You wrote this: No better way to trivialize an issue than to make it into slogans printed on children’s clothes and bumper-stickers.
Now, I suppose you could counter with some blather about how saying something has been trivialized doesn't mean that the person seeing the statement will believe it's trivial, but not only would that involve ultrafine hair-splitting, it would render the entire original point invalid, because the message is not trivialized if people who see it are going to take it seriously.
How about the kid just show up, listen and learn and leave the abortion issue to those who have at least experienced puberty.
1. So, one must wait until one is growing body hair in certain places before one may opppose the slaughter of millions of human beings?
2. In a world where people want to start handing out birth control pills to 11 year old girls at school, it appears you're more than a bit behind the curve.
Maybe the parents should stop using their child as a socio-political mouth-piece.
On what basis are you accusing the parents of this? Are all 6th graders mindless automatons that couldn't possibly come up with such and idea without their parents forcing it?
Stunts like what this kid’s parents pulled do more harm than good for the pro-life side. Intelligent people do not form lasting socio-political opinions based on t-shirt slogans.
Intelligent people do, however, form long-lasting socio-political opinions when someone points something out that makes them question their current worldview. I am now a pro-life activist, and my journey to that began with one person asking me "Have you ever read a book on fetal development?" (Gee, that's the kind of pithy statement you might find on a T-shirt!) Moreover, unless the mom is lying outright, we know that these T-shirts caused kids to start asking questions...which is how people begin changing their worldview.
In 4th grade wearing the same shirt every day, turned inside-out. How many people is that going to reach? None. Likely it will have the opposite effect on the other kids.
Every kid in that school knows the exact reason that his shirt is turned inside out, and that's a symbol in and of itself. And if you think that kids that age are going to naturally side with an authority figure, you must not know many kids that age.
A kid makes a stand for something he believes in, something that is no-brainer obviously right, the school comes down on him in violation of their own policy and does so because students might ask too many questions...I don't see any reason conservatives should be siding with the school, much less acting like this kid and his parents are bad people.