HOW PRO-LIFE LIES CREATED BLOODY TUESDAY:
The Deadly Strategy of the Pro-Life Movement

(Christian Gallery News Service, November 8, 2006)  Yesterday the nation voted.   The Christian Newswire ran this headline to describe the outcome of the vote: "Bloody Tuesday -- Pro-Life Measures, Candidates Lose Big." This article documents the lies told by the pro-life movement that made Bloody Tuesday inevitable.  If you want to get away from the Bloody Tuesday syndrome that has been the ongoing theme of the pro-life movement for over 30 years, you will read this article.

The evidence of the pro-life lies begins with a quote from Leslee Unruh, who led the campaign in South Dakota to abolish legalized abortion, the campaign that most clearly made the words "Bloody Tuesday" ring with the tones of truth.

Do you see the lie in Leslee Unruh's statement? 

Look again at what Leslee Unruh said.  She clearly conveys the message that the "old way" of resisting legalized abortion involved showing people pictures of dead babies, and that the "old way" of showing pictures of dead babies was why "they were losing all these years."  Furthermore, she implies that the strategy presently being implement in South Dakota is not the "old way" but, as the implication clearly states, is a new way that has not been tried before in the history of the pro-life movement.

As this article will prove, there can be no more false image of the history of the anti-abortion movement in the USA than the one conveyed by Leslee Unruh in that sentence.  In one sentence, she rewrote the history of the abortion abolition movement and literally reversed the way the events happened in history.  If a  false revision of history is not a lie to you, then you might as well stop reading because you wouldn't know a lie if it came up and shook your hand.

But the lie told by Leslee Unruh is significant for another reason: the lie is designed to justify the pro-life movement investing its resources in a strategy that is actually the true "old way" of the pro-life movement, a strategy that failed from 1973 to 1992 to abolish legalized abortion, a strategy that literally will do nothing more than institutionalize legalized abortion even more than it is already institutionalized into the present order in the USA.  For that reason, the lie must be destroyed. 

But make no mistake about it, overcoming that lie will not be easy.  The lie told by Leslee Unruh has become the settled truth for many, if not most, of the pro-life Christians in South Dakota.  Jonathan O'Toole, a Christian Gallery News Service reporter, attended the VoteYesForLife "victory celebration" on the evening of November 7, the day when the people of South Dakota voted on the South Dakota law that abolished abortion in that State.  No one knew the actual vote count when O'Toole began interviewing people at the "celebration" but he says it was obvious people were having a hard time believing the VoteYesForLife campaign was actually a cause for celebration.

Bitter discontent came to the surface when O'Toole asked one of the South Dakota pro-lifers, "What do you think about the people who came to South Dakota with trucks that showed the images of aborted babies."

The 26 year old man exclaimed, "Those pictures are the problem!  They've been showing those pictures for 30 years and that's why everybody is so turned off to the pro-life movement!"

The people listening to the interview nodded in agreement.

At least in South Dakota it appears that the history of the pro-life movement has already been rewritten.

Who Is Leslee Unruh And Who Cares What She Says?

On the run-up to the VoteYesForLife vote day, the leaders of the pro-life movement gathered on November 4, 2006 at Mount Rushmore in support of the South Dakota Abortion Law Leslee Unruh oversaw.  The presence of people like James Dobson, Alan Keyes, Rick Scarborough, Janet Folger who gathered to support Leslee Unruh attests to her status in the pro-life movement.  As the attendance at the Rally proved, Leslee Unruh is now implementing the strategy that is being supported by virtually every prominent pro-life leader in the United States of America.

To see for yourself the lie that is at the base of the "new" strategy being implemented by the pro-life movement, you must examine for yourself the history of the pro-life movement.

That history began at least as early as 1973 with the advent of the Supreme Court decision called Roe v. Wade--although there is ground for seeing the pro-life movement began earlier when it became apparent that the American legal system was being manipulated to legalize the killing of unborn babies.

