I took Dempster west again today, one week after driving that direction with Danny in his car seat last week. It was the easiest way to go (towards the Costco in Niles, since I'm still boycotting the Glenview one), but I did make the drive with a bit of trepidation.

See, there's a fertility clinic on Dempster, halfway between the Barnum & Bagel restaurant (Jewish food with a circus theme!) and the kosher candy and nut place. I didn't make the connection last week, but I realized it today.

I tend to try to run my errands early, and get to the stores as they open. So it couldn't have been any later than 9:30 a.m. last Saturday when I drove Danny past the abortion protesters. I didn't know if that was a significant date in Roe v. Wade-type history, or if this was a regular occurrence out here in the suburban jungle. But there they were, these angry white folk, lined up in front of the split-level bungalows on Dempster holding up giant signs.

And it couldn't be enough to just write slogans. No, they had larger-than-life, full-color, shockingly graphic photo posters of (supposedly) aborted fetuses at various ages, from several weeks to several months. There was nowhere for me to turn off; all I could do was try to engage Danny so that he'd look at me and not see the bloody posters.

Words can't describe how sick and angry I was. I'm all about choice; you can choose to be against abortion or whatever. But why must some people shove these hateful, horrid, images down our throats? Here I was, halfway through my pregnancy, driving with my youngest child in the car, and instead of singing along to the radio with Danny, I was slaloming down Dempster with a burning rage. These people! With these ugly, awful, images! With their kids right beside them! Imagine the nightmares their kids must have, waking up in the middle of the night to get some water or use the toilet and finding Mommy or Daddy pasting dead baby posters to a two-by-four!

I wanted so badly to stop the car and scream at these people for subjecting my child and myself to these images, to that horror. But doing so would only force us both to see even more. And I certainly wouldn't change their minds, any more than those frightening images changed my own position.

Why am I so angry? These people weren't talking to me. I had the babies I could carry to term. The mere suggestion of terminating my own (surprise!) pregnancy sickened me, even though I wouldn't hesitate to allow other women that option. It's not my place to tell someone what to do. Do I think abortion should replace birth control? Hell, no. But what if you're raped? (I was. Would I want to raise that demon's spawn; be reminded every day of that violent DNA lying dormant in my own child?) What if your very life is at stake because your body can't sustain itself through a pregnancy?

Jewish law states, I am told, that if a doctor must choose between the life of an unborn child and that of it's mother, they must choose the mother. Better (I guess) to let the mother mourn, and hopefully try again in other circumstances, than to sacrifice the mother and bring a motherless baby into the world. This sounds so awful. But aren't the abortion protesters merely taking the opposing view?

I don't know what's right for other people. But I do know I don't want my children subjected to bloody imagery of dead babies before they understand where babies come from. This is the same reason I don't tell my kids that we're at a war (especially one I don't support), I don't talk yet about drugs or gangs or prostitution or terrorism. There will come a time for all of those talks; likely sooner than I'd like to approach them. But in the meantime, let my children (and me, vicariously) leave in peaceful, blissful ignorance of life's uglier aspects, okay?