quote:A documentary is far from the same thing as public domain. I've never seen graphic lynching pictures on the nightly news and I suspect I never will.
I wasn't alive when it was going on; did they never show it then? Only in documentaries after civil rights progress was made?
If so, I wonder if more progress wouldn't have been made sooner if it *had* been shown.
quote:There are plenty of documentaries regarding abortion. This topic is about unavoidable graphic pictures, not something that's extremely voluntary whether you see or not.
I completely agree that if at all possible children should be kept from seeing shocking things.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
To add to pH and kmbboots, I think the pictures would also have to reflect what actually happens in the abortion clinic, rather than being selected exclusively from a set of procedures that comprise either about 10% or about 1% of abortions (depending on the precise nature of the pictures).
Of course, parading around with a blastocyst or zygote emblazoned on a placard might not be quite so rhetorically compelling.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Seatarsprayan: I guess I see abortion protesters using dead baby pictures the same way: trying to get people to actually think about what really happens in there.
...by focusing exclusively on the most gruesome subset of "what happens in there," which if I'm not mistaken is an extremely small subset.
posted
I personally really like the pictures of moms and dad playing with babies. That helped me a lot when I was having a similar moral crisis.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
As a almost complete aside, I find that kind (as shown in Outbreak) of Hollywood filmmaking pretty irritating. In reality, I would sure hope that the President (or somesuch) would have the conviction to make a rational decision rather than be swayed by a cute rhetorical appeal.
Granted, they made the whole thing moot by having the hero find a last minute cure (not very likely), but still ... ugh.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
PSI, I still think that either the police or the local government will have some kind of rules about what they can show, do, while they protest that will protect you and your young children. When I said originally that in Nevada they have rules about it, I was speaking from experience. In a protest over working conditions, the police could arrest anyone whose signs were too crude (bad language)or whose behavior was deemed too intimidating. When I was younger, it had seemed like a good idea to carry a picket sign while on roller skates, however, the Las Vegas police did not agree with me. I was given some choices. Take off the skates, put down the picket sign, or go to jail. I chose to take off the skates. That's when I found out some of their rules about content. But someone has to complain to them, they do not usually get involved with protests unless they are blocking traffic or seem to be getting violent, in my experience.
Posts: 25 | Registered: Jun 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I guess my worry is that, since abortion is legal, it won't be considered to be "bad" because it's not like it's "dead babies," ya know? Guess I'll just have to call and find out.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:A documentary is far from the same thing as public domain. I've never seen graphic lynching pictures on the nightly news and I suspect I never will.
I wasn't alive when it was going on; did they never show it then? Only in documentaries after civil rights progress was made?
If so, I wonder if more progress wouldn't have been made sooner if it *had* been shown.
Sadly (horribly) lynchings weren't considered shocking by much of the population. Sometimes people even considered them as appropriate family entertainment even bringing picnics.
There was also a considerable trade in photos and postcards showing lynchings.
quote: I tell you what, if I saw them on the side of the road doing that, I would have pulled over to deal with them. It woudl have started with diplomacy and either way it would have ended with those signs coming down.
How far would you have gone? Would you beat somebody unconscious if they weren't willing to bring down the signs?
That would be the last option, but I will admit I am not above it. Most likely I would talk with them, and then if they refused I would call the cops. If they were still out there the next day I woudl give the cops one more chance. If I had to though I woudl take the signs out of their hands and destroy them, or maybe drive by with a huge bucket of black paint. If I needed to be physical though to get the signs down though, I would.
There is very little I wouldn't do for my little girl. Of course she would not need to be around when this was going on.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
The fact that you are willing to take the law in your own hands and physically assault people because they're being obnoxious is chilling to me.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
To be fair, it sounded a bit more like Hookt was saying that he's willing to take the law into his own hands and physically assault people because he believes they're harming his daughter.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe that a lot of things harm us in myriad ways. That doesn't give me the right to physically assault people.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Of course, parading around with a blastocyst or zygote emblazoned on a placard might not be quite so rhetorically compelling.
Since blastocysts or zygotes are killed in surgical abortions seldom, if ever, why would you suggest these?
Moreover, pictures from week 7 can and are used - obviously, the pictures shown are much, much larger, but they still look like a baby.
quote:That would be the last option, but I will admit I am not above it. Most likely I would talk with them, and then if they refused I would call the cops. If they were still out there the next day I woudl give the cops one more chance. If I had to though I woudl take the signs out of their hands and destroy them, or maybe drive by with a huge bucket of black paint. If I needed to be physical though to get the signs down though, I would.
