Georgia Cops Impound Anti-Abortion Billboard Truck, Jail Driver

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I do not believe enlarged gory images of headless, dead babies should be seen by young children. Driving a truck down the street does not give parents the option to prevent this. There is not always an opportunity to get out of traffic right away. Nor do I feel I should have to worry about such things.

I am 100% pro-life, I have stood in life chains, I financially supported pro-life causes, and I have prolife bumper stickers on my cars but I do not think these types of images do anything to help the movement. It angers people that their young children are forced to look upon gory images that are definitely not appropriate for their age and it makes pro-lifers look like extremist nut jobs.
 
Simply put, the end does not justify any and all means. Contrary to what some would have us believe, there are many and varied strategies that can and are being used to protest abortion. This (displaying billboard sized gory photos of dismembered babies as one drives through towns, towing them behind airplanes over public beaches, parking them in front of churches on Sunday morning or in residential neighborhoods without permission, standing on busy street corners nowhere near clinics–all places where one knows that many young children will be seeing them) is not the only possible way, nor can it even be said to be the most effective way. In all the threads on this topic, no one has been able to come up with any studies that look at the actual effectiveness of any means of abortion protest, much less that show that this one is so superior to all others that its effectiveness outweighs the problems with its use in this particular manner.

Rights also come with responsibilities in the way in which one exercises them. They are not licenses to do anything and everything in any and all situations without regard to the other people involved just because you want to do so or think that it is better.

There are plenty of ways in which one can teach and show that a baby is more than a clump of cells before it is born without showing that baby dismembered, decapitated and covered in blood in places where your 4 and 5 year old have no option but to stare at it for extended periods.

The appropriate audience for these photos (and yes, I do believe there can be an argument for an appropriate audience) is not young children and the appropriate setting is not where young children will see them without their parents’ permission or previous knowledge. It is people who may seek an abortion. Use them in controlled settings—publicized rallies, pamphlets handed directly to an adult, sex ed classes, on college campuses, at abortion clinics. Not driving down busy streets or beside entrances to toy stores on a Saturday afternoon–stores that are miles from any possible abortion provider (as they do around here).

Note that none of the Catholic curricula I have been able to find even mention the word abortion until the 5th grade, much less ever use these images. I am at a loss to understand why it is okay and desirable to use these images to forcibly introduce the topic and educate without their parents’ permission children who are riding by in cars when it is not considered equally okay and desirable to use these images or raise the topic with these same children in a controlled religious setting.

I would be much more likely to believe that the intended audience did not include young children specifically if any attempt at all was made to even pay lip service to the idea that children who have been born are also worthy of care, concern and sheltering their innocence.
 
rayne89 said:
I do not believe enlarged gory images of headless, dead babies should be seen by young children. Driving a truck down the street does not give parents the option to prevent this. There is not always an opportunity to get out of traffic right away. Nor do I feel I should have to worry about such things.

I am 100% pro-life, I have stood in life chains, I financially supported pro-life causes, and I have prolife bumper stickers on my cars but I do not think these types of images do anything to help the movement. It angers people that their young children are forced to look upon gory images that are definitely not appropriate for their age and it makes pro-lifers look like extremist nut jobs.
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Fr. Frank Pavone and most people leading the Pro-life movement disagree with you. It’s a horrible thing but it needs to be faced and seen for what it is.
 
From the Priests for life website

From the inception of his pro-life work, Fr. Frank Pavone has been urging the mass media to show the American people what an abortion is. Abortion is a reality which is so horrific that words alone can never convey its meaning.

Fr. Frank serves on the board of the Center for Bioethical Reform, which makes it a priority to share with the nation the world’s largest collection of images of actual abortions. In conjunction with that organization, a series of careful analyses of what the pro-life movement can learn from other social reform movements is being prepared.

We present here some of the grim reality of abortion. Only seeing such images can bring us to the kind of indignation needed to sustain the sacrifices that will be necessary to finally bring an end to this injustice.

These images are arranged according to the gestational age of the children who were killed. You will note that below the link to each image is a link to a document signed by a pathologist who attests to the medical accuracy that particular image. Each document was also notarized. This pathologist, Dr. Abigail Allen, worked specifically with the remains of aborted children.

It is especially critical to show people the images of babies aborted in the first trimester. It is in regard to such children, who constitute 90% of abortion victims, that the myth persists that they are not really children at all.

We thank all of you who have contacted us to tell us about how these images have affected you. Please use them to show others this horrible reality.

God, have mercy. Amen.
 
