There is no double standard. To purposed expose a child to sex, or violence for no reason would be wrong.
Precisely. Preschoolers do not have abortions. All the anecdotal evidence that keeps getting trotted out supports that these photos are reaching people and preventing abortions through means such as websites, at college campuses, at abortion clinics, so why the insistence that one has to show them to preschoolers in order for them to have any effect?
Do we not all remember the visual movie of accidents that we had to view because we were learning to drive. TV news is pretty graphic.
Yes, and it was shown in drivers’ education classes to teens learning to drive, not in kindergarten. I am all in favor of showing these photos as part of sex education classes to older children, say 9 or 10 and up. Just not on the streets to 4 and 5 year olds.
Parents have the option of whether or not to let their children watch the TV news.
Children see violence all the time. Have you not watch Lion King, Bambi, Land Before Time Movies. It is pretty traumatic to think your mom or dad died?
Few issues here:
- parents choose whether or not their children see these movies
- the deaths are not shown in bloody graphic photographs or with real animals or humans
- If these are equivalent, why are these prolife activists not out holding up drawings of dead puppies or even dead babies instead of photographs of bloody mutilated dead babies? They see a difference in impact.
For one thing most states rarely have these photos on the streets. There are only a few states that do this on a regular basis. It is being done more on college campuses.
Only a few states? That would be wonderful if I could believe it, but that is not what the groups are claiming. Operation Rescue/Save America (the group that is out on our streets in front of the driveways to toy stores) has affiliates in Florida, Georgia, California, Connecticut, Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin in addition to NC. The Center for Bioethical Reform brags that they are sending their trucks and planes all over the country and into Canada. The planes are targeting beaches on both coasts.
Those are only two with which I am familiar. Do you have information on which states have this problem persistently?
According to the movie, in Wisconsin where they are held on a regular basis abortion has gone down by 41% where in the other states, it has only gone down by 14%.
First, I am not sure exactly what you mean when you say “they” in this context. Showing the movie you referenced or people holding these posters up on the street, driving them around on the sides of trucks, parking them in front of churches on Sunday morning without permission and flying them behind airplanes over cities and beaches?
The abortion rate in Wisconsin has been declining (as has that of the US) since the early 80s.
guttmacher.org/presentations/trends.pdf
guttmacher.org/presentations/state_ab_pt/wisconsin.pdf
The numbers don’t seem to show a sharp decline. It would be interesting to know the source for the numbers quoted in the movie, which states they compared, over what time period, did it include all age groups, etc.
If you want statistical information on who is having abortions and where in the US, I would recommend you look at the following:
cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5511a1.htm
and
guttmacher.org/sections/abortion.php?scope=U.S.%20specific
Be careful in listening to folks who claim a single cause for any changes in something as complex as the abortion rate. There are many factors to consider—changes in poverty, marriage rates and age at marriage, increase in contraception use, decrease in unwanted pregnancies, availability of abortion providers (are the women just travelling to the next state), etc.
gazetteextra.com/abortionreport041007.asp
guttmacher.org/pubs/sfaa/wisconsin.html
I have yet to see any data on even correlation between showing these photos in any venue (much less in venues where they are exposed to preschoolers) and a change in the abortion rate, much less any concrete data showing causation. If you have some, please share.
Bear in mind that no one on this thread has stated opposition to the use of these photographs
in a targeted and responsible manner–places like clinics, websites, college campuses, sex ed classes, well publicized marches and rallies, etc—only to showing them so indiscriminately that it is obvious that preschool children will be exposed to them without their parents’ consent.