But it is indubitable that the pro-life movement began in earnest in 1973.  According to Unruh, the showing of pictures of dead babies was the "old way" that provides contrast to the "new way" the strategy she embodies brings to reality.  Now for Leslee Unruh's statement about the pro-life movement to be correct, that first period of the pro-life movement would have been a period when "pictures of dead babies" were shown. 

But that is simply not true.  The true old way of resisting legalized abortion did not involve showing graphic pictures of dead babies to the general public at all.  The dead baby picture phase began sometime around 1985.  In fact, for the first decade after Roe hardly anybody saw pictures of dead babies at all, much less in public.  The sonogram called "The Silent Scream" was about as graphic an image of an unborn baby as any Christian in the USA saw before 1985.  And there is not one scintilla of evidence that graphic images of dead babes were shown in public before about 1985.

The paragraph above contains this writer's assertion, but is my assertion true?

It is notoriously difficult to prove something did not happen.  Leslie Unruh says the "old way" of the pro-life movement was showing pictures of dead babies; I say she is lying.  But how do I prove pictures of dead babies were not shown in the first decade of the pro-life movement?  There will be no newspaper articles saying, "Pictures of Dead Babies Not Shown."  There will be no pictures of the dead babies not being shown because, well, they were not shown and therefore could not be photographed not being shown.

See what I mean about proving something did not happen?

But there is another side to that coin.  If Leslee Unruh is correct and the showing of dead baby pictures was the "old way" of the pro-life movement, then it should be easy to find newspaper articles or other documentation of those "old" days in the pro-life movement.  Have you ever seen articles before about 1985 that talked about dead baby pictures being shown?  No you have not, because it did not happen.

But you don't have to take my word for it.  Ask the people who were there.

Literally millions of Christians alive today experienced what was happening in the first decade after Roe v. Wade first hand.  If you know anybody old enough to remember what Christians were doing from 1973 to 1985, ask them if they ever saw any graphic pictures of aborted babies being shown in public.  No, better yet, ask them if they saw pictures of aborted babies being shown in private at pro-life meetings before 1985.  Listen closely to what they tell you and you will see the lie presently being foisted on a gullible Christian public by the leaders of the pro-life movement.

The fact is people did not begin showing pictures of dead babies until abortion had been legal in this nation for over ten years.  For the first ten years after Roe v. Wade the "pro-life movement" did exactly what the pro-life movement is doing today.  It spent all its time and energy and money talking about how terrible it was to kill little unborn babies and, at the same time, did everything in its power to convince all Christians in this nation that God intended to solve the problem of legalized abortion in a polite way using the normal political mechanism within the normal system of American justice.

THE SINGLE STRATEGY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT FROM 1973 TO 1985

It is a well documented historical fact that from 1973 to about 1985, people like James Dobson and Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and James Kennedy and all the other early pro-life leaders toured the country preaching and giving lectures and showing slide shows and showing videos but one thing they hardly did was show a graphic image of what an aborted baby looked like.  This muted strategy was employed by the leaders of the pro-life movement because there was a certain conviction within the pro-life Christian community that God was going to raise up a Christian President who was going to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade and return God to His rightful place as the only One authorized to decide who is born dead and who is born alive.

Ronald Reagan took the office of President in 1981.  He was the fulfillment of the strategy the pro-life movement had implemented during the first decade of the pro-life movement.  Working within the political system, avoiding all the political activities the nation had seen during the Vietnam Protest Era, the pro-life movement elected a President they believed could be trusted to solve the problem of legalized abortion. 

I know the period of the pro-life movement well because I was first mobilized by the Lord in 1983 who made me understand that the abolition of legalized abortion had to become my top priority in ministry. When I went to my Christian leaders for help and guidance as to how to implement the priorities I had received from the Lord, they told me that the Lord had just about got the abortion problem taken care of.  They told me President Ronald Reagan was in the process of appointing Supreme Court Justices who would solve the problem and there was no need for me to take extraordinary actions to implement the priorities I had been called to implement by the Holy Spirit.

