It's wrong to show abortion photos

After reading James Finnegan's letter published on Aug. 12, I could not believe what I was reading.

He writes that using signs featuring photographs of actual abortions "of 12-, 21-, and 31-week-old children" is a great tool in the fight against abortion.

He uses the fact that his own children and grandchildren have seen the photos as proof that it is harmless. He asks, "What is worse, a child temporarily upset or a child dismembered in his mother's womb?"

What a load of poppycock. First of all, they are not 12-, 21- and 31-week-old children. Those would be newborns. They are fetuses of 12-, 21- and 31-weeks gestation.

This is not an attempt to dehumanize the unborn, just an attempt at clarifying the argument through the use of accurate terminology. A 12-week-old child is an infant, and it cannot accurately be said to also describe a 12-week-old fetus.

Secondly, using his own children as proof of his argument is not proof of anything. It is an anecdote, not a fact that can support an argument.

Someone whose children have seen the photographs and who were traumatized by them can make the exact opposite argument, and neither is "proof" of anything.

Third, his comparison of "which is worse" is a complete fallacy. It is not an either-or situation. It is a case of both being true.

You have exposed a child to horrible photos, and you have traumatized them. Their being victimized has no effect on the abortion that you are trying to prevent. The traumatized child and the aborted child do not cancel each other out.

He closes by saying that abortion is "evil and disgusting." True enough. But so are lots of other things, and they are not stopped by showing photos of them to children. Murder is evil and disgusting. Do we show photos of murder victims to the public in general, in case a potential murderer might see them?

Arson is evil, but photos of burned bodies aren't put on posters on the street corner to dissuade arsonists.

Amy Principi

Mount Prospect