The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform on the streets again, this time with some neutral, fair coverage.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFiGPbHvPLA”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFiGPbHvPLA]
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CCBR in Alberta
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The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform on the streets again, this time with some neutral, fair coverage.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFiGPbHvPLA”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFiGPbHvPLA]
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Great report – excellent spokeswoman chosen, too – totally debunking the “harmless choice” rhetoric before it starts!
I’m one of those who doesn’t entirely believe in the efficacy (or decency) of the graphic photos, but I do hope that some of the people who view these images for the first time are shocked out of lethargy, at least.
I echo Heather’s comment. I am not sold on the graphic image method especially on public streets, because the opportunity to talk with people isn’t readily available. But definitely the right spokeswoman, brave girl.
Why I am for the images being used in an appropriate context:
“Photographer Peter Turnley took […] photos along the “mile of death,” a stretch of highway where Iraqi soldiers were hit by American bombs. The day after the war ended, the U.S. military was burying the incinerated bodies in large graves. In December 2002, Turnley wrote of his experience on the Web site The Digital Journalist and posted many images of this scene and another on a different road in Iraq, images he didn’t see published in the media. Some of the black-and-white photos show bodies that were beheaded and soldiers bulldozing the dead into a grave. Turnley wrote that he wanted to prompt a discussion of these images as a second war in Iraq loomed. His photographs do not represent a political point of view, he wrote. “What they do represent is a part of a more accurate picture of what really does happen in war. I feel it is important and that citizens have the right to see these images.”
(source: http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3759 )
Just as it was/is important for people to see these images of war, outside of political motivations, it is important that we are made aware of what ‘really does happen’ in abortion. These images are part of a resource of information, information usually suppressed by health departments and the media. In the right context (perhaps not the street corner), I believe, they are necessary.
Also from that article: Klein wrote. “But the war we are seeing is bowdlerized, PG-rated… At a moment like this, the media should be an irritant–shocking us, shaking us, making sure that we’re as alert and uncomfortable as possible in the comfort of our living rooms.”
Yeah, public images are iffy… But as I recall their power in history, from the mass graves of the Holocaust, to Emmett Till’s battered, unrecognisable face (and his brave warrior of a mother, who grabbed the nation by its face and forced it to look at her mangled boy), and even back to the sketches of slave ships and the effect they had in Britain’s banning of slavery…
It is hard to ignore the track record of visual images. There’s is something about forcing people to consider the reality of the things they espouse.
I still don’t know that I want my kids (especially my incredibly sensitive 3 year old) exposed to this simply because we were walking down a certain street. I’m certainly not denying the impact of those images, but I do have some doubts about their ability to change closed minds. I have friends who have been unaffected by such displays who were forced to think using only logic and science (admittedly, the efficacy of discussion isn’t that great either).
I suppose my issue isn’t the use of the images, but their scatter-shot approach. I find these pictures incredibly difficult to look at, and don’t want to be exposed to them suddenly. I think in the right environment they can be one catalyst, I just don’t think a public street corner is the right environment.
Re: “I just don’t think a public street corner is the right environment”
The problem, as I understand it, is that there is effectively nowhere left where the images can be used with the exception of public spaces. The general public is not interested in attending a presentation or debate by the CCBR or a similar group in more controlled venues (after all, the debate is closed!) and I don’t see the CBC, or any other broadcaster, creating programs for the public on the reality of abortion.
So, if we agree that the images are an effective education tool (if not for all, at least for some) then, realistically, it seems the only way to engage the public with the images is to go where they are.
My 13-year-old son attended the March for Life with me this year, not for the first time but it was the first time the GAP images were carried on large posters. He could not take his eyes off the images. He was astounded that people can support abortion when there are images, such as these, to show the truth. This is a boy who has seen many “graphic” images in movies and video games, so it was not the shock-value of the images. For him, it was the truth they conveyed. He no longer “just says what his parents think” (as a teacher in his Catholic school charged, last year) but, rather, has formed his own opinion. My talking about pro-life issues is one thing; these images have cemented in him a conviction that will last.
For more information on CCBR’s approach with abortion visuals, please visit http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/graphic.html.
One has to remember that Lethbridge is the Mormon capital of Canada though so a positive newscast from there is not surprising. I lived there for a few years. But it still is good for this kind of positive pro-life publicity to be seen coming from Canada.