Here, I'm explaining how an image of a slave on a medallion helped end the slave trade in England.

I’m in Pensacola today, along with Seth Drayer and Mark Harrington, training students how to defend the pro-life position on campus.  This training is part of a 2-week tour of Florida being conducted by CBR.  We’ll be visiting 4 major universities across the state with our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).

We have a full house for this training.  Among those in attendance include members of the Pensacola Teens for Life, Spring Hill College (Mobile) Students for Life, and a team of Canadian students who are in Florida to learn how to conduct our world-famous GAP outreach.  (Either that or they’re trying to escape the snow.)

We are making tentative plans to conduct this training and take GAP to Kentucky early in April.

Great column in the Knoxville News Sentinel this morning by columnist Greg Johnson.  Be sure to add your comments at the bottom of the column.

By the way, here’s your last chance to order tickets to Celebrate Life with Mike Huckabee on Monday night.

I was pleased to a speaker at the Students for Life of America (SFLA) conference in DC yesterday.  There were four of us on a panel discussing the use of graphic images.  I spoke first and used some of that time to talk about the history of social reform.  Successful reformers have always used pictures to help people see (1) the humanity of the victims and (2) the horror if the injustice they sought to correct.  Here are my slides.

Two of the speakers who followed me raised objections that easily could have been rebutted, but I was given no opportunity to do so.  I had actually anticipated their objections and addressed them fair adequately in my opening statement, but I still wanted to reemphasize some of the main points in the face of factual inaccuracies and logical fallacies advanced by my debate partners.  Some of their objections:

1. Because some people who use pictures are not compassionate to women, then showing pictures is not compassionate — An obvious logical fallacy.  Further, Dr. Alveda King, who has had 2 abortions, said she is glad photos are being shown so that other women won’t have to experience the pain that she has endured.
2. Pictures hurt children because it upsets them — Violent photos are routinely seen on magazine covers that children see at the supermarket.  Schindler’s List was shown on NBC and PBS during prime family viewing hours; few people complained.  An emergency siren will terrify young children, but we still put sirens on fire trucks.
3. Some people see the pictures and think we might be violent — Racists and civil rights moderates tried to associate Dr. King with the violent tactics of the Black Panthers.  CBR condemns violence and will not associate with anybody who fails to condemn violence.
4. Other methods can save babies — True, but many women have reported that they didn’t have abortions because of abortion photos and that nothing else but those pictures had dissuaded them.  Also, our goal shouldn’t be just to save a few, but to get rid of the whole bloody mess.
5. GAP was a failure because some people objected to the genocide comparisons and used it to change the subject — Pro-aborts always try to change the subject, no matter what you do.
6. GAP was a failure because a lot of people didn’t stop to talk and therefore didn’t learn facts —The pictures convey at a glance the facts that matter most: the preborn child is a baby and abortion is an act of violence.
7. Most people like arguments more than pictures — Most people don’t care about philosophy, arguments, etc..  They are trying very hard to ignore or trivialize abortions, and pictures don’t let them do it.  We have show pictures and be prepared to debate.
8. There was more but I can’t remember.

I hope we get to do this again.  I am going to ask for more opportunity to rebut arguments.

Pro-aborts: CBR tactics are "really effective."

We have many endorsements from college students, pro-life activists, political leaders, and others who have seen our work in action.  But this piece amounts to the strongest endorsement we have ever gotten.

Freedom of (hate) speech: Confronting the rise of anti-choice activities on Canadian campuses was written by a pro-abortion activist in Canada who laments the effectiveness of our Canadian CBR affiliate.  She is so frustrated by the effectiveness of our work, she believes only censorship and bully tactics can ensure our defeat.

The more sophisticated of our opponents know that any open admission of our effectiveness will only make our fundraising and recruiting efforts more effective.  That is what makes the candor in this article so remarkable.  Military intelligence officials who interrogate prisoners of war usually focus their questions on determining what their captors believe to be the most effective tactics being employed against them and why.  Our abortion adversaries just volunteered that information and we didn’t even need to water-board them!

Some excerpts:

These on-campus battles are the new front line of pro-choice activism in Canada.  But with anti-choicers setting the terms of debate, how can pro-choice activists respond?  [Note their admission that CBR is setting the terms of the debate, which is exactly what we want to do.]

