What is the appropriate age to discuss abortion? Is there such an age? These were my questions during public pro-life events, and to be honest, I don’t know the answers. It is troubling though to think that discussing oral sex with 12-year-olds might be found appropriate while handing them plastic fetuses is seen as “disgusting”.
Jane Hannam, 12, was walking home from Heretaunga Intermediate with a friend last Thursday when they were approached by a female protester outside Hawke’s Bay Hospital and given a rubber foetus and information card about foetal development.
Her parents, Brian and Zarlene Hannam, said it was disgusting that protesters would target young school-aged children and made a complaint to Hastings police.
“We just found her playing with this toy foetus,” Mrs Hannam said. “It was sort of like a really soft spongy flesh-coloured foetus. I just think that’s disgusting.
“Everyone is allowed to protest and I don’t have any problem about that, but what they gave out was really inappropriate.”
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Andrea adds: I think it’s fair to find handing out plastic fetuses weird. I do. Just being honest. The first time I was handed one, can’t be helped, that was my feeling: something along the lines of “ok, so this is weird.” But “disgusting?” “Really inappropriate?” Comments like that reflect on the pro-choice views of the parents. Nothing more, nothing less.
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There is something about those plastic fetuses that I just don’t like. And I have to agree giving them out to random kids on the street is weird.
I volunteered for the local pro-life booth at our summer exhibition and found just the opposite: children loved the “tiny babies” (why do you call them “fetuses” here but “babies” everywhere else on this site?) and were delighted to know that they looked “just like that” at one time. It doesn’t have to be weird if its presented in the right way. I think the mother’s reaction had less to do with the “tiny baby” than with, perhaps, a tweak of conscience.
Alana: I call them fetuses because that is how it was presented to me. I believe it’s because they are anatomically correct (size-wise) and so that’s the term they use.
I agree with you, that the mother’s reaction is around her conscience, especially since it was so severe. However, I cannot conceal that fact that the first time I was presented with a plastic fetus (this was less than a month ago, by a very dear friend) I thought, wow, that’s strange. I am being honest. We could explore my reaction (why? what’s the problem?) but as a starting point it was a) not because I was experiencing any tweaks of conscience, b) not because I don’t agree with pro-lifers and c) not because I don’t like the person giving it to me. (To the contrary, she is a friend and I very much admire her.)
Actually, Andrea, I was not so much responding to your reaction as I was simply presenting another perspective. That being that children seem to react very positively to the “tiny babies.” It is adults – yes, pro-lifers too, it would seem – who find them “weird.” I was definitely not questioning your conscience! I saw the same reaction from some of the adults who visited our booth (often pulled in by their children).
I would think that Alana has hit the nail on the head. For some reason it is our adulthood that tends to make us somewhat squeamish. Just read what is written in the article…”We just found her playing with this toy foetus,” Mrs Hannam said.
The daughter was playing with it. She wasn’t upset. She didn’t come to her parents angry or confused or disgusted or crying (although it appears for the article’s photo that the girl was asked to feign a disgusted expression on her face…whereas earlier she had been found by her mother *playing* with the same plastic model). So – apparently, this 12 year old girl was not freaked out. Certainly not until her mother’s reaction.
My own children received the same sort of plastic model at a Pro-Life event we attended a few years back. My children thought it was neat. Cool. Cute even. Me? I just kinda thought it was….ick. In a medical sort of way. My children just naturally saw the model as a really small baby. I saw it as a biological medical thing. Yet I am unabashedly and happily Pro-Life.
So I think Alana identified “it”. Children are innocent and lovely and trusting. And it appears that something in our childlike minds accepts a fetal model as natural and beautiful, but that as we ‘grow up’ we lose this sense of awe and wonder. And our reactions change accordingly.
How sad. 🙁
It’s not directly on topic, but I thought that you ladies might be interested in (if you weren’t aware of already) this woman’s blog, as she tries to “out” the lies that abortion clinics advertise, one clinic at a time: http://www.acceptingabundance.com/2011/11/vip-abortions-and-monstrous-ultrasounds.html
I just wanted to thank everyone for their comments. I think it’s interesting how diverse reactions are to a plastic baby in womb. I think if my kids came home with one I would find it weird too, but I’m not sure why. It can’t be any more weird than their puzzle of the musculoskeletal system, can it? In a sense, it’s an educational tool. 2D images of the same thing can be found in most school textbooks.
I thought this article, and the fact that the parents called the police, really seemed to show a disconnect between sexual acts and reproduction. I also think the way we view the image or artistic representation of an unborn child can fluctuate throughout our lives. For a pregnant girl, seeing that image can be very impacting. For me, every new thing I learned about my developing child gave me one more thing to love.
Thanks again for all of your perspectives!