Image Source: http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/endthekilling/postcards
When I was little, I routinely said to my sister and friends, “Let’s play house!” or “Let’s play doctor!” Indeed, it is common for young children to enjoy replicating in their imaginary world of play land what they see adults do.
With that in mind, let’s imagine that two siblings are playing in their living room. “Let’s play Planned Parenthood!” one little girl cries to her sister. “Okay!” she responds. So they gather their Barbies and their baby dolls and ask Mom to lend them some scissors. Mom, figuring they’re doing arts and crafts, says, “Sure!”
The little girls then proceed to cut off Barbie’s limbs and cut open their dolls’ heads. Now imagine the Mom walks in on this display and understandably shrieks, “WHAT ARE YOU GIRLS DOING?!?!?!” They innocently reply, “We’re playing Planned Parenthood! We’re harvesting tissue!” Something tells me that their mom would not celebrate their budding sense of “reproductive justice,” but would instead make an emergency call to a child psychiatrist about how to handle children who dismember dolls.
If we wouldn’t want children to play such a game in their imaginary world, why would we want adults to act in such a way in our reality world? And that’s the very point the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform powerfully makes with this postcard of theirs (front and back).
Our very different intuitive reactions to a child’s declaration, “Let’s play house!” versus “Let’s play Planned Parenthood!” reveals there is something gravely disordered with the latter.