Sometimes all it takes is a picture to awaken us out of our slumber!

By now many of you have seen the picture that John Barros posted recently of the young woman who came to Orlando Women's Center here in Orlando to have her 20 week old twin baby girls killed.  Since then the picture has gone viral with many people blogging and facebooking about this tragedy.

Unfortunately, there are some though, even fellow sidewalk counselors, that think John was wrong in taking the picture and have condemned him for doing so.  I felt I needed to chime in on this because I believe this very thing is why abortion continues to go on after almost 40 years.  I may raise some eyebrows here, but I feel very strongly about this.

First of all, John is one of the very faithful sidewalk counselors in Orlando, along with Heather who was with him on this dreadful day.  Those two reached out to this woman and pleaded with her, offering this young mother the help she really needed.  Many comments I have read suggested what she needed was to sit down somewhere and receive counseling, not have her picture posted publicly.  But if any think that John and Heather didn't try to get her to leave and go somewhere that offers real help they are sadly mistaken.  This woman proudly posed for John to take this picture, she had no problem with him taking it.  She also refused the help that was offered to her, she just didn't want "girls!" 

It seems though, that there is alot of criticism of the picture being posted instead of the real horror of what those babies went through eventually leading to their death. They were executed for their gender.  This woman went in and paid someone to kill her baby girls.  That is what is so terribly wrong.  I thank God John and Heather were there reaching out as they do, and I am glad this picture went viral even though this is not uncommon.  Sometimes it takes pictures like this to awaken the sleeping church and world.  It took pictures of the dead Jewish bodies piled, to really understand the atrocities of Hitler.  It took the picture of the little Vietnamese girl on the front cover of the Life magazine for everyone to be outraged.  It has taken pictures of piles of dead bodies to expose dictators involved in genocide.  

We have to remember that this not about abortion, these are crimes against humanity, this is a civil rights issue, a segment of our society that has lost their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  If we do not see it that way, we are going to be more upset with the picture then the actual tragedy and abortion will continue on another 40 or more years.  These babies are human beings and need to be protected and have their personhood restored!

In the meantime, we rescue those unjustly sentenced to death (Provers 24:11-12), speak up for those who have no voice (Proverbs 31:8), and have nothing to do with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them (Ephesians 5:11).