Think before you paste

I have seen several of these bumper stickers in the last three weeks. I guess when I first saw it I had a confused reaction to the statement. I am not attempting to make fun of the person's beliefs, however two things come to mind.

Why would you put a sticker like that on your car? "I believe in the preciousness of all life, even the life of the unborn" would be an acceptable statement. With dignity and respect you could inform others of what you believe, if that is important to you. With the terrorist implication you polarize people. It seems to me that no one is going to change what he or she believes because you made such a harsh statement.

But second and more important is the meaning of the sentence itself. Anyone who understands what a terrorist's intention is would not compare an abortionist to a terrorist. Terror is designed to destabilize a political system, to cause people to think hard about whether they want to continue in a certain direction. The unborn are aborted, no political chilling effect.

A way to illustrate it would be through what happened on 9/11/2001 Terrorists took over planes and crashed them into buildings. If no one had claimed responsibility for the actions, it would have been the first example of serial killers operating in coordination. The fact is that the terrorists were not concerned about the lives they ended, including their own, flying planes into buildings. The point was to destabilize America and reduce its power in the world. The message was "leave the Arab world alone. If you do not, see what can happen to you." The people who died on the planes and in the building were simply words on a demand note to the rest of the country by emotional kidnappers.

When a fetus is aborted, there is no larger message made about needing to reconsider whether you consider pregnancy as an option for the future. Therefore an abortionist is not a terrorist to the unborn, any more than the hijackers were terrorists to the passengers in the planes that crashed into buildings.

If we believe in the message of love and acceptance, there is no place for polarization. I can state who I am and what I believe, but harsh words will never woo me over to your side, any more than I have felt empathy for terrorists who destroy innocent bystanders so their point can be made.