injustice; they should be moved out of their complacency.

Q8. Don’t you think it’s disgusting to show these pictures?

A8. Is it more disgusting to visually educate people about abortion than for abortionists to perform abortions? What’s really disgusting is that abortion is happening and that people are more concerned about their comfortable lives being bothered than they are concerned about the babies’ lives that are being violently ended.

Q9. Don’t you care about women who have had abortions? Don’t you think your pictures cause them pain?

A9. Abortion hurts women because abortion kills children. 48% of women who have abortions have already had at least one previous abortion.[ix] We want to spare them and their children more suffering.

Furthermore, if abortion is a good action then why would a picture of it cause pain? If people feel bad upon viewing the images, doesn’t that mean their consciences are convicting them about the action and not about the image? Many women are in denial about the wrongness of abortion and that denial is maintained by a culture that tells them their actions were okay. Although many women instinctively feel the opposite of what society tells them, they often do not address those feelings because it would hurt too much to acknowledge that. This tension is then buried, making the situation worse. As painful as it can be to come to terms with the truth, that recognition can move women out of denial and into healing, through post-abortion counselling.

To choose maintaining a lie over telling the truth is to choose short-term gain for long-term pain. Showing the truth is evidence that we do, in fact, care about women and their long-term happiness.

Q10. What right do you have to judge anyone?

A10. Was killing Jews right? Was killing Tutsis right? If you say no, then you’re being judgmental too. You’re being judgmental about some forms of genocide; we’d like you to join us in being judgmental about all forms of genocide.

Q11. Who gave you permission to do this? What right do you have to be here?

A11. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

a) freedom of conscience and religion;

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

d) freedom of association.

Furthermore, universities across the country have academic freedom policies that outline students’ rights to express their views. McMaster University has a policy which states, “Behaviour which obstructs free and full discussion, not only of ideas which are safe and accepted but of those which may be unpopular or even abhorrent, vitally threatens the integrity of the University, and cannot be tolerated.”[x] The University of British Columbia has a similar quote in its policy.

Q12. Who sponsors (or pays for) this exhibit?

A12. This exhibit is run by the local campus pro-life club. The project was created by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) in the United States; its affiliate, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR), assists pro-life clubs in the planning of the activity. The campus pro-life club raises funds to purchase their own set of project materials.

Q13. Do you shoot abortionists and bomb clinics?

A13. Absolutely not. CCBR condemns all forms of abortion-related violence and will not collaborate with groups or individuals who fail to condemn such violence.

Questions about graphic abortion images (such as in the GAP display) are not only raised by abortion advocates, but also by some pro-lifers. Questions 14 through 18 below are directed to a religious, pro-life audience who agrees with the premise that abortion is wrong but who questions the validity of graphic abortion imagery for strategic reasons:

Q14. I’m concerned about your use of graphic abortion visuals because I think the images of aborted children violates the unborn’s dignity, reduces the unborn to things, as well as denies human remains the respect they deserve, such as a proper burial.

A14. There is a critical difference between committing evil and exposing evil. It is the former that reduces the unborn to things, not the latter.

What violates the human dignity of unborn human beings is the act of abortion which dismembers their tiny bodies. What denies human remains the respect accorded them are the abortion advocates who dispose of the precious human body as though it were “medical waste.” What reduces human life to things is the Culture of Death—a culture in which women place their bodies on the altar of convenience to sacrifice their own children to gods of selfishness, a culture in which boyfriends and husbands abandon their girlfriends, wives, and offspring, creating countless “orphans and widows,” a culture in which parents pressure their children to kill their own grandchildren to spare shame on their family, a culture in which those who should know better “[pass] by on the other side”[xi] in order to avoid personal responsibility for stopping the shedding of innocent blood.

We who peacefully fight these injustices by bringing what is in darkness into the light (Ephesians 5:11) are fulfilling our God-ordained duty to “rescue those who are being taken away to death; [to] hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.”[xii]

Graphic images are routinely used to communicate the reality of injustices and to compel people of good will to intervene: newspapers and magazines showed images of people killed by the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia; television stations show footage of bombed civilians in war-torn countries; campaigns against starvation show images of malnourished children with distended stomachs living in deplorable conditions; the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., displays pictures of the bodies of Jews killed during World War II.

