Why some images shock us

[vern_humphrey]

Absolutely I have no doubt that most 3, 4 and 5 year olds can tell that this picture truthtruck.com/ and this flickr.com/photos/operationsaveamerica/1750337523/in/photostream/ are of a dead and badly hurt baby.

What are you suggesting that a parent should tell the child the picture is, if you don’t think that the child will recognize it?

I think you’ve confused yourself again.

If the child doesn’t recognize the picture, the child won’t know what it is, unless the parents tell it, now will it?

It is up to parents to answer questions truthfully, soothingly, and carefully explain the things a child sees. It is bad parenting to have hysterics and communicate them to the child.

 

[mapleoak]

the comparison of headless store mannequins and bloodied dismembered babies is entirely accurate.

Oh well.

Are you saying mannequins such as these: aaadisplays.com/mannequins-headless.html are inappropriate? If so, that sure explains a lot.

 

[KarenNC]

I think you’ve confused yourself again.

If the child doesn’t recognize the picture, the child won’t know what it is, unless the parents tell it, now will it?

It is up to parents to answer questions truthfully, soothingly, and carefully explain the things a child sees. It is bad parenting to have hysterics and communicate them to the child.

I am not confused at all. You made the claim that children in this age bracket would not recognize that the picture was of a mutilated baby. I adamantly disagree.

The second part of the question was aimed at what, based on your premise, you proposed that a parent tell a child about the picture.

No one is talking about hysterics. We are talking about displaying inappropriate pictures in front of young children. The inappropriateness is independent of the means one uses to explain those inappropriate pictures.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I am not confused at all. You made the claim that children in this age bracket would not recognize that the picture was of a mutilated baby. I adamantly disagree.

Disagree all you want. Children that age have short attention spans and little experience. They often see things they do not understand.

The second part of the question was aimed at what, based on your premise, you proposed that a parent tell a child about the picture.

You tell a child the truth (when they ask.) You do it quitely and reassuringly, but instil in the child a good feeling for the evil of the act of abortion.

No one is talking about hysterics. We are talking about displaying inappropriate pictures in front of young children. The inappropriateness is independent of the means one uses to explain those inappropriate pictures.

Your very language is the language of hysteria – “inappropriate” has become the watch-word of the politically-correct crowd.

 

[Newbie2]

Maybe a better comparison would be a more graphic picture, like a persons guts ripped open or an accidential semi amputation (the limb is hanging on by a piece of skin) the sort of thing that you might see on an operating table in one of those surgery reality TV shows that warn you about the graphic content.

Or maybe that isnt a good comparison.

Actually, that’s a pretty good comparison.

That’s a self-serving argument advanced by those who do not wish to face up to their parental rsponsibilities.

It was a good example of grasping at straws by those who will not face up to their responsibilities.

Here we go again.

As has been pointed out many a time, when children get upset over pictures like this, it is simply their reaction to the parents’ response.

Look at the exhibition of bodies from China – when I was last in New York, city busses carried ads for this exhibition, huge, gruesome pictures of dead and dissected bodies on the sides of the busses. Yet no one complained about those graphic images!

When a woman is already pregnant, it is a little late to instil values in her. She must have grown up with those values – which means she must learn what abortion really is long before she’s old enough to get pregnant. That’s just basic good parenting.

Children aren’t scared by gross pictures until their parents get involved? Nobody complained about the graphic images of the “Bodies” exibition? Pregnant is too late to instill values in someone?

I think pictures of this sort should be posted in every high school and dorm bathroom. I think that every sex education class that supports “choice” should be required to show them.

That would make a statement. Practical, no, but probably effective.

I am glad we finally got around to discussing the appropriateness of showing graphic images of abortion. It is a subject that has been long neglected in CAF.

If the child doesn’t recognize the picture, the child won’t know what it is, unless the parents tell it, now will it?

It doesn’t have to be understood to be scary, no?

It is up to parents to answer questions truthfully, soothingly, and carefully explain the things a child sees. It is bad parenting to have hysterics and communicate them to the child.

There ya go, vern, something we agree on. :extrahappy:

But I digress. Back to the OP, the grosssness factor of the lung and the aborted fetus may be equal, but really, do you ever see a group of people picketing a smoke shop or convenience store with pictures of diseased lungs?

