Mary said: 
“Pro-life graphic pictures are never of zygotes.”

My response:
This is true, although I’m not sure how we would get a picture of a zygote on a practical level. The earliest abortion-related picture I’ve seen is this picture. It’s a picture after an RU-486, or chemical abortion. The embryo is seven weeks according to the woman who took the picture. (click here for her story.) Since abortions can’t be done earlier than 5 weeks, I don’t know how much younger than that we could get, and why we would. I will agree that this embryo would not tug as many heartstrings as a later-term fetus. 

I actually don’t think we should show only late-term fetuses though. I think that might inaccurately imply that most abortions are late-term, which we both know is not true. When I do talks I often show a particular video called “This Is Abortion,” after warning everyone and giving them a chance to leave the room or look away. (you can watch it here.) It was purposely designed to have only first-trimester fetuses in it, except for the last image, which is a 2nd trimester fetus. That’s more comparative to abortion stats, and I prefer it. I don’t want someone to just be able to say, “well those were all late-term fetuses, the early ones don’t look that bad.” Ironically, I heard that Planned Parenthood’s first response to an early graphic video was accusing the pro-lifers of cutting up frogs and taking pictures.