I believe that if the child is 14, 16, etc. and is old enough to understand what is being protested, and is doing so because of their own beliefs, then it is fine to join their parents-but a 5 year old holding a sign because their parents told them to, when they are too young to understand fully the event/issue, is just ridiculous.
Well... maybe I wasn't the average kid from the average family, but I was fully aware about abortion at a very young age (couldn't have been more than 6 or 7) because we watched CNN at dinner every night and discussed what was on. My dad played devil's advocate about the whole thing and from a very young age, I have been an active protester with and without my parents. But most kids (and even adults) have never gotten an even handed view of all sides of issues like abortion.
What really gets me is so many of those graphic abortion photographs have absolutely NOTHING to do with abortion. There is one famous photograph of a surgery being performed on a baby in the uterus where the baby looks like it's reaching out to touch the surgeon's finger. I've seen that on so many anti-abortion posters when in fact, it was not an abortion at all! Also, many of the graphic pictures are not even humans but other animals. But who cares, as long as it looks bloody, right?
People who use scare tactics for their activism make me sick. Especially when they drag their own children or other innocent bystander children into it.
