Using Victim Imagery as a Pro-Life Tool

The use of victim imagery can be a powerful tool when changing hearts and minds for LIFE. This week we are joined on Straight Talk on Life Issues by Maison DesChamp and Sarah Terzo as we discuss when, where, and why to use victim imagery. It is important that when we defend life, we know how to use every tool in our toolbox.  

Click here for resources

Transcript

Maison: 0:03

When you see the pictures, it becomes real. What abortion is. When you see a picture of the victims of abortion, when you see a dead baby, your eyes cannot lie to your heart.

Victor: 0:19

Welcome back to Straight Talk on Life Issues. I'm Victor Nievis. As always, joined by Brad Mattis, president of Life Issues Institute. Today we'll be having a very important conversation discussing whether or not graphic images of abortion's tiny victims should be used as a pro-life tool.

Brad: 0:36

Well, Victor, while almost everyone thinks that people should have the right to use these graphic imagery of tiny victims, many people, including pro-life advocates, are divided on whether it's appropriate to do so.

Victor: 0:50

And these graphic images are admittedly horrific to view, but they're sometimes quite necessary.

Brad: 0:57

There's a time and place for using such imagery as a pro-life tool. Seeing those images reminds me that I'm fighting so hard, and it also tells me how gruesome, violent, and evil abortion really is.

Victor: 1:12

Let's jump right in today with our guests. First joining us is Sarah Terzo, a pro-life journalist and blogger who's written over a thousand articles on the topic of abortion. Her work has been featured by outlets like live action news, life news, national right to life, and many more. We're also joined by Mason Deschamps. He's a 25-year-old free climber. You may know him as Pro-Life Spider-Man. He climbs the exterior of buildings with one thought in mind, saving the life of an unborn child. Mason and Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah: 1:42

Thank you.

Victor: 1:42

Thank you.

Brad: 1:54

Let's start with you, Mason. In Victor's introduction of you, he mentioned uh Pro-Life Spider-Man. So I'm sure that there are listeners listening to the program who may not be aware of the uh curious little thing that you are doing to advocate for life. It's so far out of the box. It just gives me a chill up my spine as I think of your parents watching that and seeing pictures. So give us a brief description of what you do as pro-life Spider-Man.

Maison: 2:24

Yeah, so a few years ago, I was 22 years old and I was a rock climber. That's what I did. When I was 16, my whole family moved from a small little farm town in Michigan out to Los Angeles, California. And for me, it was such a culture shock that the first thing I wanted to do was to leave. So when I turned 18, I threw everything into my car and I skipped my graduation and I left to Yosemite National Park. And that was where I really started to rock climb. And pretty quickly, just because of the competitive nature of Yosemite, I got good. And I started climbing with all of these professional climbers. But for people who don't understand climbing, how I try to explain it to them is that to be good at it, you have to be a slave to it. It has to consume your life. And so I was literally, I was sleeping in the boulders up there and living out of my car. And every morning I would just wake up and go rock climbing for food. And this is a common thing in Yosemite, is we we'd go to the pizza deck and we would just wait. And there's gonna be like a crowd of like five, six climbers just waiting for somebody to get up and leave half their pizza, and then you you go and you eat the rest, and that's how you survive. But you get to climb every day, and so that was my life. You know, I'm gonna be honest, it was a bit vain. I tell people climbing is probably the most useless activity, it doesn't benefit anybody. You're not producing anything for society. It's fun, but man, is it a waste of time? And so that's where I was in my life, and I loved it. I had no desire to ever leave it. And then I was on my phone one day and I seen this picture, and it was a picture of a baby. And normally when you see pictures of babies, they've got cute little bows on their head and they're smiling. But this one sat in a ziploc container with a smash skull and one eye left open. And it was at that moment my heart was just entirely convicted. And I started researching, okay, where did this baby come from? And this was a baby that was killed by abortion in Washington, D.C., in an event that's known as the Justice for the Five. And so some friends of mine were outside of the clinic when a medical waste truck driver pulled up, and this guy ended up giving them one of these boxes of dead babies to give them a burial. And they opened it up, and inside there was 115 murdered babies, five of which were almost nine months ready to be born. And so I saw this and I just knew I wanted to do something. How could I say that I was pro-life and not realize what it meant, right? Because you don't really understand what you're saying until you see it. Until you see it, it's just this political idea like taxes and social security or whatever. But when you see it, you understand that this isn't politics, this is a Holocaust. And so my whole life was transformed. And I thought to myself, what could I do? I'm broke, no influence, what could I do? And I thought back to this guy, his name was Alain Robert. He was a professional climber. And back in the 90s and the 2000s, he climbed skyscrapers all over the world to protest for climate change. And so I thought to myself, well, I remember seeing that as a kid, even before I rock climbed. It's obviously a good protest. What if I stole his idea and I did something similar for the pro-life movement? And so that's how I got my start. I went and I climbed the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and we raised money to help a woman who is in crisis pregnancy. And so now, years later, I've climbed nine skyscrapers, and we've been able to raise probably a million dollars to help these women who are in crisis pregnancy. Uh, and we said we saved a lot of babies, which has been good.