Best solution to the whole matter: if you have young children that may be affected by such pictures, stay away from abortion clinics. :newidea: And if you want to picket them…leave the kids at home if it’ll be a problem.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Children aren’t scared by gross pictures until their parents get involved?

People learn to be shocked, and the primary teachers are the parents.

Consider this – some cultures eat grubs, those little white worms you find under logs. They’re perfectly nutritious. But having taught survival courses, I know most Americans have a hard time eating them – in fact, most young troops gag and vomit when they first try.

Why? Because the people who eat them were taught at a young age that such things are good to eat, and young Americans are taught they are not.

And that early teaching is enough to cause violent physical reactions to such food.

Nobody complained about the graphic images of the “Bodies” exibition?

Not that I saw. I saw bus after bus with larger-than-lifesize flayed, dissected human corpses, but didn’t see anyone throwing things, picketing, or complaining.

Pregnant is too late to instill values in someone?

Do you really think a parent should wait until after a daughter gets pregnant to instill values in her?

 

[KarenNC]

Best solution to the whole matter: if you have young children that may be affected by such pictures, stay away from abortion clinics. :newidea: And if you want to picket them…leave the kids at home if it’ll be a problem.

That would be great, if people were only using these pictures at abortion clinics. In fact, I have specifically said many times that I can see the argument for using them at such a location (may not think it’s great, but I can see the argument). Actually, that level of discrimination in the use of the photos is all that anyone has asked.

Instead, here, I am confronted with the reality that they are plastering the pictures on cars in the grocery store parking lot (including cars clearly containing child booster seats), holding these signs up by the driveway to the Toys R US, Babies R Us and the mall (with no way to avoid them once you notice they are there), leaving them in the bathroom or on the tables at the McDonalds, or driving the trucks around the city miles from the nearest possible abortion provider. In other areas they are flying them over cities and beaches, parking the trucks in neighborhoods and outside churches on Sunday morning without permission, etc. These are the actions to which we are objecting, not the use of the images at an abortion clinic, in a pamphlet handed directly to an adult, in a sex ed class, on a website.

 

[estesbob]

That discrimination in the use of the photos is all that anyone has asked.

Instead, here, I am confronted with the reality that they are plastering the pictures on cars in the grocery store parking lot (including cars clearly containing child booster seats), holding these signs up by the driveway to the Toys R US, Babies R Us and the mall (with no way to avoid them once you notice they are .

Ill have to admit is seems a little strange to leave anit-abortion fliers at Babys R Us!

 

[deb1]

That’s what the argument always boils down to – “me”, "my child", "my right."

But never “my duty,” "my responsibility,“my obligation.”

And, as I pointed out, the exhibition of bodies from China is just as macbre, just as graphic, but it doesn’t invoke the white-hot hostility that graphic pictures of aborted children recieve.

I wonder why?

I have no idea why they don’t provoke the same reaction. As I have said before, I haven’t the opportunity to look at them. They don’t show them on buses here, or if they do I haven’t seen them myself. So, I can’t respond to that.

Yes, it is MY child and IT is MY right as a Parent to decide when to expose her to evil. Each parent has to gauge when their individual child is ready for this information.

My husband lost a considerable amount of family to the Holocaust but I did not want my three year old to be exposed to those pictures either. Now that she is nine, we have discussed some of the Holocaust with her. But even so, she has expressed fear that if her Grandparents had not left Austria there would be no her alive. How much more horrible is the idea of a mother allowing her child to be killed in her womb to a three year old.

 

[deb1]

Ahh yes, the art of parenting. Indeed a reflection of your reactions. If you choose to tell your three year old child (who probably could care less anyway depending on what you tell him) that these are the result of mothers choosing to slaughter their children, that is indeed your reaction to them causing their grief.

She was horrified by the pictures and pointed them out to me, first. Of course, I am outraged by what mothers can do to their children. Abortion is evil. But I don’t want to expose a three year old to this. She just wasn’t ready.

