Abortion Ad “Too Controversial”
There’s been plenty of buzz about the proposed Pain-Capable abortion legislation currently running the gauntlets of the Texas legislature and the US Senate. I can’t help but to wonder whether the pro-choice movement has lost its momentum (perhaps that’s why many seem reduced almost entirely to one-liner rhetoric and name-calling). I say this because fewer and fewer folks are OK with abortion. Especially, it seems, among those under the age of 35. Abortion remains a hotly contested and complicated issue, and most of those same youngsters who find abortion morally questionable aren’t comfortable making abortion illegal.
This data compels us to ask why. Why the decline? My guess? We can see what we’re talking about now. Sonograms and ultrasounds are clearer and more available than ever before, and when expecting parents see the fingers and toes of the little life they’ve created, it’s immensely powerful. Before the faintest hint of a baby bump, we can now see what is otherwise entirely unseen.
And expecting parents aren’t the only ones with this new sight. What’s the first thing you do these days with the first photo of your little one? Post it to all your sundry social media outlets of course, which exposes countless folks to the (literal) face of what, in this type of scenario, no one calls a fetus.
With these images, something that once was abstract becomes concrete. This is the motivation behind the following ad in support for the Pain-Capable Act and why several newspapers refused to run it, claiming the image is “too controversial.”
According to World Magazine, these papers based their censor on alleged ambiguity as to whether the child is dead or alive, which is why one of the publications agreed to run the ad with an alternative image of the same remarkably developed gestation stage en utero (the other two still refused to print it).
It’s odd, really. Those three papers should know better. They should know that the quickest way to make sure everyone sees what you’re trying to hide is to ban it.
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About The Author
Renea McKenzie
(Editor in Chief) is a poet whose work often centers around the relationships between nature and the city, loss and love, faith and protest. She holds an MLA in English Literature and an MA in African American Studies. In between her two Masters degrees, Renea took a "gap year" to study theology at the famous L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. L'Abri is also where she read the Harry Potter saga for the first time and fell in love with the characters and the story's triumph of sacrificial love. Renea leads an incredibly talented creative writing group at her church and spends a fair amount of time binging books and Netflix and swing dancing at the historic Sons of Hermann Hall.
Renea,
This is really good. It reminds me of a blog recently posted by Kirk Spencer asking why the royal child of England has not been referred to as a royal fetus. http://forchristandculture.com/2012/12/06/why-arent-we-calling-it-the-royal-fetus/
Thanks for the link, Scott. “Our language often reveals fundamental truths about the way we view the world.” Yes indeed.
“How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted by them, then we are making the judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view of women is unworthy of feminism.”
Naomi Wolf, feminist author and advocate of legal abortion, in “Our Bodies, Our Souls”, The New Republic, 10/15/1995
Excellent quote. Thanks for sharing.