We're causing an uproar...

The truth is unwelcome when it threatens a comforting but false belief.

I often think about the cartoon featuring two sales booths, one advertising “UNPLEASANT TRUTHS” and the other “COMFORTING LIES.” The proprietor for the truths sits idle while the line of customers for the lies stretches out of sight.

We mailed 45,000 of our new pro-life outreach magazines to Temecula last month, and already we’ve received dozens of e-mails and calls. Others posted on social media and online forums. A friend who lives in Temecula told me there is “quite the uproar.”

On the other hand, some recipients appreciated the truth and how the magazine conveys it, sharing that it made them more opposed to abortion. As one man said, “This is the best educational info I've seen on abortion since 1973, and I follow this issue.”

Most of the outrage centered around the fact that we dared to question the goodness of abortion at all. They are terrified of the persuasive power of the truth, clearly presented. We even received a new review on Google that encapsulates (with better grammar) the sentiments of many of the messages:

California deserves to remain a safe haven for science, progress, and women’s health — not a platform for outdated, extremist views. They should keep their opinions to themselves and stop trying to control other people’s lives and healthcare choices.

Some recipients claimed that the magazine contained “lies” or “propaganda.” I responded to each one with an assurance that we don’t want to publish anything false and asking for sources that would contradict the scientific articles and studies cited throughout the magazine. If they responded with a source (from a thoroughly pro-abortion organization, of course), I went through it paragraph by paragraph and explained how the logical and scientific leaps made the conclusions tenuous, at best.

Among the thousands who didn’t contact us, we know that most were undecideds in the mushy middle. A Gallup poll from this year found that 55% percent of Americans think that abortion should be legal in limited circumstances. This majority is the most persuadable and our target audience.