I fail to see how any of this will cause my child to be antiabortion. Instead, why not show children the pictures of a developing infant in the womb? My 11 year old daughter is studying the development of unborn infants in our school at this time. If every child had to study this in school-granted I homeschool- most women would be unable to deny the life that they carry.

 

[deb1]

I happened upon some “shocking” displays today of some decapitated images that you might want to shield your daughter from as they are quite common. They were life size department store window mannequins used to promote their clothing lines. They are full size human forms without heads. How would your child react upon seeing them?

The issue is not simply the grossness or horror of the images but the fact that abortion if evil. Children are innocent, and we as grownups are supposed to protect their innocence. I don’t understand the desire to expose them to evil before they are ready or their parents feel that they are ready.

I am uncertain how you can compare plastic mannequins with real babies who have been killed?

 

[deb1]

I think you’ve confused yourself again.

If the child doesn’t recognize the picture, the child won’t know what it is, unless the parents tell it, now will it?

It is up to parents to answer questions truthfully, soothingly, and carefully explain the things a child sees. It is bad parenting to have hysterics and communicate them to the child.

For the record, I did not have hysterics when I explained this to my child. There is no way to explain abortion to a three year old without upsetting them.

Give me a script that will not upset a three year old and yet still explain what abortion is.

 

[deb1]

People learn to be shocked, and the primary teachers are the parents.

Consider this – some cultures eat grubs, those little white worms you find under logs. They’re perfectly nutritious. But having taught survival courses, I know most Americans have a hard time eating them – in fact, most young troops gag and vomit when they first try.

Why? Because the people who eat them were taught at a young age that such things are good to eat, and young Americans are taught they are not.

And that early teaching is enough to cause violent physical reactions to such food.

Not that I saw. I saw bus after bus with larger-than-lifesize flayed, dissected human corpses, but didn’t see anyone throwing things, picketing, or complaining.

Do you really think a parent should wait until after a daughter gets pregnant to instill values in her?

I want people to be shocked at abortion. The problem is that you are teaching your child ***not ***to be shocked by something that is really murder. The images can be shown to an older teen after they have been taught that human life is sacred and about the development of the fetus. Hopefully the teen will be angry and shocked.

Come one, Vern. Do you really want a person to ***not ***be horrified by the photos of a aborted fetus? We should all be hurt over the death of a baby, but you are advocating now that I try to make my child not be shocked by abortion.

 

[KarenNC]

I fail to see how any of this will cause my child to be antiabortion. Instead, why not show children the pictures of a developing infant in the womb? My 11 year old daughter is studying the development of unborn infants in our school at this time. If every child had to study this in school-granted I homeschool- most women would be unable to deny the life that they carry.

Deb, we also homeschool. Since she was about 4 years old, my daughter has had a wonderful book called “My Body” that includes fetal development pictures along with pictures and information on other body systems like the respiratory, digestive, etc. She loves to look at the pregnancy and birth sections and has known quite well since at the latest the age of 4 that women who are pregnant have human babies in their wombs and that hurting babies (or anyone) is bad.

 

[KarenNC]

Ill have to admit is seems a little strange to leave anit-abortion fliers at Babys R Us!

You and me both. The prevailing argument I have been given is that some women who already have children also have abortions, an argument that I find to be extremely weak as a justification for this particular practice.

As I have said, I can see the justification for using these images at abortion clinics, in sex ed classes, in pamphlets handed to adults, at publicized rallies and marches, on websites, and other situations in which the obvious target is the people who are of an age to be possibly contemplating having an abortion. It is the behavior I described that makes no sense to me whatsoever.

 

[Elric]

Oh, I am not saying that that damage control will or can totally neutralize the effects. I don’t believe that it can. It can only work to mitigate them to the extent possible in the situation. There are many factors at work—the age of the child, the sensitivity of the child, the situation in which the exposure occurs, etc.

Vern is basically in the camp of saying that these giant color photos of bloody dismembered corpses of babies will have no effect whatsoever on any child outside of the way in which the parents react. I agree that that is totally inaccurate. Qutie young children are perfectly capable of knowing independent of their parents’ reactions that someone has done something really bad to that baby.

This is what I have been trying to express, but I am not able to articulate it as well as you have.

