Abort the abortion truck scheme

If you're lucky, you haven't seen them: large moving trucks with pictures of aborted fetuses next to a coin or other small objects to show the minute scale of the fetuses. \nThey've been circling the perimeter of campus for a week or so, silently making their point. They circle and circle, leaving us to wonder: Is anyone looking? \nThe trucks' right to be here is a freedom afforded to the drivers and the campaign's supporters by the First Amendment. Mark Harrington, director of the Midwest region for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (the organization sponsoring the truck campaign), responded to an inquiry about the trucks' presence on campus with, "We have all (the) invitation we need in the First Amendment."\nHere at the Indiana Daily Student, the First Amendment is sacred. We're a newspaper -- of course we value the First Amendment. We are the first to step up and say protests must be protected in order to protect our right to free speech. \nBut is shock value the best way to spread a message? \nNo. \nAny way you look at it, the pictures are hard to stomach, which is exactly what the CBR wants. But sex education reformers don't rent billboards to display diseased genitalia to warn against sexually transmitted infections, and those working to spread awareness about cancer don't buy airtime for commercials full of pictures of necrotized tumors to warn against the dangers of smoking. The reason they don't is the same reason the CBR shouldn't be bringing their trucks to the IU campus. It defeats the purpose. \nNo kind of activism should rely on shock value. Attempting to persuade or educate via shock doesn't leave the viewer a chance to make the decision for him or herself. It might have worked in the past with other issues (think the civil rights movement or the brouhaha surrounding Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ"). \nBut when many of the students, faculty, staff and Bloomington community members encounter the trucks, their first instinct will be one of two reactions: to shut their eyes or to simply look away. There's no denying the pictures on the side of the trucks are powerful, but they're not powerful in a way that will influence the viewer in the direction the campaign managers want. When people's eyes are closed, they can't see the message in front of them. When an image is upsetting enough to make a viewer turn away, no kind of education or persuasion can take place. \nOur opinion about the abortion trucks doesn't imply a position on the abortion debate at-large. Nevertheless, we're not afraid to criticize outlandish propaganda. We're going to be frank: This campaign won't work. We fully and openly acknowledge the CBR and the trucks' right to drive around campus, but if they honestly want to make change, this isn't the way to do it.