There are better ways to get the message across without showing these graphic images to small children. It’s a horrible thing to show to children, I as an adult could hardly stand these images that a friend put on her myspace. No warning, but pictures of mutilated children. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t eat anything for a few days. I even had a good bout of nightmares. I am sensitive to images as an adult, I can hardly imagine what a child goes through. It’s disrespective to parents who are raising their kids, and it’s disrespective to the poor children who are being displayed that way.

There are far better and far more constructive ways to get the message out. Near our local high school there is a HUGE banner of a healthy baby with a caption that says: “Thanks mom, for choosing life” everyone sees it, and it gets people thinking, rather than shocking parents and scaring the living daylights out of children with pictures of horrifically mutilated kids. It sets the movement back as a whole. As it frustrates even pro-life parents.
 
Delphinus85 said:
There are better ways to get the message across without showing these graphic images to small children. It’s a horrible thing to show to children, I as an adult could hardly stand these images that a friend put on her myspace. No warning, but pictures of mutilated children. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t eat anything for a few days. I even had a good bout of nightmares. I am sensitive to images as an adult, I can hardly imagine what a child goes through. It’s disrespective to parents who are raising their kids, and it’s disrespective to the poor children who are being displayed that way.

There are far better and far more constructive ways to get the message out. Near our local high school there is a HUGE banner of a healthy baby with a caption that says: “Thanks mom, for choosing life” everyone sees it, and it gets people thinking, rather than shocking parents and scaring the living daylights out of children with pictures of horrifically mutilated kids. It sets the movement back as a whole. As it frustrates even pro-life parents.
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There isn’t one magic pill that fixes all of this. It takes the beautiful images and the horrible ones. One thing does not appeal to all people. This battle has to be fought on many fronts using many weapons. These pictures aren’t going to harm children if their parents are able to explain it to them correctly. In a country where 45,000,000 babies have been murdered parents need to be ready to explain this horror. They not only need to educate their children on what it is but also how they need to fight it.

These images do not set the movement back. They help it. They promote education, they inform people that their child isn’t a blob of cells as they are bieng told. People see these and are confronted with the horror of it. The motivate people to do something to stop it.
 
The great "gory picture debate " again.

Even, secular TV will carry warnings before showing footage of surgical procedures, deliveries etc…all perfectly normal, moral events of life! Why should we who are Christians have less regard for the feelings of others?

I have a suggestion for the supporters of exposing children to graphic photos:

Charity begins at home, right? So go into your Churches and Catholic schools and hang those posters up there on the walls (or wear them on tshirts if permission to hang is not given)…Then maybe we’ll get a definitive ruling by Church authorities to have this practice tempered by some standards of common decency.
 
seekerz said:
The great "gory picture debate " again.

Even, secular TV will carry warnings before showing footage of surgical procedures, deliveries etc…all perfectly normal, moral events of life! Why should we who are Christians have less regard for the feelings of others?

I have a suggestion for the supporters of exposing children to graphic photos:

Charity begins at home, right? So go into your Churches and Catholic schools and hang those posters up there on the walls (or wear them on tshirts if permission to hang is not given)…Then maybe we’ll get a definitive ruling by Church authorities to have this practice tempered by some standards of common decency.
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Read Fr. Frank Pavone’s opinion and what he does. Priestsforlife.com
 
Justin75 said:
Read Fr. Frank Pavone’s opinion and what he does. Priestsforlife.com
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With all due respect to Fr Pavone, I disagree with the indiscriminate use of graphic abortion photos where young children or the psychologically impaired cannot avoid seeing them. I have heard (ad nauseum) on this board, the various justifications for the practice and still find it distasteful. I also think it’s time to hear the ‘verdict’ from the very top. Whatever the official Church decision, I am obliged to accept it. Until then, I only feel obliged to protest the practice.

All of this is quite apart from how I feel about the need to fight to end abortion.
 
seekerz said:
With all due respect to Fr Pavone, I disagree with the indiscriminate use of graphic abortion photos where young children or the psychologically impaired cannot avoid seeing them. I have heard (ad nauseum) on this board, the various justifications for the practice and still find it distasteful. I also think it’s time to hear the ‘verdict’ from the very top. Whatever the official Church decision, I am obliged to accept it. Until then, I only feel obliged to protest the practice.