But one thing that they have been really effective at doing is coming up with messaging that affects the popular discourse, which I think is a really dangerous thing because it will eventually seep into the legislature and the courts.  [Another admission that CBR is “really effective.”  Note the recognition that our work on campus will transform culture.]

Anti-choice groups are using the free speech argument to win the public relations battle …  [The author believes we are winning.  That’s important, because winning is how the killing stops.]

These presentations and displays have provoked a pro-choice response in a way the activities of other anti-choice groups have not.  [That’s because the activities of other pro-life groups, in the view of the author, are not effective and need not be countered.]

With anti-choicers setting the terms of debate, pro-choice advocates have had to grapple with the utility of confronting these groups head-on …  [To this author, “confronting these groups head-on” means shouting us down and running us off the stage.]

A new generation of anti-choice groups is establishing a reputation for itself on Canadian campuses, with increasingly visible tactics that many pro-choice activists call discriminatory, harassing and hateful.  [Note the significance of “harassing” and “hateful” labels, which could allow pro-life speech to be censored under Canadian law.]

The university administration is barraged with phone calls and emails calling for the event to be shut down on the grounds that it amounts to harassment and is offensive to women …  Shortly after the event begins, a group of about 10 women and their allies enter the room, chanting and blocking the projector with the intent of disrupting the presentation.  [The context of this passage is an explicit endorsement of censorship and bully tactics.]

… the CCBR legally constitute hate speech by inciting hatred towards those women who have or support the right to have abortions, and should thus be restricted in order to prevent the harassment of women.  [Note the call for censorship.]

Unfortunately, it seems that the freedom of expression of protesters is not taken as seriously at McGill as hateful speech …  [Note the dismay over lack of censorship.]

Let me encourage you to attend a March for Life event this year.

National March for Life.  The national March for Life will be held in Washington, DC on January 24.  That’s where I’ll be, because I will be speaking at the Students for Life Annual Conference on the day before the March.  I’m on a panel discussion on the pros and cons of showing graphic abortion photos.  (Not sure which side I’ll end up taking.)  CBR’s GAP exhibit will be on display alongside the march route.

Knoxville, Tennessee.  Tennessee Right to Life, Knox County Chapter is holding their prayer service and march at 2:00 pm, Sunday, January 23, at Calvary Baptist Church, 3200 Kingston Pike.  Alan Williams, WVLT News Anchor, will be speaking.  Should be awesome; sorry I’ll miss it.  After a brief prayer service, marchers will walk 0.8 miles down Kingston Pike and Concord Street to Tyson Park.  Shuttles will be available back to the church.  It matters if you are there.  Here’s the link.

Atlanta, Georgia.  In Atlanta, Georgia Right to Life will be holding their Together for Life Rally at 11:30 am, Friday, January 21, on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol.  Rebecca Kiessling will be speaking.  Here’s a bulletin insert for your church.

Send me your event and I’ll post it here.

Pro Life on Campus at Kennesaw State University

The Kennesaw University Sentinel:

• The men behind the display

The University of Georgia Red and Black:

• Anti-abortion display an offensive spectacle (letter)
• Freedom of speech prevails in Tate Plaza
• Tate Plaza Abortion Display
• Abortion display offensive (letter)
• Abortions do not equal Holocaust
• Display violates University Code of Conduct
• Abortion display shows the truth (letter)

The Student Free Press

• A misguided call for censorship in UGA student newspaper

Jane and the photos are a powerful combination.

This is from Jane Bullington, CBR Southeast Project Director.  Please pray for mom, dad, and baby.

Three Lives Saved

She walked over the hill and down the walkway, stopping to gaze at the pictures. A typical student on her way to class, or so I thought. I asked if she had any questions. “Evelyn” looked at me with teary eyes, “I’ve just come from the health clinic; I’m pregnant. I was asking for a big RED sign to tell me what to do. I almost never walk to class this way, but I did today, and here are your signs.” I hugged her and said “I think this is just the sign you are looking for; can we talk?” As we I talked, she told me her friend (on the phone) was encouraging her to keep the baby, but her boyfriend was leaning toward abortion. I asked what her parents would say. “They will be disappointed,” was the answer. I suggested to her that disappointment is often a short-lived emotion and when they hold their grand baby, it will be very different. I told her that at 6 weeks, her baby has a heartbeat, brain waves, and all his systems in place. We talked about what abortion could do to her. I gave her our papers on psychological and physical effects of abortion, so she could be well-armed when she spoke with her parents. I also gave her the phone number for the Hope Resource Center (HRC) near the campus. My parting comments were very personal. I told Evelyn I would be honored to walk with her through this pregnancy if she kept her baby and if she stayed in Knoxville throughout the pregnancy. (I later asked God to allow me this privilege.) She cried, we hugged, and she walked away.

