Graphic antiabortion video to be shown on Independence Mall

The video opens with the black-and-white footage of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s stirring clarion call for equal rights at the 1963 March on Washington.

It quickly goes full color, and cuts to gruesome close-ups of the bloody remnants of abortions. It is fair to say that what is shown is disturbing.

On Friday, the images will be displayed on a 10- by 12-foot screen set high on Independence Mall, the heart of Philadelphia's tourism zone, as the antiabortion group Created Equal brings its high-tech assault on the practice to Philadelphia.

The video, on a continuous loop, will be played from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to Mark Harrington, Created Equal's national director.

"It seems fitting to me that we are launching this campaign in the very place where our nation's founders penned those words, created equal," Harrington said. "We are still battling for equal rights. In this case, it is the pre-born who are being discriminated against."

Harrington said his group has a permit from the National Park Service for the event. Efforts to reach the Park Service for comment were unsuccessful; Monday was the federal Columbus Day holiday.

"They are aware of what we are showing," Harrington said of the Park Service. "We are not trying to pull anything over on anybody. But this is a First Amendment activity. Their hands are tied in terms of content. They can't be content-biased."

Harrington said his group has shown the video on a large screen at public protests in San Francisco and Washington.

"The reaction is generally mixed," he said. "You get some people who give you a thumbs-up. There are some who are strongly on the other side, who don't like it because we are exposing what really goes on in abortion clinics."

Harrington said his group was aware that Independence Mall was a magnet for families with children.

"We will surround the display with warning signs that will say there is an abortion-victims video ahead, so parents can take another route or avert their children's gaze," he said. "We are trying to give parents discretion, but we realize some children will see these images."

Harrington said his group was not intentionally trying to expose children to the protest.

"This, unfortunately, is what happens when a nation kills its children," he said. "We believe those victims need to be shown publicly. I'm happy to stop doing this when the killing stops."

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