Abortion opposition. How strong is too strong?

An abortion clinic recently opened around our area. I know many strong pro-life women and their families made themselves a prayerful presence there in peaceful protest. From the e-mails that were running across my in-box I got the idea that some of them were really making this a top priority, coming home for meals and short breaks only. I admire those women and I think their work has born some fruit. They caused one clinic to move out of the city and this new one might be evicted by the landlord because of the protests.

If they hadn’t stood up and made their thoughts known, none of that would have happened.

I have had a number of discussions online with women contemplating abortions. Those discussions are tricky because they are usually played out in front of an audience. And while part of the discussions were to persuade and compel an individual not to abort, I was very aware that my argument needed to be logical, compelling, persuasive and strong enough that others may find it helpful either at the present time or in the future.

I once had a lady give me an example of how she felt my approach might be more palatable to someone thinking about an abortion. She suggested that I write something like this:

“I don’t think that is what I would do and I’m not sure that is the best choice, but I’m going to give you the benefit of a doubt that you are acting in the best way with the information that you have now. I’m so sorry that you are in this position to choose.”

I thought about those words and while I’m sure that someone wanting to abort would find those words comforting I’m not at all sure that this is the most effective way of getting the seriousness of the decision across, or the most compelling way to dissuade someone from aborting. In fact on second thought, I think this lady was trying to dissuade from being dissuassive!

Bottom line is that the peaceful prayerful protestors in front of the abortion clinic get results because they remained firm in their convictions and strong in the way they carried that out. Are the words we write on blogs and forums to be less so simply because they might be perceived as unkind to a woman who thinks her only choice is the choice to abort? Somehow I don’t think so.

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