How It Started
I am a newcomer to the “pro-life movement”. In fact, prior to 2009 I hadn’t paid close attention to any pro-life organizations.
It’s not that I didn’t care; I’ve always believed strongly in the value of life. My wife and I regularly pray for the hearts and minds of those in the pro-choice establishment and always vote for pro-life political candidates. But that’s always been the extent of it. I have never marched. I have never protested. I have never been part of a vigil.
In early 2009, and seemingly out of nowhere, God began tugging at my heart to somehow combine my passion for photography with the issue of life. At first, it came like random pieces of a puzzle. I didn’t quite know what I was supposed to do with it. As the weeks and months went by, I realized that God was placing the seeds of this project on my heart. I struggled with the idea and even argued with God about it. With a full time job, a photography business, and a family, I felt like I didn’t have time for anything else in my life. It was hard enough keeping up with what I was already responsible for. Yet God kept leaning on me to act. After quite a bit of prayer, I finally chose to be obedient.
Fast forward nearly two years later and you have the Almost Aborted Project. The goal of the project is simple; demonstrate how valuable life is by sharing pictures of survivors and telling their unique stories in a positive way. Although we love hearing from folks who are passionately pro-life, we hope to draw in people on all sides of the debate.
More out of necessity than anything else, I began paying attention to the pro-life movement. I told myself that if I was going to begin a project focused on capturing the faces and stories of people who were almost aborted, I needed to know what the pro-life movement was all about. I started following blogs, tuning in to pro-life news, listening to interviews and watching videos related to both sides of the issue. Without a doubt abortion is a polarizing issue. People on both sides are very passionate and angry. I expected an abrasive and even disrespectful tone from some of those on the left of this issue. But what’s really surprised me is how graphic and pointed the pro-life movement can sometimes be.
I understand the anger and passion from those in the pro-life movement. As someone who also cares deeply about the life of the unborn, I am right there with you. I also understand that not everyone in the “pro-life movement” is in lock step and that there are always going to be people on the fringe. But it’s not those at the far end of the spectrum that I am thinking of as I write this.
Allow me to illustrate what I mean. On a fairly regular basis near my home, a young man positions himself on a busy street corner carrying large, graphic pictures of aborted babies. You can’t miss it driving through the intersection. If the goal is to change hearts and minds on the issue of abortion, how effective is it to waive a large sign of a dead, just aborted babies on a busy street corner? This kind of “outreach” isn’t just happening in my neighborhood either – we’ve all see this kind of thing, especially right around election season. Some in the pro-choice movement love to point to this kind of protesting as if to say, “See, they are crazy!” – but let’s look at it from another angle.
Just imagine for a moment that across the intersection a mom with two young children sit waiting for the traffic light. As she watches the young man passionately wave the sign, she thinks back to her childhood. At age 15 she made a bad choice, got pregnant and her parents pressured her into an abortion. Her dad literally drove her to the clinic and stood by until the procedure was over. There was no choice in the matter. She was compelled to have an abortion and now she has to live with it. It’s a gaping hole in her heart that never goes away. It tears her heart out every time she thinks about it. Now in her 30s she is married with a 5 and 8 year old. Seeing the graphic images only reopens the wound.
Next to her in the intersection is a young man. He has been dating a girl for two years and they recently discovered she was pregnant. Scared and not sure what to do, the young woman secretly aborts their baby. This young father didn’t have a choice. Nobody asked him what he thought. He is simply forced to live with the thought of what could have been. Seeing the picture of the aborted babies tears him up inside.
A middle-aged woman sees the sign from across the street in her car. She has always been “pro-choice”, but sometimes she catches herself feeling compassion for the unborn. Looking at the graphic picture on the sign makes her stomach turn. Rather than changing her mind on how she feels about abortion and “a women’s right to choose;” seeing the sign only re-enforces her pro-choice position. As she watches the young man pace up and down the sidewalk, she also starts to think that pro-lifers are just nuts.
Now consider a young woman with very few resources who has just discovered she’s pregnant. Feeling alone and desperate, the woman jumps online looking for answers. As she navigates through the first few pro-life websites that pop up, she finds herself faced with graphic pictures of dead babies, blog posts comparing abortion to genocide and judgmental YouTube videos. She reacts by quickly clicking away to get the images off her screen. Eventually she navigates to Planned Parenthood’s website where she finds a welcoming, non-judgemental message.
The point that I am trying to make should be obvious – if we are not careful about how we present our message, we risk pushing away just as many people as we hope to reach. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I think there is a place for uncomfortable comparisons and graphic pictures; however if we rely too heavily on shock value, we risk turning people off – in many cases, the very people we are trying to reach. Instead of drilling the same pointed, anti-abortion messages, isn’t it possible to reach out with a more positive, welcoming tone? A message of hope has the power to draw people in who really need help deciding what to do. It can also help those living with the burden of a past decision find healing and forgiveness – and isn’t that just as important? Saving the unborn is just a part of the equation. Consider the people all around us who are living with gapping holes in their hearts because of an abortion. It covers the entire spectrum – women, men, brothers, sisters, grandparents, believers and non-believers. Abortion affects whole families. There are generations of wounded people desperately seeking healing and hope. After 30+ years of the same approach, we must find new ways of presenting our message.
-Steve Paxton, Project Founder