A message to remember

A message to remember
Nigel Hannaford
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 11, 2007

It had not been on the street 24 hours, before a local newsmagazine christened it The Little Truck of Horrors. But, it was not the contents of the Mitsubishi cube van that had the headline writers excited -- for, it was empty.

Rather, it was the images adorning its sides, a portrayal of aborted babies that Calgary's Roman Catholic Bishop Fred Henry branded, "a violation of human dignity."

Strong words from the bishop. It's not that Henry favours abortion. He is, in fact, so opposed to the termination of human life in the womb that he once attempted to make Catholic politicians -- including former prime minister Joe Clark -- accountable to the church's "non-negotiable" doctrines about it. Yet evidently, the sight of the van was too much for him.

The van and its images are the work of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, a militant pro-life group. Executive director Stephanie Gray says it will be around for the indefinite future. So there it is. If you drive in Calgary, you are going to see this, one of these days.

And, in my view, a good thing, too.

However, reasonable people could certainly disagree about the display of pictures, as a catalyst for social change.

Those unswervingly committed to abortion on demand, will of course find the truck irredeemably objectionable.

But then, pro-lifers feel the same about poisoning babies in the womb with saline solution, then cutting them up with surgical tools. Displaying the bloody results is for them, a challenge to the other side to justify what they do.

To the best of my knowledge, that challenge has never been effectively met on its own terms by anybody representing the abortion industry. Rather, they will attempt to reframe the debate as one of women's health, or rights.

The more complicated discussion is between people who hate abortion, but cannot agree on this particular attempt to reinject it into the marketplace of ideas.
There are three objections the CCBR must answer.

The first is Henry's, that the display of tiny body parts magnified a thousand-fold is, in itself, violating the dignity of the dead baby.

With the greatest of respect to Henry, with whom I disagree but whose integrity I would never question, the violation was done by a doctor in the clinic where the baby died, not by the people showing the dismembered limb as a protest. One might as well say pictures of Holocaust victims dishonoured them: No, it was their persecutors who were dishonoured.

One might also question if people should be forced to look at this, at a time not of their own choosing. One can imagine the awkward moment when a child asks mom to explain what's on the side of the truck. Doubly awkward for a woman who has had an abortion, more so yet if she has since come to regret it.

And, if there's any truth to the adage about the competing merits of honey and vinegar for attracting flies, this is peculiarly sour vinegar.

In more than 30 years of journalism, I have found some of my friends harbour outrageous opinions, while sometimes the people I agreed with could never be my friends. In other words, the spirit in which something is offered, is as important as what is said.

On the basis of two interviews and watching Gray in action at the University of Calgary, I believe she is a decent, gentle woman. She is neither personally abusive in her remarks about abortion providers, nor condescending to women who have visited them. What she does have is intellectual clarity about her cause. Therefore, when she quotes one of her movement's leaders "injustice that is invisible becomes tolerable, injustice that is visible, inevitably becomes intolerable," I do not hear intolerance, or prejudice, but a concern to speak truth, without condemnation.

This makes the difference. To those who curse the truck for intruding on them, she says, "A parent's reaction determines a child's. An angry parent will have an upset child, calm begets calm. Seize it as a teaching opportunity. We're not targeting kids, we don't go to schools; but as it's impossible to reach adults where there are no children, we have no other outlet."

What does that mean?

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black youth from Chicago, was murdered and horribly disfigured in Mississippi. His white assailants believed he had insulted one of their wives.

Although the funeral home advised a closed coffin, his mother insisted it be open. Pictures of his corpse shocked the nation. A hundred days later, Rosa Parks took a bus ride, and scholars date the civil rights movement from those two events.

Such is the power of a picture. For Gray's group, the death of every one of 100,000 Canadians whose lives are yearly ended in abortion, is as grim as Till's.

She has vowed that this injustice be invisible no more. She is a brave young woman. And, she is right.

nhannaford@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2007