I am taking a video based course on defending the life of the unborn produced by Stand To Reason. It is called "Making Abortion Unthinkable". I have heard great things about this training. After watching the first segment, I see why. I am watching the videos and discussing the issues with my teenage nephew and his friend.
The first segment was about restoring meaning to the word abortion -- through the use of graphic visual aids. We were given plenty of warning -- but part of the video included watching a 7 minute segment which showed aborted babies. It was graphic. It got the point across. The word "abortion" once again had meaning.
I used to be adamantly opposed to the use of graphic visuals. I felt they were deliberately shocking and designed to make an emotional appeal.
I no longer think that.
Friends, we are visual learners. We won't feel moral outrage from reading the written word, typically. We need to see the moral atrocity in order to feel the outrage. It is pictures of the holocaust that enrage us. It is pictures of civil rights abuses that raise our moral awareness and anger us. It was pictures of all the floating bodies of the victims of genocide in Rwanda that shocked us ten years ago. It was pictures of Terri Schiavo (and the internet) that tipped that story and made it the most talked about story in America.
We never saw pictures of the school shooting in Minnesota -- just heard about it. Result? The story came and went. In one ear, out the other.
We never see pictures about moral atrocities committed in Sudan -- so few ever really care about it. We just hear it about it and think -- "oh how terrible" -- and then proceed to move on and rarely give it a second thought.
The fact of the matter is, as Greg Koukl of STR says, we are visual learners in this society. We won't get it until we see it.
Does STR think we should spring video on people with no warning? No. They suggest we give plenty of warning and tell people that they can look away if they are disgusted by what they see.
The use of graphic images is appropriate if it is done with warning, and if it is done to support a strong moral argument. If the images are not distortions, then it is not manipulative. It is just the way things are -- which is the very definition of truth.
For me, my nephew, and his friend -- abortion is no longer just a word. It has meaning now. The images disturbed me -- as well they should have.