Turns out they were wrong. Turns out the strategy implemented by the pro-life movement for the first 10 years after Roe v. Wade was a exercise in political self-delusion that utterly failed to accomplish the overthrow of legalized abortion.  In fact, the end result of the strategy was to fortify the legal precedent of Roe v. Wade with other rulings of the Supreme Court, rulings that were controlled by the very people President Reagan appointed to the Supreme Court.

You can see the facts for yourself. Three Supreme Court Justices were appointed by President Reagan: Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the Court, appointed in 1981;  Antonin Scalia, named by Reagan to fill the seat vacated by Rehnquist; and Anthony M. Kennedy, appointed to the Court in 1987.  Both O'Connor and Kennedy consistently voted to defend Roe v. Wade.  Whereas Scalia fulfilled the hopes of the pro-life movement, the work of the other two Reagan appointees effectively trumped the pro-life strategy by leaving a clear 5-4 majority who defended Roe v. Wade. The pro-life leaders who looked to Regan's successor as President, George H.W. Bush, to solve the 5-4 split found further disappointment when Bush appointed David Souter and Clarence Thomas.  On votes concerning abortion, the two appointees voted on opposite sides which effectively nullified the entire base of appointments from the Republican Presidents over the period from 1980 to 1992.

So there you have the mainstream pro-life strategy from 1973 to 1992.  Working within the political system, trusting the political system to solve the problem of legalized abortion, the mainstream pro-life movement worked its strategy. 

It is that strategy that was implemented from 1973 to 1992 that is the historically documented "old way" of the pro-life movement.  So when Leslee Unruh called the period when graphic pictures were displayed the old way she literally lied about history and turned the facts concerning the pro-life movement upside down.

WHY AM I CRITICIZING THE PRO-LIFE LEADERSHIP?

These accusations are not being brought without serious thought concerning their consequences.  I have read the counsel of people like Theresa Burke, and J. Kevin Burke, who founded Rachel's Vineyard, one of the most effective post-abortion recovery programs.  They wrote, "We are still learning as a movement what strategies will work best in the long run.   We must be careful not to tear down our fellow pro-life brethren who are involved in various fronts of this struggle.  We may disagree with certain strategy, and it is important for our leadership to come together and respectfully explore these differences.  However we must avoid the temptation to divide and polarize those with different responses to the horror of abortion.  We must work together to dismantle the ignorance and denial that perpetrates this violence upon Parents and their unborn children."

I agree wholeheartedly with what they wrote, but it must be seen and realized that there is a fundamental difference between people who disagree while they are each telling the truth in good faith and simply cannot see the way the Lord Jesus Christ wants them to proceed together and people who disagree because one party is telling lies that prove they are no longer communicating in good faith.  In other words, the fundamental test of whether people are communicating in good faith is their absolute determination to avoid making lies a part of their communication.  As this article demonstrates, the present leadership of the pro-life movement is implementing a strategy in this nation that is erected upon lies.  For this reason, there is a responsibility to literally tear down that strategy built upon lies.  For those who insist on perpetuating the lies, they will be torn down sooner or later.  For the sake of the gospel and for the sake of this world, it is better sooner than later.

ARE PRO-LIFE LEADERS LIARS OR SIMPLY MISTAKEN?

I have proven that Leslie Unruh was totally wrong when she said that the use of graphic pictures was the "old way" and was why the pro-life movement failed to abolish legalized abortion.  But is it correct to say she lied?  Wouldn't it be just as accurate and much nicer to say she simply misstated the facts?

Most people understand that a lie to be a lie has to have some intent to deceive.  In other words, the liar has to know their testimony is a lie and because of that knowledge the liar would intend to deceive.