Far from violating human dignity or reducing human beings to things, such graphic imagery compels people with functioning consciences to funnel their money, their time, and their talent towards ending these crises.

When there are mass atrocities taking place, the greatest respect one can show for the dead is to prevent future deaths like theirs. After all, insisting upon a respect for the dead (while certainly laudable) should at least be matched with a determination to achieve respect for the living. It is cold comfort to victims of injustice to be given a “proper burial” by those who, at best, murmured weakly in opposition to their slaughter in the first place.

Moreover, showing images of victims, not hiding them, reveres their memory. It creates deeper awareness of injustice so that, with a better informed societal conscience, mindful of the victims of the past, generations current and future will be more vigilant against attacks on human rights and on human dignity.

Q15. But the end does not justify the means!

A15. You are certainly correct that the end does not justify the means, but that principle refers to employing immoral means to produce a good end. We aren’t using immoral means to save babies from being killed.

Quite to the contrary, the authority of common sense compels people to expose injustice whenever it occurs. Victimizers want their deeds hidden. (“For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.”[xiii]) But victims want their plight revealed, both for themselves and any who are victimized after them. Amidst this “contest of wills,” the ABCs of human morality and decency are this: an act of violence is occurring. It is hidden. Those who know this are obligated to expose it in an effort to bring its end. It is that basic and simple.

Q16. But your visual projects do not provide counselling to women and men who are suffering from post-abortion grief.

A16. It is important to see our visual projects as an integral part of a greater whole rather than in isolation from the rest of the pro-life movement. Various post-abortion ministries already exist (e.g., Project Rachel, Rachel’s Vineyard, and post-abortion bible studies). One of the aims of GAP and the Reproductive Choice Campaign (RCC) is to channel the wounded to such help centres.

The following scripture verse provides insight into the philosophy of working in tandem with other approaches:

Now the body is not a single part, but many. …if an ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,’ it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. …The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you.’[xiv]

Many women and men are in denial and tragically are not pursuing the help of post-abortion ministries. By exposing the evil of abortion, GAP and RCC make denial much more difficult and lead some to admit personal responsibility for their wrongdoing and to repent; in turn, they experience forgiveness and find healing with the aid of help centres.

In May 2001, our American affiliate, CBR, reported the following from a sponsor of GAP at the University of North Carolina: “Our parish priest stopped me on the way into mass and told me a woman who had seen GAP… spent several hours with him—she had had an abortion, now realized what she had done and was even looking to convert to Catholicism.”

In 1998, CBR took GAP signs to a Christian women’s event in Nashville, Tennessee. They met a woman who had had an abortion before she came to Christ and she said, “God used your pictures to set me free!”

Q17. Don’t you think your images could produce post-traumatic stress?

A17. Abortion—the killing of a baby—is probably one of the most unnatural, most evil acts in which a human being could participate. It is not only lethal to the baby, but psychologically traumatizing and spiritually damaging to everyone involved, particularly to the degree that one consents to or is complicit in the act (although complicity is not the only exacerbating factor).

Many stimuli can remind a woman of her past abortion experience: everyday sounds reminiscent of the abortion procedure or facility, the cry of a baby, even seeing another pregnant woman, etc. It is only natural that if such stimuli could remind a woman of a past abortion, then factual images of abortion certainly will as well.

Carrying forward this line of thinking, theoretically any denunciation of abortion as wrong could be a distressing reminder of one’s abortion experience. If we concede, for the sake of argument, that such verbal criticism of abortion could produce post-traumatic stress and if we want to avoid causing any such stress, then the pro-life movement would be handicapped from even stating opposition to abortion—the pro-life movement would censor itself out of existence.

However, just because a woman has been reminded of her abortion does not mean that the reminders are at fault. If such a woman does develop post-traumatic stress, it is produced by her having participated in the act of abortion, by her having made a choice that goes against the natural law, not by her having merely seen images of abortion days, months, or years later.