About half an hour later, Evelyn came back and told me her boyfriend was coming to see the pictures, and she would like me to talk with him. I saw “George” approaching and introduced myself, saying I realized this was not what he expected when he woke up this morning. He grinned slightly.

I left them alone to look at the photos and talk, but I kept my eye on him the whole time. He was distant and talkative, but would not look at the pictures in any great detail. After a few minutes, they came back to me. I asked George if he had time and would he allow me to talk with him for a few minutes. He agreed and we sat down. “George, you are already a father; you have a baby. It is a tiny baby, but it is your baby.” The lines on his face immediately softened and he visibly relaxed. I basically shared all that I had told Evelyn, and said to him, “George, I don’t think Evelyn is asking you to marry her; she just wants emotional support from you. I have already told her I will be here for her the entire way, if she wants or needs my help, and I will be here for you too.” He smiled, thanked me, and said “we will be calling you a lot of times.” He stood up, took my hand, and then walked off with Evelyn, arm in arm.

The next day, I took Evelyn a copy of The Biology of Prenatal Development, a wonderful DVD showing the growth of the baby in the womb, produced by The Endowment for Human Development (www.ehd.org). She promised to view it with her surrogate dad the next weekend and seek his support. She and George had already scheduled a counseling session with an on-campus ministry chaplain, and were going to inquire about putting “their baby” in on-campus childcare next fall where she works. She hopes they can get in to see someone at HRC the next Monday, before the Thanksgiving holiday. My parting advice: “There will be ups and downs in the next few weeks, and you may have thoughts of changing your mind, but don’t do anything in a hurry. Call me before you do anything different from we have talked about, please.” She agreed, but said “George is in baby mode, and while I am still in a muddle, I know what we are going to do.” We hugged and cried again, and off she went.

Do the pictures work? Oh, yes they do! For the unborn child, for the scared mother, and for the doubtful dad.

UGa students call this their annual "Don't Go By Tate Plaza if You're In a Hurry" Day.

One of our favorite places to carry the pro-life message is the University of Georgia.  We always get huge crowds, and today was no different.

The center-piece and magnet for our presentation was obviously the Pro Life on Campus GAP display on Tate Plaza.   But that was just the beginning.

Add to that a poll table, in this case staffed by Toby Tatum of Georgia Right to Life.  Using a simple question, “Should abortion remain legal?”, Toby was able to engage a steady stream of students

Add to that a table-top display by the Athens Pregnancy Center.  Add to that a table-top display by Deeper Still, a post-abortion counseling ministry.

Pro-abort coment and our response

Add to that our Free Speech Board, where students are invited to write their comments.  We (along with other students) write responses.  For example, a student wrote, “Don’t judge people!  You never know why they decided abortion was right for them.”  I responded, “Let’s see if this works … ‘Don’t judge people.  You never know why they decided owning slaves was right for them.”

Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life, Director of Minority Outreach at GRTL, drew huge crowds as she described how abortion providers target minoirity communities.

Fr. Lobo hadn’t been doing nothing.  He had attended the marches, the life chains, the 40 Days events, etc.  But after seeing his sister’s example, he knew it wasn’t enough.

It would be easy to blame the university, the police, or “those who promote a radically liberal agenda” for the arrests, he said in the homily, “but you and I are part of the problem, because we have put up with too much for too long.”

Fr. Lobo called the graphic images of abortion used in GAP, which are often seen as controversial, “disgusting.”

“But they’re also true and accurate.  Abortion is disgusting,” he added.

More here …

It should be noted that despite the suppression of freedom in places like North Korea, Canada, Iran, etc., pro-lifers in freedom-loving countries like the United States and Russia have routinely displayed GAP without government interference.

