[Homer Simpson]
Mmmmmmmm…cumshots
[/Homer Simpson]
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by milroyj *
**
Having the “right” to put this on a truck is not the same as having the common sense to not do such a thing. Note the comments from the Catholic diocese about the “wisdom” of such an action.
Having the right to do something is the only criteria needed to get away with a stunt like this and claim it’s a good thing. Common sense, good taste, tact, and common fucking decency play no role at all in these types of decisions. As long as one has the “right” to do something, that’s all that matters. At least, that’s what I read so much of on these boards. “It’s my right!” “It’s their right!” Give me a break. Don’t I have a right not to see aborted bloody fetuses? Apparently not.
I can’t wait for the first “I faint at the sight of blood” person to get a load of it and black out at the wheel. Won’t that be fun?? Wheeee! All in the name of “saving lives”.
Must the the anti-choice people are getting tips from PETA on their advertising.
Zette
…and hey, much like the PETA shark ads thread, it sure doesn’t take that long to go from a criticism of Mr Cunningham to a criticism of all pro life (oops…“anti choice”) people
My apoligies for that- I mean the person responsible for the ad, not everyone who is anti-choice. Sorry about that.
Zette
no prob 
friedo’s comments are inapposite. There is no general controversy over those medical procedures - the point that the truck drivers wish to make is that abortion is a grotesque business. They apparently feel that at least some people who favor unlimited abortion rights do so out of ignorance of that point.
The posters above who suggested this course is unwise are, I think, right on the money. It’s beyond cavil that the pictures are accurate - the question is, what persuasive value will they have?
I suspect many pro-choice folks are like OneChance - they’re aware of the gory aspect and still, on balance, believe in the value of legal abortions. Only a very few might be swayed by these images. On the other hand, the willingness to subject the entire population to this gore doesn’t speak well for the pro-lifers that are behind the truck project.
I am pro-life, and I am convinced that abortion is a great moral wrong. But this conviction of mine did not derive from seeing blood-and-guts photos, and I doubt others would be so swayed, either. Sure, they have the right to display such images. But I don’t think it is either prudent or wise for them to do so.
- Rick
I dunno. Maybe we pro-choicers should hang out in their neighborhoods with posters of a woman in a back alley getting an abortion from a doc-in-the-box and subsequently getting dead herself. Hey, it’s just the reality of the situation!
Well, littlebird, that would be a great idea except that some (and I do mean some) people would probably have no problem with a person who is having an abortion dying. Some people believe that people who perform abortions should die, so why should they care about some Godless heathen having a back-alley abortion?
Zette
It would be nice if that Reverand Wildmon - the one who pickets AIDS funerals and is “opposed to homosexuality” - would drive a van around with pictures of men buttfucking on the side of it. That would get his point across…I think. No, wait, that would be really stupid, just like the abortion truck is stupid. What if I supported gun control, and wanted to drive a truck around with pictures of children who shot themselves in the head plastered on the side. I mean, I’m doing it for the good of the children, so it must be okay, even though if I put two full brain cells to work I would realize that’s a stupid idea, too.
There’s a reason they don’t have “escort service” ads during cartoons or during the nightly news, but they DO have them during the Robin Byrd show. It’s because they are targeting their intended audience and avoiding placing their ad where it might be found offensive. But then I guess whorehouses are a little smarter about these things than this guy.
If he wants to prevent people from having abortions, he should stop wasting time and money on bloody fetus pictures, and spend it on pregnancy prevention - i.e., contraception and sex education - as well as support for unwed mothers.
If you want to save the babies, figure out what you’re going to do with them when they’re born or else shut the hell up.
Since we seem to be chiming in with our stances, I am a vegetarian who thinks PETA ads give me a bad name, and also pro-choice, though I was glad that Miranda from “Sex and the City” decided to keep her baby.
While I agree with your overall point, I would also point out that one reason why the escort service ads run late at night is because of FCC regulations…the FCC, to a certain extent, regulates what goes over the airways…so it’s not the same deal as some schmuck driving a semi down the highway.
This is exactly my argument against abortions!
As for the traveling sideshow of mutilated fetal horrors, I can’t understand what the uproar is about. Surely, the people who embrace abortion as a way of life and advocate abortion as a life-affirming, female-empowering right aren’t against the actual reality of the procedure now are they? They don’t have anything to hide do they
If I had very small children, no, I would not want them seeing gas chamber pictures. When they are old enough to understand, yes. Until they are, no.