All of this is quite apart from how I feel about the need to fight to end abortion.
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You are entitled to your opinion, others are entitles to theirs. Fr. Pavone and many others have made made a huge impact in the Pro-life movement using these images among other things. What you want to use to cambat abortion is your business just as long as you are fighting it. Those signs do not hurt anyone anymore than your decisoin not to use them hurts anyone. They have proven useful by good catholic priests who are on the front lines and have been for decades. You may disagree with them but it dosn’t make them wrong. They have been involved with this to a degree more than most. I trust their judgement, and from my past experience outside abortion mills they work!

God bless you and all of the work you do to combat abortion!
 
estesbob said:
BTW-i am always amused on how, on so many issues, people try to hide behind their children.
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Who’s hiding? I make my where abouts known and my issues are straight forward. I am anti-abortion and anti-abortion rights. This subject is not about abortion. It is about whether this type of display is right or wrong in public. If it is wrong, then it can not be used, even for a good motive.
 
Justin75 said:
Originally Posted by pnewton forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cag/viewpost.gif
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You just expalined why the parallel applies. Because one group (Planned Parenthood or Anti-abortion activists) decides the need for this type of education is so important, no one should have the freedom to avoid it. It should be forced upon children.
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But what you are advocating is not a legally tenable position. One simply can not make one law for Christians and another for non-Christians. I guess it is okay to think things should be that way, but it fails the reality test.

I keep hearing that what I present, like,
What if the same tactics were used to promote anti-Catholicism? Let us say the truck had bodies burnt to a crisp, decapitations and bodies flayed open by bullets. This same truck drove around the Mall at peak crowds claiming the these were victims of Catholic atrocity and Catholicism must be surpressed. Everyone here cool with this?
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are not the same thing. But why? I am open if anyone can show real reasons that have legal validity as to their difference.

To put it another way , try and write a law that allows the truck to be illegal, but not the other issues that have been mentioned. This is the real test.
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Justin75 said:
Fr. Frank Pavone and most people leading the Pro-life movement disagree with you. It’s a horrible thing but it needs to be faced and seen for what it is.
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If “most people leading the prolife movement disagree’” on the need to show these images where young children will see them without their parents’ permission, then why do I keep reading posters on these threads saying that so many rallies and marches stipulate “no graphic images”?
familiesagainstplannedparenthood.org/blog/2007/1011/hereforlife/
texasrallyforlife.org/resources/Rally_2007_Flier_BW_Compatible_2UP.pdf (note this is one featuring Fr. Pavone–seems he doesn’t consider these images an absolute requirement)

There are also Catholic clerics who do not agree with the use of these photos in this indiscriminate manner. catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=23900

Does even Fr. Pavone appear to understand that there are different strategies that are appropriate for different settings? Seems so. None of the items in his organization’s store seem to carry these photos.priestsforlife.org/store/. You even have to deliberately go several links deep into his website to see any of the photos of blood-covered dismembered babies.

All of the evidence I have been provided over and over on this topic in support of using such photos points to anecdotal testimonies, which consist almost entirely of testimonies from those who saw these images on websites, not on the sides of trucks. Websites are an appropriate setting that appears to reach the intended audience without also causing an unnecessary collateral impact on young children.

When the only tool you choose to use is a hammer, all problems begin to look like nails. Choose the appropriate tool for the setting.
 
seekerz said:
With all due respect to Fr Pavone, I disagree with the indiscriminate use of graphic abortion photos where young children or the psychologically impaired cannot avoid seeing them. I have heard (ad nauseum) on this board, the various justifications for the practice and still find it distasteful. I also think it’s time to hear the ‘verdict’ from the very top. Whatever the official Church decision, I am obliged to accept it. Until then, I only feel obliged to protest the practice.

All of this is quite apart from how I feel about the need to fight to end abortion.
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Well then the next time you picket an abortion clinic dont use graphic images.

I leave it to the sidewalk counselors to know what works best in their particular circumstances. As far as the trucks go we have seen specific testimony from women stating those trucks kept them from having an abortion.
 
estesbob said:
As far as the trucks… kept them from having an abortion.
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I can think of many other (unmentionable in decent company) tactics which could achieve the same result (preventing an abortion from happening). That does not make those tactics right.

The test of morality/appropriateness of an action does not lie solely in it’s outcome.
 
seekerz said:
I can think of many other (unmentionable in decent company) tactics which could achieve the same result (preventing an abortion from happening). That does not make those tactics right.
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But we are not talking about other tactics-we are talking about the proven tactic of letting people see what abortion nis really all about.
The test of morality/appropriateness of an action does not lie solely in it’s outcome.
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Agreed-but their is nothing immoral about graphic abortion pictures.
 
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