NRL News
Page 32
June-July 2011
Volume 38
Issue 6-7

“QR Codes”: A Wonderfully Creative Way
to Quickly Access Pro-Life Educational Materials

By Luis Zaffirini

This may be as familiar to you as your own phone number or a real head-scratcher: a “QR code.” Trust me you ARE familiar with them (they are like the bar codes on grocery items), just not in the context of accessing right to life materials.

In its ever-growing effort to effectively use technology, National Right to Life is launching a QR code-themed project and associated website called share.howwestart.com.

Share.howwestart.com is a quick, easy, mobile way to share mind-changing and lifesaving media by giving pro-lifers the online resources they need to share the information about how each and every one of us started our lives as human beings. National Right to Life’s QR code is found on this page.

Let’s start with a definition: A “QR” code is nothing more than a two-dimensional bar code that can be read by any smartphone with a QR code reader.

So what’s in the bar codes? Bits of information. They can be either any kind of text, a phone number, or (and this is key) a specific link to a web page.

How does it work? The user of a QR-reading smartphone needs only to focus the phone’s camera on the code and the code is read, delivering the user to whatever information the code contains. In our case, to fascinating stuff, including videos, about how we all began.

QR codes have been in wide use for a couple years, particularly in places like Japan where they sometimes decorate the sides of buildings, spanning several floors. Their purpose is to quickly take a smartphone user to information which would take longer to type in.

Compare how long it would take to type out a lengthy website or to record the detailed contact information of a new acquaintance or business partner to the speed of simply taking a picture with your smartphone. That’s why these QR codes have become a favorite of advertisers who can rapidly transport a curious audience to more detailed information about their product.

This combination—being able to rapidly transmit information and the sheer portability of the code itself—makes it perfect for spreading the pro-life message.

That is why National Right to Life is launching our QR code-themed project and associated website called share.howwestart.com.

We are offering stickers and t-shirts featuring the QR code itself and the website it points to (share.howwestart.com) to make this message mobile like never before. In fact, this whole project is about further empowering individual pro-lifers to be spokespersons for innocent human life, making it easier to spread the facts about how we start our lives.