I do not know what Leslee Unruh actually knows about the history of the pro-life movement.  But I do know that as a spokesperson who has thrust herself so deeply into the abortion battle that she is recognized by the New York Times as a legitimate voice of the pro-life movement that she should have known the facts concerning the pro-life movement.  For a person who thrusts herself into a leadership position not to know the most obvious facts about the movement she speaks for is simply incomprehensible.  Therefore when Leslee Unruh totally distorted the history of the pro-life movement by calling the period when graphic pictures of aborted babies began to appear the "old way," it is only reasonable to suppose she was lying.

It becomes even more reasonable when one realizes what motive she might have in lying and distorting the facts of the history of the pro-life movement.

And there is a motive that is obvious once you focus on it: Leslie Unruh is leading a replay of exactly the same strategy that was first implemented by the pro-life movement in the first two decades of the pro-life movement.  If it could be seen that the strategy she is attempting to implement had already been tried and failed abysmally, then the most fundamental questions about Leslee Unruh's real goal as a leader of the pro-life movement would be raised.  In other words, the question would have to be asked whether Leslee Unruh was even actually interested in abolishing legalized abortion at all.  If it became clear that Leslee Unruh and those who were allied with her were attempting to implement a strategy that had already proven itself to be an abysmal failure, then evidence would exist that could lead a reasonable person to suspect that Unruh and her allies were actually infiltrators who desired to see legalized abortion perpetuated rather than the opponents of legalized abortion they claimed to be.

While at first glance such a suspicion might seem to be totally unfounded in fact, when one examines what could be gained by claiming that the showing of graphic pictures was, as Ms. Unruh said, "...why they were losing all those years..." it becomes clear that Ms. Unruh is not only confusing the facts of history but actually determined to stop the showing of graphic pictures of dead babies.

What other force could her statement have?  If in fact the reason legalized abortion has not been defeated can be traced to the fact that people have been showing graphic pictures of unborn babies, then there is only one remedy for such a situation: the pictures have got to go!

Now stop there and think.  Have the pictures of dead aborted babies made it harder to understand why legalized abortion must be abolished?  Have the pictures of the mutilated little bodies of dead babies made it harder to understand why such mutilation should never be legalized?

LIARS TURNING THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT INTO A BLOODY TUESDAY BUSINESS

What if it can be proven that pro-life leaders were lying like some Christian pastor caught with his pants down?  That's exactly what this article does. This article exposes the lies that are at the heart of the pro-life strategy today and proves that the strategy being implemented by the leaders of the pro-life movement is not only failing to stop legalized abortion but is the primary impediment to reaching that goal because it actively is committed to destroying the only other strategy that has not already been tried and failed.  In other words the pro-life strategy being implemented today is the cause of death itself.

The present strategy of the pro-life movement is deadly for two reasons: 1.  By destroying the ability to radically resist legalized abortion, the present strategy of the pro-life movement makes the perpetuation of legalized abortion inevitable, threatening to permanently embed legalized abortion into the American political system. And last but certainly not least, the pro-life strategy built on lies destroys the gospel handed down by the Apostles and replaces that gospel with another gospel, thereby bringing those who believe this other gospel under a curse.  The end result of the deadly strategy of the pro-life movement is to create a dynamic wherein the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the faith that is the only hope for deterring a world spiraling toward a time of judgment, is in the process of being destroyed.  For these reasons, if you have a tie to the Lord Jesus Christ you will study this message well, comparing it to the Scripture and to the facts you can see for yourself in the world around you today to see if the accusations made in this article are true or not.  And you will make this examination with all due diligence for there is still time to halt this slide toward the abyss awaiting those who pretend to be in Christ Jesus but refuse to obey the Head over that Body.  There is time now to reverse the slide, but there is no telling when that window of opportunity will close bringing down another time, a time of horror and terror and deprivation and suffering on earth unlike any ever known in HisStory.

Neal Horsley
November 8, 2006

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