Bumper Stuck

The phenomenon that is the bumper sticker is marked usually by over-stated positions, over-generalizations, or over-used cliches; perhaps they become a cliche having been a bumper sticker first. Am I the only one who flirts with the limits of the posted speed to catch a glimpse of the owner of a slogan I find particularly thought provoking or enraging? The entire goal of an automotive anterior decal is to catch the eye of the other drivers, make a point, be witty or memorable, and do it all at 70 mph. Given these criteria, I have recently witnessed two very successful pieces of car flare that I, obviously, deem worthy of comment on this our most prestigious and cute blog. Sadly, due to the subject matter of the stickers, no further attempts to entertain you, strictly speaking, will be made.

The first bumper sticker, stuck cock-eyed next to the classic "KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY" was blue with white lettering and read "if you can't trust me with a choice/you can't trust me with a child." I had to inch closer to read it again because at first glance I wasn't able to grasp the point. The intended message, as far as I perceive it, sets in contrast the "sacred choice" a woman has as granted from her reproductive freedom against the sacred duty (notice the lack of quotation marks) of parenthood. Given more space, it may read thus: "the choice I have to continue this pregnancy or not is a fundamental right that I have; if you cannot trust me to make this first, fundamental choice, how can you, then, trust me to make all the rest of the choices I will need to make as a result of not making this first." The argument makes sense from their point of view only, however. Why is it that any one person can be "trusted with a child?" Even more than raising them to know right from wrong and to always put forth their best effort, at the most basic level, a person can be trusted if that child will be kept safe while under said person's care. The stark truth is that this "choice" the woman has is whether or not to KILL the child. The bumper sticker has it backwards: "You cannot trust me with a child because you cannot trust me with this choice." Because ultimately, the baby may end up dead.

The second is perhaps more poignant. Its companion on its unkempt car read, "War is terrorism on a bigger budget," which could itself be a whole post topic. Our focus, though, will be on the yellow one that said, "Just say NO to sex with pro-lifers". My first thought, as I tried to decipher the meaning, was that the author (do bumper stickers have "authors"?) was pointing to the irony of future demographics in which all the pro-abortion people have chosen themselves out of contention, while all the pro-lifers keep producing rodent-sized broods and command the political/cultural sphere. But the conclusion is much more sinister. Historically, abortion has been, so to speak, the last line of contraception/birth control. The sexual revolution failed to account for the consequences of "freeing your inner sexual being", so if condoms didn't work, an abortion was the final solution so as to continue a sex life as one wishes. Abstinence only sex education will never be effective, we are told, because people just are unable to control themselves. This bumper sticker elevates the abortion lobby to a new plateau; no longer is it about exercising one's libido consequence-free, but it plainly is about killing babies and nothing else. In other words, the sticker is admonishing us to make sure that every pregnancy has the opportunity, or potential, to be terminated. Sex with pro-lifers leads to babies who are not aborted.

It is the same dark, poisonous ideology in operation here as that at whose hands countless millions died in Europe not so long ago at all; one in which man is sacrificed for the sake of morality.