Every Sunday for a few weeks, pro-life protesters have been picketing outside of All Souls Unitarian Church, due to the Unitarian church’s stance on abortion. So far, they’ve successfully convinced about half of the congregation that life begins at conception.
Head protester Tom Webster was excited about the progress they’ve made so far. “I’m really hopeful about this thing. I think that standing outside of a church with signs can really change some minds.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I think that harassing people for their personal views at a place of worship is a really good idea,” he added. “We expect to convince everyone who holds the Unitarian faith that abortion is bad in about a month.”
The leaders of the church, meanwhile, are terrified of the raw rhetorical power that the protesters have. “We don’t have anything to counter their signs,” said Reverend Andrea Forbes, one of the church’s ministers. “I mean, we have our beliefs, which correspond with our church’s doctrine, but these protesters could change all of that.”
Reports indicate that the protests are working, as more and more members of the church are abandoning beliefs they’ve held for their entire lives, in favor of the opinions of a group of strangers. “I used to be ardently pro-choice, but now that you mention it, I’ve been thinking that life begins at conception more and more,” said a churchgoer who asked to remain anonymous.
“I didn’t think that I was that easy to convince,” she added, “but there’s just something about a group of people shouting at you while you try to go to church that makes you realize that women really shouldn’t have a say in what happens to their body.”
The protesters plan on expanding their operation in the coming months. “There are a lot of other places we can protest, and everyone knows that people’s beliefs are really susceptible to being protested,” Webster said. “We’re thinking grocery stores, public pools, day care centers, just everywhere that people who happen to be pro-choice might be.”
For their part, the church leaders are just barely holding on to their existing congregation. “Just yesterday, one of the ministers saw an ultrasound of a child, and decided to abandon his religious belief entirely,” Forbes told us. “When someone shouts, ‘you’re wrong,’ while handing you a picture of an embryo, there’s really nothing you can counter with. That’s the end-all be-all of arguments.”
