Posted on 04/27/2002 7:00:00 PM PDT by syriacus
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:34:38 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I was driving with my 3-year-old daughter Monday morning down West Liberty Avenue, when we had no choice but to gaze out the car windows at a variety of 5-foot placards depicting extremely graphic photos of aborted fetuses. My daughter asked me, "Mommy, why are those people holding signs of scary monsters?" In shock myself as to what I was seeing, I did not know what to say.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
all I would ask is ,
Who forced your children to be there without you?
And what about kids passing by and seeing this violence?
Did Hitchcock "whitewash" the murder of Marion Crane by Norman Bates? I would argue that the way he filmed it made it more horrific than if he'd shot it in the graphic style of a typical modern slasher movie.
Pictures like #71 are IMHO more effectively disturbing than the dismembered-fetus pictures more commonly shown by pro-life protesters.
No, dheretic, it is NOT. Showing brutally beaten and murdered rape victims to protest RAPE and MURDER is. Your analogy is almost as reprehensible as stating that murder of a child is the moral equivalent of littering.
I have addressed your attempts at obfuscationa and redirection. It is you who is erecting Straw Men and demanding they be struck down.
As to the argument that because something may be seen by a child it should not be done or shown: You are offended by fact that a few children may be "traumatized" by the mere sight of a few pictures they do not understand (absent any evidence that children can be traumatized by such incidents) or that some parent's timeline for get around to letting little Janey know that the world can be a dangerous place is disrupted. The trauma inflicted is minimal compared to the trauma associated with the violent end to millions of pregnancies. I assure you that children will recover from seeing a picture... I also assure you that very few children recover from an abortion.
That the ends justify the means is what every petty despotic and ruthless dictator and genocidal madman has said to himself since the dawn of time!
Are you saying that the ends do NOT justify the means in all cases? Sometimes they do. Just one example: If someone is attempting to murder me or another person, I will kill him before he can accomplish his ends. The ends (my survival or the survival of another person) justify the means (killing another human being.)
If it is the truth that abortion murders and thus these children must be enlightened then why don't you tell little johnny or suzy the truth about government: it is deadly force institutionalized and that it is the one type institution most responsible for human suffering around the world. Of course to you that isn't true because as long as there is the possibility that the state can be bent to your will, it can't be all bad, right?
Actually, I have told my children this... but I also taught them that not all governments are equivalent. Some are more reprehensible and evil than others. Some, at least, attempt to operate from a moral precept. However, dheretic, this arguement is more of your obfuscation and redirection. We cannot fight ALL battles at ALL times... sometimes we just need to concentrate on one.
First of all, you could stick whatever caption you wanted on the bloody-fetus picture and it would make no useful difference since the people bothered by the picture wouldn't look at it long enough to read the caption.
Secondly, I think you underestimate the visceral effect of blood and gore in general; many people of the people who would be bothered by the bloody-fetus pictures would also be bothered by gory pictures of a removed adenoid or appendix, or even by gory pictures of a lifesaving operation.
In short, with these gory pictures, the medium effectively overshadows the message.
hmmm, perhaps you are right and there are far more effective ways to get the point across.
as for my family and myself, I prefer we have the cold hard truth in order to make an informed descision.
That worked for you. I am probably of an older generation than you. Children weren't suppose to question the authority of their parents. A parent would just say "because I don't want you to", when questioned WHY.
My grandparents raised 10 children that way, my parents raised 4, and I raised 4. All good, moral, upstanding people. [As were all of the friends I grew up with.] Young parents treat their children as 'equals or friends' now days. I agree with you about 'lazy parents', who just sit around and holler NO.
Bring it on. Ever hear of the 1st Amendment, buddy? If these protesters are acting within the bounds of the 1st Amendment, then all I have to say to you is, the truth hurts. Tell you what, next time someone sees a billboard with a half naked young lady on it, and complains, and you start to say "You can always look the other way, they have the right of free speech..." ad infintum, I'll be the first in line to show you up on your double-standard.
BTW I hope you come loaded for bear. An unarmed man wearing steeltoed boots loses out to the sawed-off shotgun every time.
In an age where the TV and movie industry keeps several Heinz ketchup plants in business full time, I doubt it.