Brad: 6:05

So was you seeing the graphic nature of what abortion does to its tiny victims that really motivated you to climb those buildings?

Maison: 6:13

Yeah, because when you see the pictures, it becomes real. Whether you're pro-life or you're pro-choice, you understand what abortion is when you see those photos. And our words there are so important. We need to use radical rhetoric. We have to say abortion is murder. This is an abomination. These vivid words, but at the same time, those words can still be twisted. But when you see a picture of the victims of abortion, when you see a dead baby, your eyes cannot lie to your heart. You know what that is. You can lie to yourself and you can harden your heart, but you know deep down that's a baby that was murdered.

Brad: 6:53

The use of graphic imagery is somewhat controversial within the pro-life movement. Do you guys think that graphic imagery has a place in the movement? Sarah, let's start with you.

Sarah: 7:06

I was nominally pro-life. Before I saw the picture, I would have told you I was pro-life, but I was not in any way active. If someone had asked me, I would have probably given an answer like, I'm pro-life, but I don't judge other women. Which is true as far as it goes and is still true. I don't judge women who have abortions. I see them more as victims and of our society and of pro-abortion propaganda, but it's kind of also an evasion. I really was not vocal about being pro-life. And it wasn't until I was in high school I saw a picture of an aborted baby that completely transformed my life. I immediately went to the library to do more research on abortion. This was before the internet, so it was not so easy to do research. And it was such a pivotal moment in my life. And I can't say for sure, I really do not know that if I had never seen that picture, if I would have become an activist. That was the catalyst that made it concrete for me from an abstract political belief or religious belief to an actual flesh and blood human beings are dying issue. It set a fire in me that I've kept that promise all my life to be committed to fighting abortion. So I definitely feel those pictures have a place. I think they may be most effective with people who are on the fence or already nominally pro-life like I was, and like it sounds like Mason was. People who maybe need to be committed, need to be shaken out of their complacency, need to be shown the reality. I set up a website back in like the early 2000s, and it's still around, and it had pictures of aborted babies on it. It had pages that reached out to women considering abortions, and it had a picture of the baby. It broke it down into different stages, like 10 weeks, 11 weeks, 9 weeks. Most of the pictures came from the Center for Bioethical Reform. I was using them and I got permission. And it had a warning at the top saying there are graphic pictures here so that people had the opportunity to prepare themselves. And then it had a picture of a baby intact in the womb. And then if you scroll down, you would see the pictures of aborted babies, and then there was a message to women considering abortion or to whoever was reading, you know, with some facts, statistics, field development information. And then I had a survey. And the survey said, if you're pro-choice, did seeing these pictures change your mind? And the three options were yes, no, and I have to think about it more. And I would say about one out of every four said yes. And that's out of like hundreds of people seeing these pages a day. About one out of four said, I have to think about it a little more, and the rest said no. So it wasn't the majority that were converted on the spot, but a sizable amount just from seeing those pictures became pro-life. And I don't know what their beliefs were before that, but that's a pretty striking thing. And there were quite a few people who saw it. I really lucked out with the Google algorithm. Back then, I knew nothing about search engine optimization or how to get traffic from Google, absolutely nothing. I mean, somehow I managed to rank number one on Google above Planned Parenthood. Like you typed in abortion at X weeks, and my site was the first thing that came up. I mean, miraculously. So I got a lot of abortion-minded women searching for clinics, and I could tell by the search terms they would use. It was like, what clinic will do an abortion at 10 weeks in New York? Things like that. So I knew there were people searching for information on how to get an abortion. So I got a lot of abortion-minded women. And there were people who wrote right in the comments that they had been planning on getting an abortion and changed their mind. And I had my email address there, and there were many other women who wrote to me who were contemplating abortion. And me and a close friend, there were too many for me to respond to alone. So me and a close friend would write back and forth with those women. And I only know of about maybe 30 that I know chose life, but there were many others, and a lot of the times they would stop talking to me. And but then nine, you know, then like six months later, I would get a picture of their baby that they just that happened so many times that I really think there are a lot of them out of there that maybe did decide on life, but never got back to writing to the person that they spoke to for a few days. That I mean, with all the new things about having a baby, that's not really your first priority. So I think there were probably a lot more that didn't tell me, but maybe were influenced.