I have a friend with a child with Asperger’s, one with a child with a diagnosed anxiety disorder and worked for many years with children and adults with developmental disabilities, including autism. I have some understanding of where you are coming from (though I don’t have the 24/7 experience).

Thanks, its the better half that does the work. She has to deal with me, my son and my daughter every day, she really is a champion.

To be honest, I wouldnt have him any other way (he wouldnt be who he is). He is a great kid.

Our society deems it inappropriate to show visuals that the majority of people would agree are intentionally horrific to any young child without the permission of that child’s parents, however, including those with developmental disabilities and rightly so. I know for both me and my child, visuals have a much greater impact than words, precisely the reason vern wants to use them and precisely the reason that reasonable levels of care and discrimination should be exercised when using them as to the likely audience.

That is why I have told him over and over that if he deems it appropriate to show to his 3 year old, go right ahead, but don’t presume to make that decision for me and my child.

It sounds like they think along the lines of “the rules apply to everyone except me”.

 

[Delphinus85]

Thought this was an interesting answer to the abortionists who object to images of “fetal tissue” being used to dissuade people from getting abortions.

WARNING, SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC PHOTO

I agree with the article completely. I agree perfectly with using images to get the point across. I object when there areno warning. I am pro-life, and I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THOSE PICTURES. They have their place, to be sure. I object to people displaying them where children can see them without the parents having a chance to shield their eyes.

It’s obvious that it offends them because it is a human life. It needs to. People need to show images like this to women concidering abortion, along with ultrasounds, and severe counselling. (if we can’t get abortion criminalized again) they have their place. But please, please, PLEASE, don’t put them where kids can see.

 

[Delphinus85]

Actually, that’s a pretty good comparison.

Here we go again.

Children aren’t scared by gross pictures until their parents get involved? Nobody complained about the graphic images of the “Bodies” exibition? Pregnant is too late to instill values in someone?



That would make a statement. Practical, no, but probably effective.



It doesn’t have to be understood to be scary, no?

There ya go, vern, something we agree on. :extrahappy:

But I digress. Back to the OP, the grosssness factor of the lung and the aborted fetus may be equal, but really, do you ever see a group of people picketing a smoke shop or convenience store with pictures of diseased lungs?

Best solution to the whole matter: if you have young children that may be affected by such pictures, stay away from abortion clinics. :newidea: And if you want to picket them…leave the kids at home if it’ll be a problem.

The bodies exhibition was NOT in public arenas. And about the abortion clinics thing, that is a horrible example. You can’t get to the local catholic school in my town without driving past a planned parenthood. You also can’t get to the grocery store either. Maybe these images have better use being shown in flyers to women going into those places, rather than on huge signs where children see them. They have their place, using them to scare the wits out of innocent kids is neither helpful or moral. Are you going to show them to your 5 year old?

 

[mapleoak]

I am uncertain how you can compare plastic mannequins with real babies who have been killed?

It is that it so well illustrates the motiff of parental reaction being the causitive element in childrens’ reactions. The preschoolers are not at all disturbed by the fact that there are life size headless human representations. Why? Because their parents aren’t running from the store saying “O my gosh…a headless person!”. Now if the parents were to act in such manner, I would hazard to guess the child would be “emotionally harmed”. The exact same thing applies to graphic abortion photos. It is dependent on how the parents react to them.

 

[mapleoak]

I want people to be shocked at abortion. The problem is that you are teaching your child ***not ***to be shocked by something that is really murder.

“Shock value” in and of itself is of little beneficial value. It is of more value for people to be informed and educated about something than to be shocked by it. Why would you want people to be shocked at abortion. How is it of benefit to withhold showing the reality of abortion so that the appropriate time (what is the appropriate time) they can be displayed and shock people with them. It is much better if people were constantly reminded of the tragedy happening before them, lest they become complacent.
People tend to forget what is not constantly placed before them. Why do you think Coca-Cola keeps putting pop ads everywhere. They certainly wouldn’t if one showing would suffice as then they would never have to advertise again.

The images can be shown to an older teen after they have been taught that human life is sacred and about the development of the fetus. Hopefully the teen will be angry and shocked.

What does getting angry and shocked do for them. It is better if they can think rationally about it.