No, dheretic, you are NOT going to climb on your high horse here...
I am not cheapening the "Holocaust victims loss". The vast majority of them were totally innocent. YOU are cheapening the loss of millions of totally innocent babies by somehow saying their death is less than another's. Dead is dead. Are Holocaust victims any more dead than an aborted baby? Did they die any more horribly?
I do not believe that Dietrich Bonhoffer would agree with you.
The failure to take action in the face of evil is the moral question... not the acts of the evil people who propogate that evil. We condemn the generation of Germans that did nothing to stop the slaughter of their fellow citizens in their government's concentration camps, yet somehow is offensive to you that some are attempting to stop another slaughter, also occuring under government auspices, often with government funds?
Sometimes there IS a moral equivalence.
I'm not trying to overgeneralize and make it sound as though you think violence will solve all of life's problems - that would be rather psychopathic, and you don't strike me that way. And I don't mean to overgeneralize in my statements either - I don't claim that violence will never solve any problems, just that it won't fix this one.
The real question is whether the violence is justified. My fear is to stand before God when he asks "Why did you not act to stop the murder of my little ones?" Most of us are too cowardly to withstand the earthly trial that would result from taking what you consider a "violent" action against child murderers. God may not excuse that.
If God wanted the end of abortion, surely He would prefer something resembling a strategy for victory, rather than a spectacularly grand self-immolation. How does it serve God if the ones He calls upon are all dead or in prison?
As for the perception of the general public, I have to say that my principles are far more important than any worry I would have about that. I know what is right, moral and just. The "general public" has demonstrated that they have no clue.
That may be, but they are the ones who will have to be persuaded for abortion to end. If you cannot persuade them, it will never end - you cannot impose your will upon them by force.
It is simply impossible. The first thing that will happen will be an immediate and deep schism within the movement itself. And the second thing that will happen is that it will, for a very, very long time, be impossible for the pro-life movement to avoid the whiff of hypocrisy - the movement will never be able to label others as murderers without its own conduct being thrown back at it. Rightly or wrongly, that is what they will say and that is what they will think. And then you will have lost, for a generation or more.
The reality and the truth of your position means almost nothing to your victory, I am sorry to say. Perception is everything, and by turning to violence, the pro-life movement will have irrevocably changed the public's perception of it. All that can be achieved by violence is the end of the pro-life movement, and the continuation of abortion.
Let's say that you are correct that my comment has the effect you say it has, how is that any different from your comparison of abortion to the holocaust? In fact that is far worse. You feel that abortion is on par with a state hunting down and killing an entire ethnic group or herding them into concentration camps to be prepared to be systematically murdered by government forces! You believe that abortion is tantamount to state-sponsored genocide! I wonder how many holocaust victims would appreciate your comparison. They were living, mature beings, a fetus is anything but by comparison. Where does your argument stop, I think you would argue that a woman who engages in rough physical activity that causes a miscarriage early in her pregnancy should be tried for manslaughter!
The trouble is that so many people have fooled themselves into thinking that when one of these beauties is "eliminated," it is as innocuous an event as eating cotton candy.
Right. I especially like a picture which appears from time to time on FR of a fetus who was removed from the womb for an operation, was operated upon, reimplanted, and born normally [though admittedly that operation does raise some interesting questions of what it means to be 'born'].
I would suggest that the most effective message would be to juxtapose pictures of live fetuses as well as live post-birth children with pictures of jars as in #71. That juxtaposition would be far more effective IMHO than bloody-fetus pictures.
Yes, but who are YOU to force that on MY kid? I have no problem telling an older child about abortion. I explained it to my oldest at about 8.
I've only seen these pictures online, and most are not terribly clear. I'm not convinced that a 3 year old viewing them would require the truth be told. Why do they have pictures of scary monsters? I dunno, maybe they're weird. My kids would move on.
But I would absolutely, positively NEVER destroy the innocence of a 3 year old child by explaining to him/her that some mommies kill their babies. NEVER! It would be totally bewildering! And possibly could make children feel less secure or trusting. I don't give a rat's *ss for how TRUTHFUL it is.
You have the right to decide this for your children, but not mine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.