Gory Abortion Protests

A reader writes:

I appreciate your blog. I’m currently participating on a Catholic forum in which the topic of the Notre Dame scandal, protests, etc has been the flavor of the day. This thread has evolved into various comments from posters saying how they are not pleased about protesters, particularly because of the gruesome images of abortions on the posters usually held up at these protests. These people (Catholics) are saying they won’t even look at the protesters (the people, not the images) and that they shield their kids’ eyes when they pass by.

I am all for shielding the eyes of young ‘uns; but to ignore, and even be offended by, fellow Catholics who are in the trenches fighting the good fight got my nose a little bent outta shape. I let my opinion rip and got retorts like, “You don’t need to show kids posters of gang rape to show that it’s wrong”. To which I replied, “That’s because people know it’s wrong, believe it’s wrong and would never vote someone into office who funded it. You cannot compare that with abortion.”

And on and on. Needless to say, I’ve been called contemptuous and judgmental, two favorite buzz words when on these Catholic forums. I asked these people why they don’t mutter a “thank you”, or a “praise God” as they pass by protests. I’ve yet to hear anything.

I further illustrated how this disunity all ties together: people dislike protests at Notre Dame, at abortion clinics, etc. And low and behold, we Catholics gave a huge chunk percentage-wise of our votes to Mr Obama. You’d expect it from the secular world, but these are fellow Catholics.

My main point is to the photographic posters of abortions. Several in the forum make it sound like I really want kids seeing the atrocious photos. No. What I want is a mere appreciation for those that picket, those that pray and face public ridicule. Got any articles that can cover this topic?

I think there’s two ways of seeing this. Strictly speaking, you are right of course. Anybody who protests abortion is, to that degree, on the side of the angels. The first thing Catholics with their heads screwed on straight should do is acknowledge that, as you do.

On the other hand, we also have to pay attention to real world results. The road to hell is, as they say, paved with good intentions (though strictly speaking that’s not true. In fact, good intentions are the one thing the road to hell can never be paved with–though it can be paved with the skulls of bishops, as St. John Chrysostem said.)

What the proverb is aiming to get at is that meaning well is not enough. If you aim for a good end by bad means, you will discover the truth of the fact that systems do not do what you want them to do, they do what you design them to do. You may want your Windows system to perform prodigies of multi-tasking. But if you design it so it constantly crashes and gives you the blue screen of death, it will do what you design it to do every time, not what you want it to do. Systems are cooly impervious to our wishes, hopes and dreams. They always do what we design them to do.

Protesters who display gory abortion photos *want* to make people see and repent their support for abortion. But what they are in fact designing their protests to do is frighten and appall even those who oppose abortion, while filling fence-sitters with a visceral disgust that does not reflect on abortion but simply reacts in disgust, fear and dislike. Meanwhile, the protest give pro-abortion types plenty of emotional (not intellectual) ammo to say “Prolifers are crazy scary.”

That is not, as I say, what the gory protesters *want* their system to do. But it is, always and everywhere, what such a system is designed to do. We can, as you do, see past the ineptitude of the system design and appreciate the good end they are trying to achieve (and we should). But we should also recognize that there are much better and more effective ways to achieve the same goal.