>>I thought it made the point with the truck signs, too.<<
I would LOVE to see those trucks in our downtown area at 9:00pm on a Friday night I would whoop and holler support as I drove by.
Tact is a marvelous thing. More flies can be caught with honey than vinegar. At 2:00pm, at a beach parking lot, this shows no tact.
And in my opinion, does no good.
You know how I posted on the Michigan forum that my neighbor and good friend Ruth was murdered two weeks ago? All of my kids knew Ruth. Josh knew her best, since he is the oldest. He's known her for five years, since he was just turning five years old.
He wanted to know why I was crying and praying so much the day she was attacked. I told him that someone beat her up and that she might not get better. He made a few comments which made me realize he thought she might end up wheelchair-bound or bedridden (she died two days after the attack). I explained to him that she was hurt so badly that she would probably die. He was very upset at that, obviously, not because he knew her and liked her but because he's a kid. He was scared to know that the person who beat Ruth was not caught. I spent a lot of time that weekend making him realize that his Dad and I do everything we can to keep him and his brothers safe. Two weeks later and he's still jumpy.
I did not tell him the particulars of the beating. I did not tell my nine year old son that a woman he knew was struck at least four times in the head with a hammer. I didn't tell him that the emergency surgery performed in an attempt to save Ruth's life involved removing part of her skull and part of her brain, and still she died. I didn't need to tell him any of that. He was horrified enough to know the palest facts of what happened. I shudder to think how disturbed he'd have been if he'd accidentally been shown the autopsy photos--but at least then I could be sure that he got the point: Murder is bad.
There are so many places the debated images could be used effectively--you've named many of them yourself, and I agree with what you've stated. I could name ten places off the top of my head--right here in the Lansing/East Lansing area--in which the images could be used quite effectively, and none of those places are venues in which children are known to frequent. But why should the pro-life movement limit itself in such a manner when we are able to be just as irresponsible and thoughtless as the pro-death crowd?
I stand by what I have stated: The use of these images as billboards has turned more people away from the pro-life movement than it has saved babies. As such, it is an ineffective tactic.