I was driving in my car and the subject on Sirius/XM Progress was abortion and when life begins (at conception or when the egg attaches to the uterus or is it all philosophical) as I drove by a billboard I see twice a day on my beautiful NJ roads that says “Babies Feel Pain in the Womb” (I cannot find an image of it online, even on the NJ Right to Life website).

There is a propaganda war going on all over this country against the right to abortion and they attack everywhere.  It’s constant and unrelenting and it’s working.

This debate, like so many others shouldn’t even be a debate.  I actually think it’s rather simple…  I know crazy, huh?

If you have a moral problem with abortion then don’t have one.  But since other people disagree on whether this is a moral issue it would also be immoral to foist your morality on someone else.  Forcing someone to go to term with an unwanted pregnancy is more immoral to me than an abortion.  Bringing an unwanted child into the world to potentially suffer the dark harms of a cruel world is quite immoral in my view.

This is all besides the fact that a woman’s sovereignty over her body should be sacrosanct. Nobody tells men when they can or cannot do with their bodies.

So why isn’t the pro-choice side ever putting up propaganda billboards?  Why are we always playing defense on their side of the field arguing against their emotional and “moral” arguments on fetal pain or when life begins, or when life is viable, etc.  We’re constantly fighting back against their incremental erosion of rights as their legislators prohibit third trimester abortions, create a fictional thing called a “partial birth abortion” keep pushing prohibitions down to 20 weeks and further, create bullshit TRAP laws?

This epitomizes the kind of argument we should be putting up on a lot of issues.  The forces of science and rational thought just assume we have a majority of right thinking people fighting off the challenges of backwards thinkers who will eventually disappear.

They’re not disappearing.  Despite not having facts on their side, they fight with emotion and they change minds.  Yes, most people still believe there should be a right to abortion at least in some circumstances.  But they’ve already whittled down the number of people who believe it’s a right that shouldn’t be limited to the point that many people believe things that just aren’t so and are willing to go along with “common sense” restrictions that aren’t based in any science or serve some societal need.

It’s just anti-choicers imposing their morality, by whatever means necessary.  It’s a propaganda war and one side isn’t fighting it.

I want to see a billboard that states:  “Nobody is forced to have an abortion in the U.S. and nobody should be forced to give birth either.  It’s a choice!”  With a picture like this:

A shackled pregnant prisoner giving birth.

Or this kind of billboard!

Or a billboard that has a pregnant man that says:  “If men gave birth abortion wouldn’t even be a debate.  Nobody tells men what to do with their bodies.  Women deserve that right too.”

You can’t fight a propaganda war with nothing.  There are lots of great pro-choice messages, they too should be on billboards on highways until the debate goes away. Pretending there is no debate and always being on the defensive is a bad strategy.