Congratulations - you're a bully and a brute and, if you did that, would likely go to jail.
As to the legal issues, the courts would look very disfavorably on justifications for censorship based on the offensiveness of the images. However, traffic safety arguments might work. The fact that this has been going on a while makes it less likely that a traffic justification would work in this case, unless evidence of an increase in accidents during the protests could be shown.
In short, complain to the police and see if they'll do anything, but don't get your hopes up.
quote:To be fair, it sounded a bit more like Hookt was saying that he's willing to take the law into his own hands and physically assault people because he believes they're harming his daughter.
To be fairer, he's saying he's willing to use violence to take the law into his own hands even though he could, if he so desired, do other things to avoid those pictures being seen by his daughter.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I believe that a lot of things harm us in myriad ways. That doesn't give me the right to physically assault people.
I agree. It doesn't mean we have to misrepresent others' words though.
quote:To be fairer, he's saying he's willing to use violence to take the law into his own hands even though he could, if he so desired, do other things to avoid those pictures being seen by his daughter.
Again, no disagreement.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't agree that violence is the right course to take, but it wasn't Hookt's first option.
Out of nothing but curiousity, if people were showing one's children pornography and the police wouldn't do anything about it, what would be considered a justifiable response?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't agree that violence is the right course to take, but it wasn't Hookt's first option.
That doesn't make him any better. He's still comfortable using violence to censor speech he doesn't approve.
quote:Out of nothing but curiousity, if people were showing one's children pornography and the police wouldn't do anything about it, what would be considered a justifiable response?
Assuming that it's public display (and not targeted specifically at my child, which would indicate a totally different danger) and the person wouldn't stop after talking to them, and in no particular order: avoid, sue, speak to the property owner (if applicable), counter protest, boycott (if they have economic interests I can target), editorialize.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
All better options than violence, I agree. Maybe some of these suggestions would be helpful to you, PSI?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Sadly (horribly) lynchings weren't considered shocking by much of the population. Sometimes people even considered them as appropriate family entertainment even bringing picnics.
There was also a considerable trade in photos and postcards showing lynchings.
So, probably not.
Were Northerners, where I imagine fewer lynchings took place, just as entertained and engaging in photo trade? I wasn't there, I guess I just preferred to imagine that some people might be living their lives just not paying attention to the atrocities being committed, and if subjected to a rude enough awakening would actually care.
But I never cease to be surprised by the callousness of man towards man.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:That doesn't make him any better. He's still comfortable using violence to censor speech he doesn't approve.
I'd argue that using violence only after other options are exhausted does indeed make a person better. Most people are okay with using violence (or at least the threat of it) to censor speech.
Again though, I agree that it's better to do so within the law the vast majority of the time.
Off to work now, everyone play nice! Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
You need to find out where the people live, and walk around in front of their houses with signs depicting even more graphic and disturbing pictures.
Then you're being just as non-violent as they are.
Suing for emotional damages might well work too. I'm sure having those pictures in a court room would convince most people that you shouldn't have to look at them.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Most people are okay with using violence (or at least the threat of it) to censor speech.
"Most people"? Really?
quote:Suing for emotional damages might well work too. I'm sure having those pictures in a court room would convince most people that you shouldn't have to look at them.
The same constitutional issues still exist, so it's not likely to work.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Violence is always a last resort. I simply stated that is all other measures had been exhausted I would be capable of resorting to violence. Violence also comes in many forms.
If you are cussing around my children or myself I will ask you nicely to watch your mouth and apologize to my daughter for using foul language. If you chose to ignore me, I can and will take my family and leave.
If you continue to follow I will make sure my family keeps going and I will prevent you from following them.
If you are in my personal space I will remove you from it. If you are cussing in my home or business I will through you out. If you return the cops will be called.
If you decide to put hands on me or look to do me physical harm I will attack first and hard, to make sure it ends quickly with as little risk to myself and family as possible.
I am by no means a bully, you can ask anyone that knows me. I how ever am not a push over, and if you will not respect my family, or myself then you are capable of doing other things to harm my family.
If you come into my house in the middle of the night unwelcome, you will be dealt with with same level of aggression.
