Those pictures are really disgusting. But honestly, that is the point! I think it's really inappropriate and gross that they display them, but they think it's far worse for women to terminate their pregnancies, and are trying to shock people into awareness. Actually, I agree with them on some points insofar as I think abortion is immoral. I could never consider it for myself and I feel grief over the loss of those babies. HOWEVER, for a variety of reasons I do not believe it should ever be made illegal again. It wouldn't work, first of all. Women would still have abortions. They would just be underground and unsafe. And of course there are other considerations besides the life of the fetus (namely, the rights of the mother, which matter a great deal to me). I wish no abortions were ever performed and that all children grew up wanted and loved and well cared for. That is never going to happen, and that's why I still support reproductive rights despite my strong personal conviction that abortion is wrong. Women are raped. Girls are getting pregnant at 11 years old. Many of these women are homeless, or mentally ill, or emotionally unstable, or in desperate financial or relationship situations. Some of those babies would be neglected, abused, or abandoned...and I'm not so naive as to think all of them would find good homes and live happily ever after if they were carried to term and adopted by other families. In my line of work, I saw that all too often the birth parents would keep the children just long enough to scar them permanently, and the adoptive parents never had much of a chance to make things completely right for their children. It was heartbreaking. I think the argument that "women should just not kill their babies" is overly simplistic and ignores the fact of the matter. People who have everything going for them are rarely driven to such an agonizing choice. The woman who uses abortion for birth control or callously discards her fetus with no hesitation or regret is largely a creation of the Pro-Life movement, IMO. Reality is a lot more depressing than that.
And I agree that it must be HORRIFYING for parents (both mothers and fathers) who have lost their children through miscarriage or stillbirth to see those posters. My mother lost a baby at term and I would feel very uncomfortable knowing she had to see a picture like that in a public place.
Oh, how I hope my son won't have to see one of those signs at a young age! Explaining it to him would be very hard for me.
