gore is a better word. Whatever you call it, I don’t want my son seeing it.
Yup, per my rarely-used James Joyce siggy. I demand a 10¢ tribute for the big gory photo.
I wasn’t there to see it, but I believe one of the pro-life ministries out of Lynchburg did something similar at Virginia Tech last year. They drove a 14-foot truck with an ad on it, and protesters on the ground carried a big banner of an aborted fetus while girls in their early teens handed out flyers and insulted people. Caused a big ruckus. Then the campus women’s rights groups heard about it and counterprotested. Eventually, the tableau was broken up by the campus cops.
While I respect their right of pro-life activists to voice their opinion, the methods some of them use to do so are not exactly a page out of Dale Carnegie. They could stand to tone it down, or at least not ambush people with it right before lunch.
Is it just me, or does look like doll parts?
I’ve seen so-called aborted fetuses that looked like Barbie parts.
Hmmm… now where are the people that are usually bumping into each other to complain that PETA is tasteless and grotesque? (not that I’m saying they aren’t, and I guess I forgot to mention that they’re stupid and incoherent as well)
Them? Abortions? I thought they were all lesbians. 
As was said when Joyce’s picture was put on the Irish ten-pound note, “He had always wanted to be a singer and now he’s a tenner!”
My daughter had one of those “drop it in water and watch it expand to 100 times its size!” toys of an “alien” fetus that looked human if you didn’t look too close. At the same time a local church had put up 4000 crosses to represent the feti aborted each day. Put that together with a pink “fetus” in a jar and my wife’s sick sense of humor and you have the folks going to Sunday mass walking past a jar labeled “HUMAN FETUS.” She was disappointed it didn’t make the newspapers. I think she missed a good bet by not calling a paper or the TV news. They never look too close at stuff anyway.
Dear Og! It’s realspace trolling!
Note that the specimens in questions have not been cleaned. On the contrary, they have deliberately included blood, various fluids etc.
The Smithsonian Museum Of Natural History has a fine display of preserved specimens from near microscopic all the way to stillborn neonate. Most of the specimens are mounted on a light table, so that internal structures can be seen. It’s a fine educational display, devoid of any political or religious content.
These billboards are the opposite- attempts to evoke an emotional reaction, and claims of dubious authenticity.
Frankly, my reaction to the billboards is twofold- It makes me think this organization is a bunch of screeching morons, and makes me still more angry with Bush due to his decision on embryonic stem cell research.
I went to the 30th(?) march for life in D.C. not this past winter but last. I was a photographer for the paper at the (Catholic) High School I attended (no, I’m not religious at all).
I was neutral on the subject. My belief was “You know what, its not my body, I’m not having babies, I cannot begin to understand the complex personal issues around abortion.”
I changed my mind while I was there. I’m now pro-choice. They (the protesters) thought that the same blown up photos of an aborted baby would change my mind while their official speakers constantly went off topic, bashing gays, liberals, birth control etc…
On the trip down (in a bus filled mostly with senior citizens with a few high school students mixed in) the guy sitting behind me belonged to The John Birch Society. There was one kid about 10 who had to sit next to him. Late at night he kept me up by giving a 2 hour rant to the kid about the horrors of homosexuality. He insisted that I leave with some of his Birch propaganda.
While there a man that I used to respect greatly (I’ve been friends with his son, who is also an Eagle scout and both him and my father were leaders in the scouting program) pissed me off to no end when after the woman speaking to the crowd mentioned homosexuality he voiced his aproval. I asked him why he thought that way and that some of my good friends are gay. He said “Its ok to know and be friends with these people, but they’re all going to burn in hell.”
Yup… Really rational group of people.
The other thing that really annoys me is the bumpersticker “Your mother was ProLife”
Actually, Mom has told me many times that she is ProChoice (sometimes in response to that very bumpersticker). She chose to have kids.
Clayton_E The proper response to the Birchist would have been to began ranting back with similarly odd propaganda. A few weeks ago, I saw a table bearing large posters supporting Lyndon Larouche. At first, I restrained myself and was going to simply ignore them. Then, I heard one of the students staffing the table explaining how the evil lizardmen could look human. I walked up to him and the woman he was addressing. Without saying excuse me or waiting for a break in conversation, I began my Cthulu rant.
Just remembering that when performing the Cthulhu rant in public, it’s best to leave out the name Shub N’gurrath. Some one may mishear you and assume you’ve said the N Word. The fact that Shub’s title is the Black Goat Of The Woods tends to add to the misunderstanding. I recommend using just the title.
Another pro-lifer who doesn’t agree with this tactic, FWIW. A better one would be to advertise BirthRight and other organizations that help poor women and young girls with financial aid, housing, and connections to adoption services. The Archdiocese of NYC has also had such a program for decades now, and takes in any woman regardless of denomination.
Sorry about the Birchers. I went to a lot of marches in the '70s and we didn’t have that many fringies aboard, but then again we were all Noo Yawk Libruls to begin with, except for not agreeing with the idea that a woman’s many choices when faced with an unwanted pregnancy include death for the child.
I’ve got to learn the Cthullu Rant. There’s some LaRouchites hanging out near my health club in Union Square.
Did they get permission from the parents of the fetus displayed to show it like that? Or, since the prolife seems to cling to the notion that a fetus has the same rights as a born bay since it´s conception, did they ask the fetus if he wanted to be shown like that? :rolleyes:
That’s funny. We got the billboard trucks with those pictures around here. The first time I saw one, it took me a minute to figure out it wasn’t an ad for a meatball sub, since that’s what it reminded me of.
Made me kinda hungry for one, even though I’m a vegetarian.