RE: “Abortion debate isn’t black and white,” Nov. 24-30, 2011

As a Carleton Lifeline volunteer, I am pleased to see that our activities are generating discussion — and controversy — on our campus.

Adella Khan’s opinion piece in the Charlatan last week offered some worthy criticisms of our approach to pro-life activism, and I would like to take this opportunity to address the questions she and others have raised about our message and methods.

First, let me address Ms. Khan directly:

Adella, you are absolutely right when you say that Lifeline should be trying to educate people about the pro-life options available to them in case of pregnancy. We should be doing more, and we plan to in the coming months. Our organizers have discussed and intend to execute events on campus to promote and raise money for our local crisis pregnancy centre, Birthright of Ottawa.

Lifeline is a small group with limited resources, but we are passionately committed to preserving human life, and we will do as much as we can with the support of students and the community at large.

It is clear from your story that you did not receive the help you needed when you were pregnant. The resources are available and it should be the mission of every person who cares for mothers and children to help women connect with those resources.

We should be doing more, and so should you! Your experience, knowledge and compassion are exactly what we need, because it’s what women and children need. Thank you for sharing your views and, I hope, your support in the future.

Ms. Khan and others (notably Marina von Stackelberg in a letter to the editor published in September) have objected to our practice of displaying graphic images of pre-born babies killed by abortion.

Ms. Khan implies that the images should not be shown at all, while Ms. von Stackelberg says we should choose an out-of-the-way location so that only those students who so choose would see them.

I am sympathetic to these writers and to everyone else who finds these pictures revolting. I do too. But I know that it isn’t the images themselves that fill people with disgust, outrage, horror and guilt — it’s the fact that they reflect what is happening to 100,000 children every year in Canada.

As for Ms. von Stackelberg’s suggestion that we should give students the choice of whether or not to look at our images: sorry, no dice. We can’t force people to share our opinions — they are entitled to their own.

They are not, however, entitled to their own facts. We are committed to showing and telling people the truth, even if they would rather remain ignorant, and we will continue to do so in the public spaces of our university, in addition to any other forms of advocacy we engage in.

Lies, euphemisms and censorship are the tools of abortion defenders. We’re different. We unveil the truth in all its ugliness because it changes minds and saves lives.

Those Lifeline volunteers who have been active for some time all have stories of women who saw the images while pregnant and cited them as the reason they chose life for their babies.

We also, unfortunately, have met women who have told us that if they had seen the images a year, a month, or even a day earlier, their babies would still be alive today.

Hiding the images won’t stop the killing. Indeed, the killing will never end unless people see the truth. We will stop displaying pictures of murdered children when children stop being murdered.

Both writers raise the specter of guilt. Our goal is not to make people feel guilty; it is to save lives. But realizing that the mistakes of the past were indeed mistakes, and feeling the remorse that accompanies such a realization, is essential if one is to make better choices in the future.

Parents who lose children grieve, and post-abortive parents are no different. Covering a picture of a murdered baby to hide the reality of abortion is as logically fallacious as looking in a mirror and smashing it because you don’t like what you see.

If you don’t like what you see, change it; don’t hide it. We’ll help.

— Raphael Deketele,
fourth-year economics