Stileproject.com always has horrible picture of poor people who’ve been shot, or dismembered, or something, and I’m pretty used to it now.
They also have pictures of aborted babies, disfigured babies, handicapped babies, etc., and while I still find those too horrible to contemplate, this one really struck a nerve.
I thought I’d ask if anyone here knows what is wrong with [note: link removed]
This picture is very graphic. Please do not click the link if you will be offended.
Thank you.
[Added during preview] Mods, I tried to find the locator for the pic in question so as to bypass the StileProject page for it, but it gives me redirects and stuff. A link to their page that features the picture is the only way I’ve found to do it. I apologize for the content of the page. I wish I could do it a better way.
Why do you ‘need to know’? What possible use do you have for this info? Just because it is there, it doesn’t mean you have to look at it!
It’s a bit of a button pushing issue for me. I’ve had a stillborn baby and I think there would be NOTHING worse for me as a grieving parent than to know that there are people who want to look at photos of babies like mine and who want to know info about babies.
I can tell you one thing straight - EVERY SINGLE ONE of those babies represents a mother’s broken heart and I just plain don’t get why they are up on a webpage for people to gawk at.
If you really need this info, go to a medical library and look at books about embryology.
Im behind Primaflora %150 on this one. I didnt click the link, because in the past Ive happened upon rotten.com and another site with pictures of suicide victims and while just the images themselves kept me up with nightmares for weeks… It sickened me that someone would exploit something like that. Could you imagine browsing the web and running across your cousins autopsy photo? shudder Even if that never happens… its -someones- child… its someones cousin… its someone who mattered to somebody and its fucked up that people will cheapen anything for shock value.
I’m sorry that you’ve had something as horrible as a stillborn child happen in your life, but that doesn’t preclude my wanting to know what’s happened to this poor baby.
Did I not warn you about the content SIX times? And even after reading SIX warnings, you STILL went to the site, and then came back here and bitched about my question? JESUS CHRIST! I can’t help you then, I’m sorry.
If you’ve ever taken the time to READ what you’re bashing, you’d know that he usually doesn’t warn anyone when his links are of this nature. Even if he did, I do not think you have a right to be offended by my looking at his pictures, nor do you have a right to judge my question.
I don’t know if this belongs in the Pit or not. I still have a valid question tabled, regardless Primaflora’s gun-jumping-rampage and my reply.
That said, I’d still like to know what’s wrong with this baby.
It LOOKS, to me, like a case/badly done job of water-on-the-brain, or hydrocephalus (sp?).
It also looks like the baby was born prematurely, but that’s mostly due to observations of the head size. It also looks like the rib cage is extremely underdeveloped and the eyes I can’t figure out at ALL. I’m also seeing some form of teeth present which coupled with my concept of a premature delivery makes this look like a hoax to me. The kneecaps are also rather extended and seem to be fully formed, whereas the skin immediately above (on the leg) the left leg is rather loose and separated from the leg, which is generally not true of infants. Add that to the exTREMEly high placement of the navel in relation to the rest of the body, and its remarkable ability to have healed SO quickly, and the lack of needles or other medical equipment leading away from this baby and I’ve say what you have there is a scantily-done hoax. No way, in my opinion (IANAD but I do have common sense), this is for real. I also didn’t see any ears.
So my answer to you, Tim: there’s nothing wrong with this baby because it isn’t a baby. There’s something seriously wrong with whoever the fuck does this for kicks.
Lastly: whoever in Hell did this needs to think of more constructive things to do with their time. No offense meant, Tim, but you have better things to do as well:)
Homer, this time Ed Zotti himself interceded to save your sorry ass.
He will not again. We the administrative staff of the Straight Dope Message Board are sick and tired of spending an undue amount of time running around picking up your mess.
I want to be clear about this as I possible can. You are on ice so thin that fleas are in danger of breaking through.
If you ever, ever post a link to anything more graphic than Disney, if you swear at another member, if you insult another member, if you advocate or admit to breaking any law including the speeding laws, you are out of here. Heck, you might be out of here if you open a thread in the wrong forum or mess up your UBB code. Do you understand how tired we are of you? Do you understand that we are sick of it?
Now, you may be tempted to complain that you labor under different rules than other members of this message board. Don’t. It’s true. You do, in fact, now live under different rules than other members of this message board.
You miss my point. If you truly want the knowledge about deformations and why a baby might look like this, try an obstetrics text book or a neo natal textbook.
Looking at babies somewhere like the Stile Project is not in fact going to give you much more info than being able to say lookee here at the circus freak. That’s the attitude which I am objecting to. Prurient snickering at somebody’s tragedy - ::shrug::.
I know what the Stile Project is. I am probably waaaaaay less bothered by pictures of dead babies than others are. I am not a prim little girlie who looks at sites so I can go oooh yuck what a nasty site. I did eventually get through on your link (actually in the spirit of answering your question). That IMO is possibly a fake. If it isn’t, it is possibly a combination of skull deformation, midline defect and prematurity. There - has that added to your hoard of knowledge in any meaningful way?
