(Carlos Barria/Reuters)

This weekend in Times Square, New Yorkers and New-Yorkers-for-a-day got a rare glimpse of an often-ignored biological reality. Thanks to Focus on the Family, the hundreds of thousands of people passing through Manhattan’s highly trafficked tourist spot on Saturday afternoon witnessed a 4D ultrasound of a 36-week-old unborn child.

Several advertising groups denied Focus on the Family’s request to show ultrasound imagery on billboard space in Times Square, so instead the group brought its own digital billboards and displayed a live ultrasound of the unborn child of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who now runs a group that helps abortion-clinic workers leave their jobs.

Here’s more from radio host and writer Kevin McCullough, who was at the event:

In the middle of literally the world’s busiest intersection, a quiet fell across the multiple blocks that was so deafening you could literally have heard a pin drop. No angry chants in protests. No applause of agreement. Just a sleepy little baby’s face, in beautiful 4D, staring out across New York City’s busiest neighborhoods.

The heartbeat of an unborn child, echoing through one of the busiest spaces in the entire country. On the corner of 43rd Street and 7th Avenue, everyone saw the reality of human life in the womb.


It’s a reality that abortion-rights supporters will do anything to suppress or disguise — undoubtedly why thousands of vulgar protestors were present on Saturday to drown out the event. When states pass laws requiring abortionists to give pregnant women the option of seeing the ultrasound of their unborn child as part of informed consent before an abortion procedure, groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are swift to sue. Why?

It is much more difficult to defend the right to intentionally end the life of an innocent human being than it is to defend a woman’s right to rid herself of an unwanted “clump of cells.” Unscientific euphemisms are the currency of the abortion-rights movement.

And, at least later in pregnancy, ultrasound technology shatters that ruse. You can look at an ultrasound, see the unmistakable face of a tiny unborn human being, and still support the right to abortion. But you can no longer pretend you don’t know what it is.