If you can not respect me and my beliefs, or my personal space, then I have no respect for you. In the case of the protesters I woudl give them the chance to be civil. I woudl give the law the chance to deal with them as well. I am sure that something could be done in that matter, but I was ask simply if I could or would resort to violence.
So the answer to that was simply yes I could, would and have, but only as the last resort or only if it was the only option that would leave my Family, my friends, or myself with as little harm as possible.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is a lack of respect for me if I asked them to no put those 5x5 pickets up with the dead babies on them, were my daughter would have to see them every day on our way home (the issue at the very beginning of the thread) The also interfere with my beliefs on how I am raising my child, and as offensive that is it intervenes with my personal space by having it there. Should I go on? I woudl take ti the same if somebody was putting up pictures of adults having sex on bill boards. I am aware of it, I know it happens, but you don't have to be rude and put it up in public.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
You could take pictures of them, make giant billboards using their pictures, and write rude things about them under the pictures. Then drive by with your posters on the side of your car (without your kids, of course).
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Of course, parading around with a blastocyst or zygote emblazoned on a placard might not be quite so rhetorically compelling.
Since blastocysts or zygotes are killed in surgical abortions seldom, if ever, why would you suggest these?
You've got it exactly, actually. The forceps image PSI described sounded to me like the result of an intact dilation and extraction, which prior to their banning comprised approximately 0.17% of all abortions in the U.S, so I responded with an example that I thought was an equally poor rhetorical choice.
As far as I know, D&X is the only late-term surgical abortion procedure that yields an intact fetus, though there are a few other non-surgical possibilities that I suppose could have resulted in the picture PSI described. Still, I summarized the point I was making even more succinctly in the post Mucus quoted near the top of this page.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Moreover, pictures from week 7 can and are used - obviously, the pictures shown are much, much larger, but they still look like a baby.
PSI specified that the pictures were of late-term abortions. I take her at her word.
For myself, having seen real physical examples or aborted or miscarried zygotes, embryos, and fetuses at many stages in the gestational process, I don't think a picture from week 7 blown up would be easily mistaken for a late-term fetus.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
yeah I could, and I could stand out in a clown suit and point and laugh at them to. There are a lot of different options. Of course I would prefer to go with the simplest and least painful method.
However I just wonder what makes a person want to be precieved as so ignorant and offensive in the first place. Maybe they are so angry because their own parents wish they could have gotten a legal abortion so many years ago.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
I'm guessing about the age based mostly on the relative size of the head to the forceps.
Something I've always wondered about is are some of these pictures shopped? Not that they look any less disturbing, but then again, who's sitting at the bedside of a woman having an abortion, camera in hand?
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, to clarify slightly, I took "late-term" to mean "third trimester," which isn't necessarily a valid assumption.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by PSI Teleport: Not that they look any less disturbing, but then again, who's sitting at the bedside of a woman having an abortion, camera in hand?
I don't think it is outside the realm of possibility that a picture could be taken for medical reasons.
But yeah, I expect many are photoshopped.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
*nod* It's definitely possible that some are real, it's just that some are so...
There's one picture I've seen where the fetus is actually almost black. (I guess from decay?) I can't imagine what use there could be for keeping the body and photographing it later.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:There's one picture I've seen where the fetus is actually almost black. (I guess from decay?)
It's possible these were pictures of fetuses aborted via saline (a procedure used less often now than previously).
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Most people are okay with using violence (or at least the threat of it) to censor speech.
"Most people"? Really?
Inasmuch as violence or the threat of it is used to enforce any law, and there are some laws limiting free speech, then yes I would think so. I probably should have qualified that statement better.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Abortion protesters should just quit using the bloody placard strategy since it hurts them more than it helps them.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
They should. It's disgusting to do that. I don't understand why they cannot find a more civil and polite way to fight against abortion than disgusting people and making them feel frustrated and worse.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
They feel that this is one of the more effective ways for them, since talk still trampled on their ideas. They think we as the public do not understand the gravity of the situation. They feel they have to shock us to make us aware of the issue. This is a similar thought belief and pattern that terrorist use.
"They can not see our point, so we are going to do something shocking and make them look"
They are hoping our revulsion will sway them to their cause, or at least get our attention long enough for them to get their point across.
If it works once, even if not the way they wanted, they continue to use it. They can justify it to themselves because it was effective at least once.
Trouble with that logic, a broken clock is right twice a day. Though it may be right at least twice, it will make you late for everything else.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: They should. It's disgusting to do that. I don't understand why they cannot find a more civil and polite way to fight against abortion than disgusting people and making them feel frustrated and worse.