The university said that while the students could not display their signs in The Tory Quad, a busy outdoor location on campus, it welcomed them to erect their signs in Porter Hall, an indoor room.

Ruth Lobo, president of Carleton Lifeline responded: “They are trying to sound reasonable by providing an alternate location, but what they aren’t saying is that Porter Hall is a closed room that few students pass by or even know where it is,” she said.

Club vice-president James Shaw added, “Telling us we can protest but in a back room no one goes to, is like telling black people they are welcome to ride the bus as long as they sit at the back.”

The university has reportedly been saying that student groups aren’t typically allowed to have displays in the Quad. Lobo asked, “If the Quad isn’t bookable, why advertise it as bookable space for student groups? More importantly, the university has never communicated to us that this is its reason for denying us the space. We’re only hearing about it through media who call us for a response.”

Refusing to tolerate censorship, the students proceeded to walk to Tory Quad with their signs. Part-way to their destination, they were stopped by authorities, eventually amounting to at least 3 campus security personnel and at least 9 police officers. Four Carleton students were eventually handcuffed and arrested by Ottawa police and charged with trespass.

Shaw commented, “I find it disgusting that Ottawa police allowed themselves to be hired as thugs to do the university’s dirty work. Shame on them for participating in Carleton’s censorship of its tuition-paying students.”

For more information contact Ruth Lobo or James Shaw at 613-600-4791 (cell).

Please pray that God will protect and deliver these brave students.

Note: Here at PloC, we don’t ask you to get arrested. We only ask you to give $10 a month.  If 1,000 people give $10 a month, we can grow from 6 GAPs a year to 20 GAPs a year.

Other stories at Life Site News,  National Post, Canada NewsWire, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun, Maclean’s on Campus, and National Post.

GAP at a Canadian university

Please pray for these brave students.  When it comes to freedoms that we take for granted, some Canadian universities are degenerating into Third World dictatorships.  The University of Calgary has already made it.  Here’s a press release from CBR Canada.

Students Risk More Penalties from University of Calgary for Defying Censorship

CALGARY – Despite warnings from the University of Calgary administration, members of the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) student group found guilty of “Non-Academic Misconduct” for having set up a pro-life display on campus this past April are once again displaying the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) on the U of C campus.

The controversial display compares abortion to past historical atrocities, such as the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. The display is scheduled to be set up between the MacEwan Student Centre and Science B buildings today (September 27th) and tomorrow (September 28th).

“The images are difficult to look at; admittedly, we don’t like looking at them either, but the images are only upsetting because abortion is upsetting,” stated CPL President Alanna Campbell.

After the display was previously exhibited last April, members of the group were charged and found guilty of a ‘Major Violation’ under Section 4.10 of the University of Calgary’s Non-Academic Misconduct Policy for “failure to comply with a Campus Security officer or University official in legitimate pursuit of his/her duties” by refusing to turn their display inward. Other major violations in this category include sexual assault, the use of explosives and firearms, and selling illegal drugs.

The guilty verdict was “a formal written warning” that if the students “fail to comply with directives of Campus Security staff in the future” it will “result in more severe sanctions,” wrote Acting Associate Vice-Provost Meghan Houghton, who was the sole decision-maker in the guilty verdict. More severe sanctions can include the possibility of expulsion. The University’s Appeal Board refused to hear the students’ appeal, and members of the student group will appeal the guilty verdict to the Board of Governors.

“This will be the tenth display of GAP on campus. We have always found that this display has a large capacity for healing, educating, and raising awareness,” said CPL Vice-President Cameron Wilson. “That makes this display, without a shadow of doubt, worth the cost that the university seeks to exact from us individually.”

The group has displayed its Genocide Awareness Project on the University of Calgary grounds, without incident, nine times since 2006. In 2006 and 2007, during the first four Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) campus displays, the University defended the students’ right to expression under the Charter, but in 2008 the University reversed its policy without explanation.

In 2009, the University charged six students with trespassing in relation to the display, but the Crown Prosecutor stayed these charges prior to a trial scheduled for November of 2009. Since then, members of Campus Pro-Life have been threatened with Non-Academic Misconduct upon each display, and the University has found eight students guilty of Non-Academic Misconduct.

