A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (well, actually it was in Welland, Ontario) I was a marketing research analyst in the specialty steel industry. Our VP of Sales & Marketing, Al Orr (a really fine guy with an uncanny resemblance to then Premier Bill Davis) had the department over to his house for a Christmas party. Adorning the rec room wall was the famous poster displaying a nice pink healthy lung alongside a horrific looking specimen that had been ruined through smoking.
I'm not sure whether the source of this poster was a lung association or the cancer people, but its aim was to motivate smokers to butt out. Al, who was a smoker, explained that his wife had put it up to encourage him to quit. I have never smoked, but the poster did give me the creeps. I wondered if Mrs. Orr was also trying to put us off our food in hopes of saving on the snacks budget. I think that all she did was guarantee a more liberal slurping from the alcoholic punch bowl.
I thought of this incident when I opened last Saturday's National Post to p. A6, only to be greeted with the photo of a cube van covered with pictures of aborted fetuses. A group that rejoices in the name of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) has taken to driving this van along Calgary's busiest streets with the aim of bringing home to drivers the implications of choosing to abort pre-born babies. It is not a pretty sight.
The executive director of the Calgary-based organization explains their modus operandi this way: "It's only when people saw pictures of African Americans being brutally treated and beat up, only when they saw pictures of children working in mines in Pennsylvania, did they say 'wow, this is bad,' and eventually over time, begin to shift their views" (National Post, August 11, 2007, p. A6).
Not surprisingly, this venture has engendered the wrath of the National Abortion Federation, which accused the CCBR of using 'misleading images'. I'm not so sure about that. Given that the most common abortion procedure is to suck the fetuses out of the womb (gently, they assure us) using a suction tube that tears apart both the body and placenta and deposits them in a jar, I think that any pictures of abortions would look pretty bad.
But even some pro-life advocates have condemned the tactic, including Calgary's Catholic Bishop Fred Henry who says that this strategy "does more harm than good to the pro-life cause." The archbishop here in Vancouver shares this view.
Using arresting, even horrifying, pictures to either stop some practice or to motivate people to donate has been stock in trade for many organizations for years. Aside from the lungs poster, I'm thinking of images I have seen of people with leprosy, the distended bellies of starving children, tsunami victims, the results of drunk driving sponsored by groups such as MADD and CounterAttack, the unforgettable picture of those Vietnamese children running in terror---one could go on.
Seldom is the use of such images condemned. But pictures of the results of abortion appear to draw significant opprobrium from groups at various places on the pro-life, pro-choice, pro-abortion spectrum. I suppose the question is, should anyone condone their use? How are they different from lungs?
If I can say anything in their favour, the images certainly obliterate the common myth that a young fetus is just a collection of cells. As anyone knows who has viewed more agreeable pictures of life in the womb, pre-born babies look pretty much human almost from the get go. Even at two months the fetus is forming teeth; fingers and toes are developing; ears, nose, lips and tongue can be seen; brain waves can be recorded--the fetus may even suck its thumb.
But if abortion is wrong, it is not because it is ugly. Open-heart surgery has little to commend itself as art either. The issue of the rightness or wrongness of aborting pre-born babies turns on the question of personhood. Is a fetus a genuine person that should be accorded the rights and privileges of personhood? If yes, then aborting it is homicide. If no, then it's not.
At this point, Canada has withheld the conferring of personhood on unborn babies. There was a time when it did the same to women and what would have then been called Indians. The U.S. Supreme Court was able to avoid applying the guarantees and protections of the constitution (including liberty) to African American slaves by defining them as two-thirds of a person. All kinds of things can be done to non-persons that can't be done to persons.
With respect I say to the CCBR, don't distract from the real issue--personhood.
Monday 13 August 2007
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3 comments:
Hi John,
Thanks for bringing some much needed attention and discussion to this controversy.
You said, “With respect I say to the CCBR, don't distract from the real issue--personhood.”
But John, you’ve missed the obvious. CCBR most certainly IS focusing on the real issue. Pictures of aborted fetuses speak most loudly to the humanity of the unborn. If these graphic images are not those of human beings, what are they? As you pointed out “If I can say anything in their favour, the images certainly obliterate the common myth that a young fetus is just a collection of cells. As anyone knows who has viewed more agreeable pictures of life in the womb, pre-born babies look pretty much human almost from the get go. Even at two months the fetus is forming teeth; fingers and toes are developing; ears, nose, lips and tongue can be seen…”
And unborn humans, being human beings, ARE persons. The pictures point precisely and immediately, if not instinctively, to the fact of personhood. Aside from the blood, why else are they so shocking to many? These are NOT pictures of collections of cells.
Would anyone deny today that the use of graphic pictures of the Holocaust might have saved many millions of Jews if they had been widely distributed and shown in the Western World immediately following the start of the horrors? Would discussions of the personhood of the Jews at that time, without the graphics, have achieved the same result?
The answer is all too obvious. There WERE voices proclaiming the plight of the Jews, just as there have been voices for forty years proclaiming the plight of the Unborn. But voices did not save the Jews—the voices were insufficient. Debate about the personhood of the Unborn is also insufficient. The argument for personhood is best encapsulated in an image, an image which is but a fleeting shadow and reminder of the true nature of the offense against the person.
From the CCBR’s website, in the Q & A section, is this pertinent passage: [http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/gap-faq.html#Anchor-37516]
"We recognize there are differences between abortion and the Holocaust just as there are differences between the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. However, there are also significant similarities, one of them being that the victims are denied their personhood status. The victims of abortion, like the victims of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, are stripped of their value and viewed as sub-human, even animalistic. Jews were considered to be "vermin" and "parasites" and Tutsis were called "cockroaches." Today that dehumanizing sentiment remains, only it is directed towards a different group: the unborn.”
John, thanks again for blogging on this. We’ve been doing quite a bit of blogging ourselves, at the Vote Life, Canada! [http://votelifecanada.blogspot.com/] blogspot.
Stop by and check it out. Here’s a good place to start. [http://votelifecanada.blogspot.com/2007/08/canada-will-not-reject-abortion-until.html]
Blessings.
Eric
Good blogpost. John. Keep blogging, we need a lot more pro-life bloggers out there.
Does showing aborted babies convince people of the personhood of the unborn? If we are looking for shock value, showing disturbing pictures of aborted babies will certainly accomplish this, but if people do not understand or value the humanity of the unborn what good has come from this display? Until people are convinced that the unborn have intrinsic rights they will only see aborted baby parts not a person. A picture of a live baby in the womb can show the personhood of the unborn, without controversy. We need to teach people about the personhood of the unborn, not cause dissension among the prolife community. Lets work together with positive messages.
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