It's okay to kill them, but it violates their dignity to show them

[dizzle]

(STR allows TWeb to post its articles in full)



When pro-life exhibits like the Justice For All Exhibit and the Genocide Awareness Project show accurate pictures of abortion on college campuses, some students claim that showing a picture of a mutilated fetus violates the rights and dignity of that fetus. This is an odd claim. I'm not sure how showing someone a picture of a mutilated body violates the rights of the being that once inhabited that body. Let's say that the claim is correct, though, and showing pictures in public violates the rights and dignity of a fetus. Then the fetus has some sort of inherent rights and dignity? How much more then, does abortion violate that dignity?

What's troubling is that usually the claim is being uttered by someone who doesn't intend to oppose abortion in any substantive way that will actually help save fetuses. Yet they decry the trampling of fetal rights when we show pictures in public. Fetuses have the right not to be photographed. That's a convenient "truth."


http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2007/07/its-okay-to-kil.html

[rogue06]

Not to stereotype, but it often seems that those who complain about the graphic nature of these pictures are the same people who support showing graphic pictures of dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq claiming that the pictures are necessary to illustrate the horrors of war.

[Jimmy Higgins]

Not to stereotype, but it often seems that those who complain about the graphic nature of these pictures are the same people who support showing graphic pictures of dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq claiming that the pictures are necessary to illustrate the horrors of war.
And visa versa. Interesting paradox!

[Crow]

Um....I'd rather have the right to be alive than some sort of freedom from photography protection.

[Storico]

Last year something interesting happened on my campus. People came through with the anti-abortion placards and those signs had pictures of the fetuses on them. A lot of us understood that it was an "in your face" way of saying "if you want to do this, then look at how disgusting this is." Women and men alike were yelling "all abortion is evil! Stop abortion now!" and a few were even yelling "if you abort you're headed for hell!"

There were other people there with signs and placards, too. Theirs said things like "please come talk with us. We can set you up with a family looking to adopt." and "We won't judge you, but we will help you." and "God loves you and your baby." One woman was yelling "we offer counselling, chaplains, safe people to talk with, and a new future! Come on over!"

The second group didn't even make the news, although the first one did. Everything "in your face" seems to bring out the journalists. I still can't help but think that the second group was more effective.... I SAW the people walking over to speak with them, and ask questions, and get adoption and counseling information for themselves or others.

[jwarrend]

The second group didn't even make the news, although the first one did. Everything "in your face" seems to bring out the journalists. I still can't help but think that the second group was more effective.... I SAW the people walking over to speak with them, and ask questions, and get adoption and counseling information for themselves or others.

I think that at some level both are needed. I'm not a fan of the "in your face" approach of doing anything, but I do think the brutal information that the first group presented does need to get out more than perhaps it does. I attended a dinner a few years back at which a former abortion doctor described in graphic detail a 2nd trimester abortion (the dilation and extraction procedure, I believe). I was shocked. Although I've opposed abortion for many years, I'd never been aware of exactly how this particular procedure was actually done. I have never heard anything so sad or disgusting in my life.

I can't hazard a guess as to how many people oppose or support abortion without knowing the gory details, but I have to assume there are some; maybe even many. I think it's important that people on both sides become acquainted with that information; abortion supporters should be fully aware of what specifically they claim to be supporting. It's a bit too easy to support the "right to abortion" in the abstract; I think it would be harder to say with a straight face "I am fully aware of what a dilation and extraction involves and nevertheless completely support an individual's right to choose this procedure". (I do understand that there are people who could make this affirmation, of course)

-Jeff

[Storico]

Jeff, I do agree with your sentiment. It's just a shame that the "in your face" information needed isn't also offset by some grace and mercy, too.