We don’t see what happens during an abortion. Which is why Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has long said ‘America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion.’ It’s the reasoning behind the posters some people hold outside abortion clinics and in other public demonstrations with graphic photos of aborted babies whose tiny bloody bodies are torn apart. Yes, they’re controversial, because they are graphic. And what they show is what abortion is.

Many pro-life advocates will not use or allow graphic images of the violence of abortion, preferring to educate the public in many other ways about what’s still conveniently and defiantly promoted as ‘choice’. That’s my particular preference. But I think some pro-lifers choose to use the images because they do force a visual confrontation with the stark reality.

The pro-lifer who was shot dead outside a school last week was known as ‘the sign guy’ because he often held one of those graphic posters. There was virtually no reporting on it by mainstream media. But the local newspaper where the killing occurred ran an article that revealed what people in the pro-life movement have long understood…..that choosing to end the life of a child in the womb is killing, and it leads to what Pope John Paul II termed ‘the culture of death’.

It was evident in the heated comments section, in remarks by someone who says that with this shooting, ‘it looks like one of the pro-lifers finally got theirs’, and they added this:

It looks to me like we had a late abortion…no tears from this side.

Fr. Pavone understands where that reasoning comes from.

“James Pouillon today joined the approximately 4,000 other victims who will be killed today because of abortion,” [he said].

The ‘logic’ follows, tragically.