today after class tony and i walked across campus to have our semi-usual coffee hour.  semi-usual coffee hour is when we have coffee on a bench for an hour between classes, but we only do it sometimes.  we were walking in the direction of the library, in front of which there was a large anti-abortion display.  and believe me, when i say large, i mean seriously large.  the thing was basically a three-sided billboard approximately one and a half stories high, and it was held up with poles and tension wire.

tony and i walked all the way around the perimeter of it (it was surrounded by a short, flimsy fence), taking in each side, reading the propaganda.  it was startlingly graphic; there were several gigantic, high-resolution photos of bloody fetuses, animal testing, and electric-chair victims.  one panel on the display dealt with the value of human life, another panel equated abortion with genocide, and the third panel outlined health risks and alternative options.  small groups of people were crowded around it, some frowning, some curious, some pointing and laughing.

there was a url on one of the panels, so i checked out the website.  it turns out that it’s done by a group called justice for all, and they’ve been touring this thing around texas college campuses.  which i think is interesting, because aren’t we supposed to be a bunch of redneck republicans already?  and why did they bring it to a commuter school like u of h, where there’s rarely any controversy because people just want to get in and get out and don’t really care about things school-related?  and don’t abortions have to take place in order for them to take the photos, in which they hold dimes up to the mutilated fetuses to show their actual size?

i was somewhat offended by the display, to be honest.  i’ve come to terms with the fact that i have rather delicate sensibilities about some things, and this, apparently, is one of them.  but the display also seemed useless.  i’m pretty permanently convinced that there are some issues about which you can almost never change people’s minds with propaganda.  people simply do not decide on issues like abortion and capital punishment by reading a pamphlet.  their positions on these issues are based on things like upbringing, environment, and personal experience, and not on a billboard obviously intended to shock people and gross them out.

especially not one set up a hundred feet from where the cheerleaders are having a bake sale.