Brad: 10:51

Mason, you uh made some comments about using uh graphic imagery. Is there anything you wanted to add to that?

Maison: 10:58

Yeah, I feel like most of the movement has a sort of false strategy, and they believe in this idea of an overton window. And you know, overton windows we really do see working in terms of degradation, but in terms of righteousness and converting people to righteousness, when you read scripture, rarely does it ever happen in this small, disciplined manner. It usually happens in this great epiphany, right? Like people are born again in Christ. And, you know, I just see with the pro-life movement, rarely do we ever convert people slowly and surely until they're these radical pro-lifers. It's usually all at once. Like there was one time I was getting out of my car at the grocery store. This is in Nevada, and they were petitioning for question six, which legalized abortion till the day of birth. And this woman she stops me as I'm getting out of my car and she says, Hi, sir, would you be willing to sign my petition for women's health care? And I said to her, You just ran into the wrong guy. And the Holy Spirit gave me the words to speak, and I just started preaching. And I showed her a video from the Justice of the Five of them um examining all of these bodies of these little babies. And this woman, she threw the petitions in the trash and quit her job and came to church. And that is the level of change that we see. And so we can't be worried about, oh, what if this person's feelings get hurt? What if this person's feelings get hurt? Because people are offended by the truth. They're offended when they're confronted with their sin. And we just need to be, you know, the prophetic voices that go out and are willing to offend if we have to. And I do think that there is a place and a time for victim imagery. However, I think more often than not, I tend to use it just because of its effectiveness. Uh again, your eyes don't lie to your heart, and you see that picture of that baby. And for me in my life, it was transformative. There was no looking back. I knew I had to do something.

Victor: 12:55

Mason, you mentioned that there's a time and a place for the use of graphic imagery. What are your thoughts on, for example, publicly displaying the images of abortion?

Maison: 13:04

Oh, I think it's great. The only time I tend to not use it is sometimes when I'm door knocking, what I found is if I make a brochure and they open it and there's just a dead baby right there, they'll close it and throw it away. And so, you know, again, there's a time and a place. And we were doing this campaign against an abortion doctor in Las Vegas who was a pedophile. And so we were trying to turn the neighbors against him. And we had used a picture of a dead baby. And I think that's the only time that I've seen it work to our detriment. In other circumstances, uh like showing pictures in public places, I think it's really powerful. And people tend to be drawn to it rather than look away. Even if they try to look away, they'll still peek their eyes over it. Gotta see it. They have to make sense of it. But yeah, we we go all the time to college campuses with my nonprofit anti-abortion front, and we'll hold signs on college campuses and street corners, everywhere we can. I mean, one of the activism things I would like to do soon is hang a giant 100-foot banner of victim imagery on something that is a secret. But yeah, I really do believe in it. And most people aren't gonna go on Google, most people aren't just gonna go and look into it on their own. Like her website, right? I'm sure a lot of those women thought that they were trying to find just information on how to get an abortion, and then they end up seeing the pictures, and that's a beautiful, awesome, genius thing. But most people aren't gonna look up what does an abortion look like and this and that. And so we have to be the ones to show them. Yeah, like her website is just absolutely genius.