Often times, the pictures are faked-I’ve seen several that were obvious fakes-one was actually stupid little doll, and many of these pictures are stillborns and/or miscarriage photos.
Grossing out your subjects doesn’t always work.
No one actually LIKES abortion-I mean, I don’t wake up one morning and say Gee, Abortion is GREAT!
Although ads like these make me wanna run right over to Planned Parenthood and have an abortion-even though I’m not pregnant.
You don’t get it, do you doofus? The end result of the procedure has nothing to do with the moral decision of choosing abortion or not.
To add to the analogies, if I were to drive a truck plastered with pictures of gross cancer cells that had been removed from sufferers, would you change your mind about having treatment should you be striken?
No, they probably have no problem with it at all. I don’t know who those people are, though I’m sure they exist. Abortion as a way of life? That’s a new one on me.
Many people simply are pro-choice. To me, that means I DO NOT LIKE ABORTION. I would not have one myself. I do support the right for others to have an abortion, though, since I do not feel I have the right to judge their morality.
I am against breast cancer. Should I put some pictures of breasts on a tractor trailer? Imagine the outrage.
Zette
I’m also curious as to why, for people so against abortion, these people seem to get off so much on pictures of it.
I don’t think that they “get off” on the photos…I think that they take a PETA-like approach to spreading a message.
They, like PETA, probably think that there is no such thing as “bad” publicity.
Just as many vegetarians might think that PETA is not helping their cause much, many pro life folks feel the same way about people like Mr. Cunningham.
I don’t think pro-choice people “embrace abortion as a way of life”. Nobody thinks that they’re swell & we should have more of them. Some of us, however, are realistic enough to understand that there can be situations in which a pregant woman does not want to have a child.
I don’t have anything to hide. I saw my aborted fetus, & I didn’t feel bad or guilty. It didn’t look like anything…I’ve passed bigger things than that when I get my period. But I don’t fool myself that “it was just a blob of cells”…I know it was a baby & I had it killed, but I am quite confident that I made the right decision and that God understands.
I am not a monster, just a girl who ran out of options. Some of you obviously have never been in this position. You’re luckier than me, that’s all. You aren’t a better person & God doesn’t love you more than He loves me & your morals aren’t superior to mine. Demonizing the women who have a abortions & plastering gross-out photos around don’t get us any closer to solving the real problems & preventing women from being in the situations where they choose to abort their babies.
[/quote]
That’s interesting, because it’s exactly my argument for choice. You see, I have the common sense to do my utmost to avoid a situation in which I would need to have an abortion. I also encourage others to have the common sense to prevent such a situation from arising. However, I recognize that in the very complex world of sexual relations and birth control, common sense isn’t always enough. And that’s why the “right” to have an abortion if it becomes necessary needs to be preserved.
You see, (the vast majority of) pro-choice people don’t “embrace abortion”; they accept that abortion is a right. Just because I accept that free speech is a right doesn’t mean that I believe that people should be out screaming offensive slogans all day, and just because I accept that abortion is a right doesn’t mean that I want to see pictures of aborted fetuses.
I believe that it is important for everyone to understand the horrors of the Holocaust so that it will not be repeated. However, I know of many people who had a difficult time with the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., and that was a situation in which they chose to visit the museum. To put concentration camp pictures on the side of a truck would be as offensive to me as putting up swastikas and Nazi slogans. These things need to be seen in context, by adults as well as children, to be understood and absorbed.
Graphic, bloody pictures of any surgical procedure should be confined to locations where people can choose whether or not to view them, and where they can be placed in a proper educational and historical context.
That’s just common sense.
All I’m saying in that post is that abortion is a nasty, vile little procedure, and that fact has been taken out of the argument completely. You aren’t removing a tumor or a cyst, it is a fetus; a small, unformed human being.
I stand for people having the right to make decisions for themselves and for the absence of governmental involvement. However, this means that the citizenry of our country needs to take it upon itself to have an honest argument about what is really going on. No one, I believe, is thrilled with the idea of millions of 17 year olds having fetuses surgically removed from their uteruses (sic?). But if people aren’t going to be truthful about the act itself, nothing is ever going to change. Infusing politics into this situation has removed, almost fully, the facts of what abortion is and turned it into something it only sort of is about - choices, decision-making, circumstances,etc…
So if blasting people with horrifying photographs makes people come to terms a little more completely with what abortion is all about, than so be it.