“We believe in the effectiveness of the display and we believe in our right to display it. For these reasons, we will not give in to intimidation and will challenge all attempts at censorship. We are proceeding now just as we have in the past,” stated Peter Csillag, CPL Vice-President.

For further information, contact Club President Alanna Campbell at (403) 690-5217, Vice-President (External) Cameron Wilson at (403) 668-9624, Vice-President (Internal) Peter Csillag at (403) 465-1777, or lawyer John Carpay at (403) 619-8014.

Baby saved at the University of Tennessee.

We are pleased to announce that a generous donor is willing to match your gift to CBR-SE / Pro Life on Campus.  Not once.  Not twice.  But three times!

3-FOR-1 MATCHING PROGRAM!

That means for every $1 you provide, we receive $4 to save babies and moms.

Here’s how it works.  When you sign up for an automatic monthly gift, our anonymous donor will match your first month’s gift—his $3 for every $1 you commit.  Example: you give $60/month, our donor gives $180 today!  Your $60 puts $240 to work saving babies and moms, right now!  No gift will go unmatched; your $10 puts $40 to work!  Please give now, before our donor goes broke and it’s too late!   Here’s the page link.  Then hit “Monthly DONATION” and provide the requested information over our secure connection. 

Please pass this along to all your pro-life friends.  If you care about saving babies and moms, this deal is too good to miss.

You have heard of Lila Rose of Live Action.  You may have seen her under-cover videos that show how Planned Parenthood employees cover up the illegal sexual abuse of children.

In this video, Ms. Rose describes how CBR employs the exact same strategy that was used by other successful reformers in history, including the movements to stop the slave trade in England, to abolish slavery here, to end abusive child labor here, and to galvanize the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

Ms. Rose reports from Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley during our GAP presentation last October.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxict4AZD4

Besides college campuses, what other venues are appropriate for abortion pictures?  Please comment!

An anonymous donor has pledged $1,000 if we can get up to 1,000 pro-life fans on our fan page by August 31.  We already have 300 fans; we need 700 more.  Please do two things for us:

1. Simply go to our fan page (click here) and “Like” the page.
2. E-mail all your pro-life friends.  Ask them to “Like” the page and invite their pro-life friends to do the same.

But there’s more!  This donor has pledged another $1,000 for every additional 1,000 pro-life fans we can get by August 31, up to $5,000 for 5,000 fans!  Please do this.  It won’t cost you a thing, but it will mean so much to our work to save babies and moms on campus!  Let’s get 5,000 fans by August 31!

Here’s the Facebook link: www.facebook.com/ProLifeOnCampus

To add your own contribution to save babies and moms, click here!  (For your online donation to CBR/ProLifeOnCampus before August 31, you will receive a free pro-life gift!)

Medallion emphasized to Londoners the humanity of the Black slave in 1787.

My talk last night at the Atlanta Right to Life was very well received, I think.  The subject was “Learning From the Past: How We Can Win.”  This is a similar talk to the one I gave to a group of pro-life Georgia Legislators a couple of years ago and the talk I gave to a group of pro-life Congressmen in DC.

This was a fairly easy audience.  We’ve been working with these folks to display abortion images for many years (GAP, RCC, etc.), so they are very familiar with the need to educate the public.  I didn’t need to convince them so much as to help solidify in their minds the connection between our work to educate the public using horrifying images and the work of other social reformers in history who achieved success using the same strategy.  Examples:

• The anti-slave-trade movement in England (William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson) used images to show the humanity of the Black slave and the inhumanity of the slave trade.
• Abolistionists in this country used similar images, and later used photographs, to expose the injustice of slavery.
• Lewis Hine, who was concerned about abusive child labor practices, took pictures of children working in coal mines and textile mills and turned them into a traveling display.
• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “America will not stop racism until America sees racism.”  He arranged for video and photos of Black men and women being attacked with dogs and water cannons to be shown on TV and in magazines.

Horrifying photos of racial violence showed the ugly truth of racism and changed America's heart.

You can download my slides by clicking here.  It is a fairly large file (38 MB); it might take 10 minutes or so to download.  Just save it to a file; a pop-up window will ask you where to file it and will tell you how long it will take to download the file.

Please take a look at the slides and leave your comment on this post!