I think you need to examine what it is about looking at these babies and guessing the cause of the tragedy you find so appealing…
It’s about time you realised, Manhattan, that a link TO the Straight Dope can increasingly be considered a link TO Coprophilia Central. For me though, sometimes it’s a bulimic’s fantasy. Better than food with built in emetics - works really well. And it’s all because of the decisions you make about what is right and wrong. I never knew you to censure anything toilet related at all - is that because you can’t link to yourself? Would you disprove of Billydunny, for instance, if his stuff was only available through a hyperlink?
It seems to me that you live and die by the myth that when someone clicks a mouse they change their geographical location and actually “go” somewhere. In this case, by clicking Homer’s link a person “travels” to someplace you have decided they should not be. You might as well try and stop people “going” to Africa when they watch wildlife documentaries on television.
Homer’s thread at least has the potential to be a discussion of something meaningful - something you can’t say about the colonic irrigation thread that’s around somewhere. It could be about how there’s another side to motherhood that’s rarely discussed. How it’s so often not about pink and blue fluffy clothing and family snaps.
yeah sure a discussion of pregnancy loss would be of value. I would happily talk with anyone about lost babies and the appalling impact of losing a child, especially an unborn child.
But Homer’s link wasn’t about that kind of discussion. It was a link to a site which has pictures of dead people and babies. IMO it’s a distasteful site which is not dispelling ignorance or encouraging discussion. Homer’s OP IMO was prurient and voyeuristic.
I am however guessing that Manhattan removed the link because the site also included porn links. Did you click through to the site? I personally would find a discussion of the contents of bowels as removed by colonic irrigation to be of more interest than the Oooh yuck reaction to the photo of the dead baby.
Primaflora: I’m very sorry that we misunderstood each other, and I admit to overreacting in my response. I apologize for this and hope it doesn’t happen again.
Manny: I’m sorry that I posted an inappropriate link. I assumed that having multiple warnings, and the addendum about my attempts to get a ‘clean’ picture were not enough. I know not to do so in the future.
That last post of mine seems slightly confused. I suppose all I’m saying is that everybody who has ever been on-line has seen pictures like that - of their own free will and out of their own curiosity. It’s just a picture on your screen just like these are words on your screen. It’s no big deal. It’s just the internet and it’s one place not many places as much as people like to pretend differently. People should approach the internet the way they approach life - by not expecting it to be one long fluffy fairyland interlude.
I don’t see how the decision can easily be made over whether viewing such pictures is wrong, prurient or voyeuristic. In fact, this one has started me thinking about something that may be should be discussed. What etiquette should be observed when dealing with a mother and an imperfect baby? What are the right words and what is the right attitude?
Without getting into the issue of Homer’s link (which I did click on, and it was disgusting, and, no, I don’t know what compelled me to do so, and, btw, imho, it looked fake) there is a big difference with allowing things to exist on the internet, and providing links to them on a site you own and have responsibility for. The Straight Dope (or really, the Chicago Reader) does not want it’s property used to access that sort of thing. We, of course, are free to leave if we can’t deal with that.
You’re confusing two issues here. One is the issue of photos on the web. And the other is how to ‘deal’ with a mother and an ‘imperfect baby’.
My issue with photos of babies like this on sites like that is that I seriously doubt that any parent would allow their photos to be on that site. I could be comfortable with a photo of my son on a site where the photo was presented with respect and compassion. I wouldn’t have any control over people’s reactions but if I placed those photos with full and knowing consent, that’s the risk I take.
There are some particularly brutal photos of my son which were taken after his birth. He was in very bad shape. He also was the most beautiful baby on the planet but I didn’t keep those photos - they were just too confronting. There’s a remote possibility that those photos could surface on the web. I couldn’t imagine anything more violating and hurtful to see those photos in public on a site with porn. Those photos are WRONG ethically if they are posted without parental permission!
Every mother of a baby who was not perfect that I have ever spoken to felt that her baby was absolutely beautiful. My son was macerated and in very bad shape. he was also incredibly beautiful. before the birth, we were warned to expect the worst. It truly didn’t matter. Look for the beauty in the baby. The mother will.
Waterj2: Out of interest: Has any Straight Dope moderator ever objected to a hyperlink to text? I don’t think so. They only ever object to links to visual representations.
What about this: I have a link to a “felching” photograph. Wanna see it? Or are you so sick of reading about it you just don’t care?
Primaflora: I was talking about mothers and live but imperfect babies. I’m sorry, I didn’t explain myself properly. Twice in my life I have been confronted with this situation and twice I was at a loss to deal with it.
Yes, descriptions of how to perform illegal activities have been objected to. While I’m not sure that all or even any such links are purely textual, I’d be willing to guess that the text of them was what was objected to. As for a felching photo, I wouldn’t really object to seeing such a thing, but I could understand the CR not hosting links to it. As for text, well, it depends what it is.
And Homer, I guess I might suggest that preview become a really good friend of yours, as I’d hate to see ya leave.
I’ve seen the mods object to sites like stormfront - does that qualify as text only to you?
I think all you can do is find something to admire in the baby and ask open ended questions so that the mother can talk if she wants to and not if she is sick of people asking questions. Just admire the infant - after all we’ve all seen butt ugly normal offspring