Victor: 14:33

Sarah, what are your thoughts on public displays of graphic imagery?

Sarah: 14:36

I think college campuses are a good place to display them. There's people there who are at the age when a lot of abortions are done. It's a place where there's less likely to be young children, because I think it's good to display them in most cases. I think even publicly. But I do have some reservations about it, about children seeing them. I mean, it's good to have these conversations even when someone is relatively young, you know, before they get the a lot of the pro-abortion propaganda that people get when they're older. So overall I support it, but I do have some misgivings of it being anywhere, like just about just walking down the street. I hate to say, I mean, I can sort of see both sides of it, but I definitely support having them on college campuses because that's an age where people are really developing their values, they're examining different types of worldviews, different issues. Also in high schools, I think is a good place, maybe outside high schools, because that again, that's a time when they're still open to different ideas. And I know that high school was a very pivotal time for me when I was forming my worldview and growing up and you know, suddenly getting into the years of adulthood. I was just leaving childhood behind. And that's I think that's a good time to expose people to information. And also I kind of think if someone's old enough to have an abortion, they're old enough to know about it. So even if someone's 14 or 15, that's old enough to have an abortion. And if that's the age they are when they learn find out about abortion and it's reality, I think that that's okay. I err on the side of wanting to show them, but I do have a few reservations under certain circumstances. But I do think they definitely have their place.

Maison: 16:02

I don't have as much of a problem with children seeing it. Like obviously, we don't want to go to kindergarten or sit outside of a, you know, a playground holding pictures of dead babies. But when you're in public and and children see the pictures, yeah, we we do get a lot of parents that are mad. But I think the children are a very powerful tool because they tend to lie to themselves less. They know what it is that, you know, not that this was a baby killed by abortion, but that is a dead baby. And a few weeks ago, I was at an abortion clinic and a woman was walking in with one of her children, and he saw the pictures, and he was looking at our pictures, and he kept saying, Mom, mom, what happened to that baby? Why is that baby dead? I watched her break down in tears, and you could just see the conviction in her eyes. I don't think she ever came back. She was there for a consultation. But when a child says, Mom, why is that baby dead? They're confronted and they're forced to face the truth. And I was in Las Vegas electioneering. I was outside of the polling booth, and my sign was very simple. It had a picture of a dead baby on it, and it said, America's Holocaust. And there were lots of parents coming in and out with their children. And I did have a couple who were very angry at me for being out there. Uh, and I had to apologize. But at the end of the day, I'm gonna be brutally honest, I'm not really concerned about the parents' feelings. I'm concerned about that unborn child that will die if we don't do something. And we have to be strategic. We don't want to make people angry at us to the point where they start just working against us because they're mad. But these children's lives, they they can't be held hostage by the feelings of an ungodly world. We we have to be willing to offend if it saves the unborn life.

Brad: 17:50

My colleague, Dr. Jack Wilkie, who co-founded Life Issues Institute with me, he and his wife, Barbara, who was a nurse, they pioneered the use of these graphic imagery. They felt it was appropriate that you, you know, present them in a safe context and let people know that this imagery is is coming up. As a high school senior at 18, I got involved in the pro-life movement and I use these graphic imagery. And uh for many of us, I would say probably millions, that has motivated us into action because you see the reality and the carnage that is there. And I think both Sarah and Mason, you'd be interested to know that while they were doing a on-campus presentation of graphic imagery in Cincinnati, we did some on the spot research and we uh asked women and men if they found this to be effective. And we were surprised. We thought they'd be angry, but it really did make an impact in the end. So that's something that we need to be aware of.