I agree. I really like the idea of giant placards showing laughing babies, rather than gruesome images of dead ones. It gets the point across much more forcefully. I also think anti-abortion groups (and politicians) should spend much more effort and time on promoting adoption than they do today. If there's a group anywhere that used these tactics instead of resorting to callous barbarism, I would consider joining them.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I really like the idea of giant placards showing laughing babies
Actually, it doesn't.
I'm not in favor of the placards in general, although I think there is a place for photos of the victims of abortion in the public conversation about the issue. But the suggested alternatives such as laughing babies don't speak to the disputed issue - whether the being that dies during abortion is a person who deserves the basic protection of the law.
I think the far more effective way to get the point across is with photos showing development from conception through childhood. But laughing babies doesn't meet the rhetorical need here.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Out of curiosity and I honestly just don't know. But when abortions were illegal did pro-choice proponents hold up pictures of dead women who had died in back alley abortions?
And,
Would there be anything wrong with pro-choice advocates assembling and holding up coat hangers painted red?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Would there be anything wrong with pro-choice advocates assembling and holding up coat hangers painted red?
When a pro-life group set up a similar display on UH campus, complete with gigantic mutilated fetus pictures, a group of students decided an equally offensive form of protest would be to pass out coat hangers to everyone present. I'm not sure I fully agree with the method, but it was amusing to watch.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
To add to BB's question. Presumably now, even if abortion was banned, some women would not go to back alleys. They would just hop the Canadian border or Mexican border, at least in Canada there are no restrictions on abortion.
As a parallel, I remember some homosexual couples did this in order to be liberated from the gay marriage bans in the US. Presumably, as a sort of "sour grapes" retaliation, their marriages were not recognized when they went back to the States.
Take the scenario of a woman travelling to do an abortion in a less oppressive country, have anti-abortion advocates proposed any similar "sour grapes" measures?
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
The question I would have here, is what is truly going to far with a protest?
This could apply to a variety of subjects. I understand people trying to get a message out, and the passion they feel makes more things acceptable to them. So when has something gone to far?
It is clear that the majority of the people here are offended by the pictures of the aborted babies, and some by red painted coat hangers, but were is that line?
I understand that freedom of speech and expression are important for the cultural growth of America, but even there we have laws that deem some things pornography or to graphic for certain age groups. Take for example the movie industry, there are some wonderful movies out there, that were put into production that have received R or more ratings.
It did not limit the artist vision, it just restricted the age of his audience. With that in mind why can't we apply the same restrictions to public displays and protest?
Feel free to show people the pictures if they are of an understanding they will be given this information and they are old enough to process it properly.
I think in this country people should be able to do what ever they want, as long as they are not hurting people. If you consent to something and it hurts you thats your problem, as long as you were sufficiently warned.
Those persons that can not conform to these basic tenants of human decency and respect the rights of others should have their own rights limited. I am trying to protect my daughter, and my right as a parent to raise her as I see fit. Is that really to much to ask?
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Though I wouldn't have an abortion myself (God willing), seeing actual embryos and fetuses has actually made me less "squeamish" regarding early abortions. There are, for me, other, more compelling reasons, not to have one, but I have less of a shocked, disgusted, "that looks like a dead baby" response.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The coat hangar protests have been used in many situations not involving responding to graphic anti-abortion displays.
quote:With that in mind why can't we apply the same restrictions to public displays and protest?
Because ratings on movies are voluntary, not government-mandated.
quote:Those persons that can not conform to these basic tenants of human decency and respect the rights of others should have their own rights limited. I am trying to protect my daughter, and my right as a parent to raise her as I see fit. Is that really to much to ask?
The problem is that the criteria needed to evaluate this is arbitrary. What if someone doesn't want their kids to see unmarried men and women people holding hands? Or they only oppose gay couples holding hands. "I want to protect my children and don't want them to see that" applies just as strongly to such situations.
Which means we need some other criteria. And if those criteria are based on what most people think, we're back to limiting speech to that approved by the majority - the very thing the First Amendment is supposed to prevent.
What well-defined test would you use to evaluate individual instances of expression to see if they should be subject to government regulation?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
That's when I found out some of their rules about content. But someone has to complain to them, they do not usually get involved with protests unless they are blocking traffic or seem to be getting violent, in my experience.
![[Wave]](graemlins/wave.gif)