Many women are burdened, for example, with distress on the anniversary of their abortions, or with flashbacks to the procedure, or with nightmares of the same. These are tragic indicators that such women need healing. But the difficulty for such women is to seek healing while living in a culture that implicitly and explicitly affirms that abortion was their right, and that they did nothing wrong. If, however, pro-lifers convey a message that affirms the intuitive feelings of these women, namely that they did do something wrong, and if that message is complemented by offers of help, namely by advertising post-abortion ministries, more women will get the help they so desperately need.

The reality is that the only way to ensure that a woman will not somehow experience post-traumatic stress is for her to be healed from the abortion itself. Conversely, what will ensure her susceptibility to distress is remaining unhealed from the abortion, and what will prolong her lack of healing is maintaining her denial of the evil of that act and her participation therein.

So, understanding that it is the abortion experience itself that causes stress and pain and trauma, in no way should those who use graphic abortion images be blamed for causing stress in post-abortive men or women. Let us understand this point by way of some analogies: a soldier returns from war and experiences post-traumatic stress. If he sees images of armed conflict on television or in newspapers, is the media responsible for inducing post-traumatic stress?

If a drunk driver hits and kills a pedestrian and later feels great distress upon viewing a graphic campaign exposing the harm caused by drinking and driving, are those who produced the campaign to be blamed? Are they being irresponsible by attempting to educate society about this particular evil? Should their efforts to save lives be curtailed because the cost in sorrowful feelings is too high?

Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life sits on the board of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. He is also the pastoral director and chairman of the Board of Rachel’s Vineyard, an international retreat program for post-abortion healing. In 1997, he was asked by the Vatican to help co-ordinate and promote post-abortion healing throughout the world as an official of the Pontifical Council for the Family.[xv] As an authority on post-abortion matters, Fr. Pavone supports graphic abortion visuals: “I have used graphic images and have watched their effect. I am convinced they should be used.”[xvi]

This perspective is even more compellingly expressed by post-abortive women themselves:

“I myself have had an abortion and seeing images and reading more about these killings make[s] me want more and more to fight for my child and all the other unborn. (It also) gives me the courage to stand up for them and the mothers that are thinking of killing their children. Thank you!” –25-year-old woman[xvii]

“I have had an abortion and if I had seen these pictures before, there would have been no decision to be made. I would never have gone through with it. I never knew and nobody told me.” –23-year-old woman[xviii]

To read CCBR’s letter to a post-abortive woman, click here.

Q18. I just feel like the approach does more harm than good.

A18. Feelings aren’t enough. You need to provide evidence for making that bold claim, especially in light of the evidence of changed minds, babies saved, and men and women brought to repentance all as a result of graphic images. And whatever evidence you have, it should be weighed against the following information:

Graphic abortion pictures are worth a thousand words.

Graphic abortion images change minds and save lives:

“The video of all the aborted embryos was very moving and was very visual. It was very important to change my opinion.” –15-year-old female, Stratford, ON (Further testimonies here.)

“My younger sister has had one. And I was going to have one. But I definitely change[d] my mind.” –15-year-old female, Renton, WA (Further testimonies here.)

CCBR regularly publishes newsletters which frequently convey similar reports and testimonies.

It is a recognized principle that injustices should be exposed. In fact, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his wonderfully insightful Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to clergymen who were critical of his approach to fighting segregation. In it he said the following:

Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.[xix].

The history of social reform movements (e.g., the Civil Rights Movement and anti-child labour movement) testifies to the power of imagery.

Certainly, exposing abortion in all its ugliness will be met with anger and resistance, but that is nothing new. (CCBR addresses the matter of angry responses to its work here.) From the early church martyrs to Mahatma Gandhi to Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, one observes that individuals will face resistance who challenge the culture with a message it needs to know but does not want to know. But as Christ himself said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you… ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.”[xx]

For further information related to CCBR’s use of graphic visuals, please read the FAQ about the Reproductive Choice Campaign (RCC).

Acknowledgement:

This document was revised for CCBR based on the original Frequently Asked Questions provided by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. Special thanks to Gregg Cunningham.