Sarah: 18:57

One thing that I do think though, and no one has mentioned this, so I'll just throw it out there, is it should be accompanied with given resources for post-abortion abortive women. I don't think we should not show them because we don't want to make it hard for post-abortion women, but I think we have to like engage with the fact that they may be upset by it. Because for all we know, this is the first time this woman has seen the results of an abortion. She may have gone in to have an abortion with no knowledge of fetal development at all. They don't tell her in the clinics what the what the baby is like or what the baby looks like or what it can do. And they may have no idea. I mean, there are some states that require the ultrasound to be shown or certain information to be read, you know, which is good. But, you know, you can't expect a worker in an abortion facility who's making money off of selling abortions to give accurate fetal development information. And this may really blindside some people who have had abortions, or the fathers of aborted babies, anyone who has an abortion in their past. So I think it would be good to hand out maybe information on where to go for post-abortive support, or have some a hotline number that's displayed or something like that alongside these images, because we don't want to leave people with that despair and that sorrow without providing them some kind of way out. And there are many Christian groups that help with post-abortion trauma, but there's a few secular ones as well. And I think there should be, you know, just different offerings for places people can go for support, maybe spanning a range of what they're comfortable with. And but I think there should be something because it can really be difficult for people who maybe don't have didn't have that knowledge when they went in to have abortions to suddenly be confronted with it. That can be extremely difficult for them.

Brad: 20:34

Very well said. And it's important to show compassion from us that we do not condemn those women and we want to help them.

Maison: 20:42

I I think the most important thing is that we accompany all of our work with the gospel and going out and preaching the gospel. And I've said this to a lot of people the only way to heal is with the blood of Christ. And if someone feels better about themselves, but they haven't been forgiven by Jesus, then it's it's almost like this false healing.

Victor: 21:02

Mason, one of the questions I have, you alluded to this earlier, in that there's a time and a place. What would you think would be examples of times not to use graphic images?

Maison: 21:12

There's stories of some crazy people going outside of like kindergartens and trying to stage protests there. And I'm like, okay, well, that's just kind of asking for it. But on my end, I mainly look at strategy and what is the most effective at that time. And I found that's something we're still learning and still trying to figure out. Like I said, I used the example of us door knocking, and we had these pamphlets that had a picture of aborted babies on the inside. And the reason why it wasn't as effective is because we didn't necessarily need it because the doctor was a pedophile, and so we're trying to shut his clinic down. And tacking that on, it made a lot of people close the pamphlet. And we wanted them to learn about this doctor and who he was. Now, I understand where people would say, okay, well, you know, an issue they need to come to terms with, you know, they shouldn't just be against him being a pedophile, they should also be against him being a child killer. But we can use strategy that is a tool that we are called to use as Christians, and we're to be wise as serpents. And so I think that's something you have to feel out for yourself. And every area is different, every bit of context should be taken into account. But more often than not, I tend to share the pictures, and there will just be some people that get angry no matter what. But the majority of people that are angry at you, they're not so much angry with what you're doing or how you're doing. It's always what. It's not how, it's usually what. They're just mad that you know, you're a Christian, you're a pro-lifer, you're calling out sin, and they don't like that.

