Using graphic images as a message- right or wrong?
Do you think graphic images should be used when at abortion clinics? Some say yes but there are a lot of pro-lifers out there that don’t feel comfortable with using them. Of course now the graphic images of aborted babies is what abortion really is, so personally I don’t feel it’s wrong to use them in peaceful protest. Now sidewalk counseling is where people see the most of these signs, and mothers soon to abort also glance over for a quick peek before they go in for the abortion, but do they make a difference?
I can say in all honesty that if I would have seen an aborted baby as I was walking in to the clinic, I would have been bothered a great deal. But I needed to be bothered, I was going to kill my baby. So would other mothers be so upset by the images that they would not abort? I don’t know. The pictures though are a dramatic slap of truth in the face of the abortion industry. People walking into the abortion clinics are mostly confused and sad about their situations, and need a dramatic “wake up call” to open their eyes to what their about to do. Pictures of aborted babies will do that, but again is it so “in your face” that the girls will just ignore us and walk in anyways? Again I personally think abortion should be exposed for what is really is, but what do you all think? Should sidewalk counselors use these pictures or not? I want to hear your comments and reasons for why or why not.
We were having a conversation about graphic images generally on the Facebook group, and I think a lot of the same concerns apply here.
I would be okay with including graphic images in brochures that are handed out to the abortion clients individually. These images are becoming somewhat ubiquitous, and you definitely don't want the person to see it for the first time AFTER the abortion. As abortion advocate Naomi Wolf points out, "To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted by them, then we are making the judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision."
But putting graphic images on signs exposes children. As either you or Amelia pointed out, sidewalk counselors, abortion workers, and abortion clients may all bring along their kids from time to time. I'd much rather see signs with images of living preborn babies.
There's another advantage to using brochures, which is that you can include information about how the images are obtained. When they're just on signs, the abortion workers will say "Oh, they're fake" and we don't get to make a defense.
Yes, but you also have to explain why it is necessary, in that many people have a 'What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve' bias.
If people don't see the results or what/who they are affecting it won't often show up on their moral radar.
How about handing out graphic images of women dead from illegal abortions?
The desired goal of pro-lifers is to make abortion illegal: if you feel it's so necessary, well, you shouldn't be afraid of the graphic images that result from your goal.
Women are dying horribly all round the world as a direct result of pro-life goals: as Simon says, it's out of sight, it's out of mind.
When people who think they're pro-life never see the dead women that are the results of their rhetoric, it won't show up in their moral view.
Even if you don't want to use the more graphic pictures you could use the developmental pics of living prenatal humans to show how incoherent the personhood account is.
Many of the psychological continuity arguments that underpin abortion deny that is you as a foetus or even you as a baby or early infant. Nor are you a human/homo sapiens, you are really just your brain by some accounts.
So much room to get people to start to question this flawed account.
http://realchoice.0catch.com/library/weekly/aa082901a.htm
Should we make rape legal so that rapists don't get harmed while committing the act?
In terms of the law, I think if a local community wants to include not allowing those images to be shown on public streets as part of their decency/indecency laws, they should have the right to do that. I don't want a bunch of animal rights activists showing my young kids pictures of tortured or murdered animals, and I don't want overtly sexual images shown on public sidewalks either. I don't think the state or feds should have the right to make such laws, though.
Outside the law argument (and getting off my small gov't soapbox), I think they should be shown to women who are abortion-minded, whether outside an abortion clinic or inside a CPC. It's kind of a golden rule reason for me – if I was about to make such a huge mistake, I would want someone to wake me up to the reality of what I was about to do. I was pro-choice most of my life, and never knew about the developing embryo/fetus until I was pregnant myself and read up on it.
Women who are abortion-minded have a lot of emotional pressure to abort, for various reasons. We need to counter-balance that in a very strong way. I say use them when you can, even sometimes when making a presentation to pro-lifers (I've done that). We're talking about saving lives here, let's not be wimps.