In a way, the bumper sticker predates the bumper – minus the adhesive.
Prior to the advent of Ford’s Model A in 1927 that included the world’s first car bumper, those wanting to communicate a message were known to strap wooden or metal signs using rope or wire onto the back of motorized vehicles. Prior to the car, they were affixed onto horse drawn buggies or carriages.
Forrest P. Gill is credited with inventing the “bumper strip” in the 1940s using self-adhesive paper and fluorescent ink. His first big order was to help promote a park in Clearwater, Florida. It took a few years before politicians began using them to campaign. Dwight Eisenhower’s election in 1952 was buttressed by bumper stickers featuring the ideal short and pithy slogan: “I LIKE IKE”. He won in a landslide.
Bumper stickers have been used for political and social activism ever since. If not always effective, they’ve certainly become ubiquitous. And why not? They’re cheap and everywhere. Motorists can’t help but look at the bumper in front of them while waiting at a red light.
Most causes benefit from reducing the mission, goal or call-to-action down to a single phrase that can fit on a bumper. And yet some are actually exposed by such an exercise – especially the abortion lobby and industry.
I was waiting at a red light the other morning when I spotted a sticker on a silver Subaru in front of me. It read:
ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE
PRO LIFE IS ANTI-WOMEN
Both statements are lies, of course.
According to Merriam-Webster, “healthcare” is “efforts made to maintain, restore, or promote someone’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being especially when performed by trained and licensed professionals.”
Abortion isn’t healthcare by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn’t restore anything but destroys innocent life and then burdens and enslaves the mother and father with a lifetime of guilt and regret.
The claim that being pro-life is somehow “anti-women” is a nonsensical statement on numerous levels, especially since half of the babies aborted are female. But it does speak to the selfish ideology that permeates the abortion movement overall. Many of the activists refuse to acknowledge the existence of life inside the womb and instead put all the emphasis on the mother and none on the baby.
Contrasting pro-life bumper stickers with pro-abortion ones is also instructive and revealing. It’s easy to note the aggression, anger and ignorance in the pro-abortion stickers:
“Keep Your Laws Off My Body,” “No Uterus, No Opinion,” and “My Body, My Choice.”
The slogans are also downright stupid. Do pro-abortion activists really not want any laws concerning the human body? Countless laws protect the bodies of both women and men by making murder illegal or regulating countless other things we ingest/utilize that can potentially kill us – everything ranging from medical procedures to our food and medicine. And only women can have an opinion about abortion? They seem to be fine with pro-abortion male presidents appointing pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court.
The pro-life messaging?
“Choose Life,” “Every Life Matters,” “Love Them Both,” “Children Are a Gift From God.”
How can anyone be intellectually honest and disagree with these statements?
It can be difficult to reduce contentious issues to soundbites and bumper stickers, but truth is often revealed by contrast. None more so than by examining the rival messages regarding the sanctity of life making their way around the streets of our towns and cities.