Sarah: 22:41

I want to agree with Mason here that people are gonna get mad no matter what. I recently saw an article in Life News. I'm not sure if anyone else saw it. I believe it was Life News. There was this billboard that showed a black family, a father, a mother, and a child. And the words, I forget the actual words, I think it was like choose life or something, or life is beautiful, and it was Biop for Life Group. And a woman wrote to the people who did the billboard campaign saying it was so offensive and she couldn't believe how horrible it was, and uh it was racist. And I don't know what her reasoning was for that, but she was like going on and on about how offensive it was and how it would force people to talk to their children about abortion, and it didn't even have the word abortion in it. It was a picture of this really sweet family, just with the words life is beautiful or choose life or something like that. I wish I could remember exactly. So if something as simple as that will offend someone, there's only so much you can do to avoid offending people. Some people are just offended by the message in general. And I think tiptoeing on eggshells to avoid offending people is kind of an exercise in futility. So I want to agree with Mason about that. You know, it seems like just about anything you can do that's connected to pro-life will offend someone. So I just wanted to add that. And this is something I've heard and I do not have any personal experience with it. I've never had the opportunity to sidewalk counsel in person. I wish I did. Fortuitously, I have never had an abortion facility close to where I live, which of course is a good thing. And I don't have access to a lot of transportation where I live, so I haven't been able to travel to one that's a few hours away. But I have heard from some people who do a lot of sidewalk counseling that it's better to use pictures of intact babies outside abortion facilities. I think Mason may disagree with me and he may have had success with the aborted baby photos. So I'm only saying this is because of what I've heard, but like it can kind of drive people into the clinic because they see it and they recoil. They associate the people using it with like, you know, negative things because it's a negative image and they want to be somewhere safe or what seems safe. Obviously, the clinics are far from safe for them, and they're definitely not safe for their babies, but they perceive it as like an escape. I don't know if that's true, but I've heard people who work with sidewalk advocates, I think it's called say that. So I can see how maybe pictures of babies at different stages of fetal development showing their humanity, but not necessarily the graphic ones might be better there. I think there's some situations, I think the pictures of intact babies are also very powerful and should be used widely as widely as possible.

Maison: 25:04

I'll tell you my view on that. Um, I've had a lot of experience sidewalk counseling. And the biggest thing about sidewalk counseling is it's different for everybody because a lot of it is about first impressions. When they look at you, do they trust you? And the most effective sidewalk counselors are older black men, hands down. I don't know what it is, but women trust older black men. It's just you'll come up and talk to them, easy. Like I could sit out there, be as nice as I want. They would rather go talk to that guy. And I'm sure that in some places, different clinics, I don't think a sign of a live baby does all that much. Maybe it does. I don't know. I'm positive that there are certain times that perhaps victim imagery would be a bad thing. And if it's not working, you should try a different avenue because we want to save those babies. But one of the most successful pregnancy centers I have ever seen in my entire life is in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's called First Choice Pregnancy Center. And if anybody's ever in Las Vegas, tell them I sent you and ask for Deb and they will give you a tour. They pride themselves on using victim imagery, and they do a really, really good job. So many women were going in there because they seen the pictures of the babies and they decided not to get their abortions. Uh that it is a beautiful thing. But again, like it's all about first impressions, and so I wouldn't say, like, in case of sidewalk counseling, that it is a must, but I use it personally, and I do think it helps. I think the babies that I have saved mostly have been because of it. But there are cases where I decided to leave it home. So it's a case by case in sidewalk counseling.

Brad: 26:45

Well, thank you both. Uh, we're running out of time, unfortunately, but um, you've all imparted wisdom and experience that I'm sure our listeners are going to appreciate. So, Sarah and Mason, thanks for joining us today.

Sarah: 26:59

Thank you for having us.

Brad: 27:00

Thank you so much for having me.

Victor: 27:11

Well, Brad, I think that we've highlighted a really important conversation here today. And to get the perspectives of Mason and Sarah, you know, no matter how hard somebody tries to defend abortion, I just can't imagine that there's many people out there who could look at the images of a butchered baby and still defend abortion.

Brad: 27:32

Well, I think one, because it was graphic imagery that got me involved in it, you know, 50 years ago. But something has always stuck with me is that people who get angry at the pictures need to get angry at what caused those pictures. They need to get angry at abortion and its brutality that victimizes children and frequently victimizes the mothers and fathers.

Victor: 27:59

Well, that's such a good point, Brad, to have the priorities be backwards for somebody to be mad at the image and not what caused the image. I couldn't have said it better. We need to be mad at the cause of what is happening to those babies. And to you, our listener, I want to recommend that you go to our website, lifeissues.org. There you'll find more information, resources, and tools that you can share with your friends, family members, and your church community so that you can join us. And together we can create a culture of life and defend babies all across the country. Again, those resources are available to you free on our website, lifeissues.org.