Issues that Conservatives Should Absolutely NOT Drop #1--Abortion

Abortion is the supreme moral issue of our time. No other issue in the developed world is bigger, no other issue is as comparatively ignored. While we hem and haw about the economy and terrorism and Israel and health care, literally MILLIONS of unborn babies are being aborted each year. Millions. Probably the biggest obstacle the pro-life side has is convincing people that there is an abortion holocaust going on that makes the Nazis look like amateurs, and the Soviet gulag system look like a slap on the wrist. It is the sheer enormity of the issue, the implications of the pro-life argument that life incontrovertibly begins at conception and that abortion is the murder of a human life, that is hardest for people to accept. The implications are heart-rending, staggering, incomprehensible, and too, too real.

In America, one of the most abortion-happy countries in the world, the pro-life side has either dropped the ball on how to present its argument or has been muzzled by a pro-abortion media and a pro-abortion legal system that punishes those who try to air the abortion industry's dirty laundry. Frankly I'm not sure which is true, or if they're both true. Here are some of the myths pro-lifers tell might themselves:

MYTH: If I take a public stand on this issue, I'm seen as a freak, as anti-woman.
REALITY: A majority of the US population, including a majority of women, considers themselves pro-life. Just because the pro-abortion media tries to depict you a certain way, you should not be scared of being labeled a certain way. If the only pro-life faces most complacent people see are the occasional "clinic" bomber, and they never see you, peacefully extolling the virtues of the right to life, then by staying silent on your position you are helping to paint pro-lifers as extremists.

MYTH: If I show people the reality of abortion--pictures and videos of abortions and aborted babies--I'm simply making the pro-life side look like vulgar extremists.
REALITY: Abortion is vulgar and extreme. Pictures of it merely reflect that reality. Pictures of aborted babies, coupled with personal testimony from people who have had abortion and those who have performed or assisted in the performing of an abortion, are the most powerful weapons we have, and to let them sit in a drawer and not use them is the main reason why pro-lifers have such diminished influence in this country.

MYTH: You can't convince anybody in an argument, so our only hope is to lobby the political system.
REALITY: Show a person some pictures of an aborted baby, show to them the testimony of ex-abortionists who have murdered unborn children and now repent. To know the reality of abortion in its clearest terms is the beginning of any argument that is to be had on abortion.

MYTH: I have to hate and shun anybody who has had an abortion.
REALITY: Hatred and shunning is not a good way to spread the message, to encourage women to come forward with their testimony, to see that there is forgiveness. Imagine if just one percent of all the women in this country who have had an abortion and now regret it, spoke with a different woman once a week about her story.

Here are some of the myths pro-abortioners tell themselves:

MYTH: I'm personally against abortion, but I respect a person's right to choose.
REALITY: No, you don't, because you don't respect the right of the unborn child to have a say.

MYTH: Yes, abortion is wrong, but it's the woman's body and she has a right to choose, not us.
REALITY: If abortion is wrong, then it must necessarily follow that it is not the woman's body but the body of her unborn child, and that the mother does not have the choice to murder her child whether it is born or unborn. If abortion is wrong, it's wrong because it takes an innocent human life, and for no other reason. And if it takes an innocent human life, then it must be treated as the murder that it is, not some kind of special case of murder where the victim suddenly doesn't matter, and only the financial needs of the mother are at stake. It's not wrong because "it's a hard decision to make," it's a hard decision to make because it is wrong.

MYTH: Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
REALITY: Why wish for it to be rare? What does it matter? Do you hear that tonsillectomies or heart transplants should be "rare"? If there is nothing morally wrong with a medical procedure, and it would improve the lives of all concerned, shouldn't you wish that it would happen more often, not less? But of course, we know why you want it to be rare. In your heart of hearts you know what abortion is--the murder of an innocent human life. If abortion isn't murder, then it's irrelevant how often it happens. It's only because abortion is murder that you say it should be rare, but you are unwilling to bring yourself to the full truth, the full implications of that murder. You want to look the other way and move onto much easier issues.

MYTH: A fetus is just tissue, it's not a human being.
REALITY: Tell a biologist that a fetus is just tissue, and not a human being. See if anything in science backs that up. An unborn person is definitely a person. This cannot be argued with. Science simply won't move on this issue. Biochemistry, genetics, epigenetics, embryonic development, etc., all scream "HUMAN!" This is a myth that may have held sway before we understood genetics or biochemistry, or before we could see what was happening in the uterus, but not anymore. There is no magical point at which a lump of tissue becomes a human, the new human organism begins when the sperm fertilizes the eggs.

Here are some things the pro-life side needs to do:

1. I would like to see a pro-life Presidential candidate show pictures of aborted babies on live tv when they accept the nomination, and say "I'm going to Washington to fight this, and my opponent is going to try to keep it going." I want to see a pro-life President show pictures of aborted fetus at every state of the union address and at major speeches. Use the big guns, don't hide them, as if you're ashamed to be seen as a kook. It is the murderers and the people who lend them political support who ought to be ashamed of the reality that those pictures would show.
2. I want to see ex-abortionists and women who have had abortions go out into the college campuses and give testimony. Make fools of the pro-abortion crowd when they say pro-lifers are old men bent on controlling women, by showing them pro-lifers their age, of various backgrounds, and yes, various political parties and religious affiliations.
3. Pass a law requiring abortion "clinics" to show detailed sonograms of the unborn child to the mother before AND DURING the procedure, and required the abortionist to give the mother a chance to back out of the procedure at no charge at any time.
4. I would like to see more debate about this issue, but not angry debate. Some people will not be convinced with arguments, or testimony, or pictures or even videos. You don't have to convince everybody. You just have to convince enough. Know when to back out of a debate, when a person just isn't going to be receptive to what you're saying.