I was walking down Madison St. the other day on my way to work from the train station, just minding my own business and letting the cold city weather wake me up, when, after crossing over the river, I found myself face-to-face with a 6-ft. tall anti-abortion sign. It was an enormous poster of a dead fetus next to a ruler with the words ABORTION written across the top. I look another five feet down the street and see another sign, and then another, and another, every five feet going down Madison. Some of the protesters had pamphlets that they were handing out to passers-by, but most just stood their defiantly with their signs. Not something I really want to be seeing at 8:00 am on my way to work.
Now, I respect every American's right to protest and understand that there are many others in the world that don't have such a right. I've been a part of a few myself, and hope to be part of many more in the future. I even respect the rights of those whose opinions I disagree with 1000%, such as the group mentioned above. That's not what this post is about. As I turned the corner off of Madison, I passed a pile of the abortion signs all on the sidewalk, waiting to be picked up by more protesters. On top of this pile of signs was a boy who couldn't have been older than eight or nine years old. Sitting on top of pile of 6-ft. signs with aborted babies on them. This is what I found to be extremely inappropriate. First of all, it was a pretty chilly morning, so this kid couldn't have been very happy. Second of all, he's just a kid!! Thank goodness he was sitting on a pile of graphic pictures of aborted babies rather than listening to rap music or watching The Sopranos.
I'm all about parents educating their children about the ways of the world, but I think there's a tactfulness to it that obviously the parent of this child was missing. Let them grow and develop their own views instead of forcing them into a very controversial issue that they won't understand for years. I love my parents and am unbelievably grateful that they tried their hardest not to force their values on me and instead let me be influenced by them in my own way. While we have our disagreements and differences of opinion, there is always a respect that I believe was fostered when they let me figure things out on my own. If this kid is getting this kind of rhetoric shoved down his throat at age nine, is it really going to help their cause, or just push him to the "other side"?
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I hear ya! When I was at ISU we had these groups on campus constantly, and there would always be some student who would get into a yelling match with one of the sign carrying goofs. On occassion college students would engage the children and begin to argue with them. Whenever I saw this, I would step in and immediately end this argument by explaining to the college student that these are children and truly do not know the nuance of this argument. I hated to see these misguided children be attacked and I was legitamitely angry with their parents for putting 8 years olds in such a potentially dangerous situation, and more over, teaching such young people to hate so venomously. I was also curious what these kids did for fun?
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