ON GRAPHIC 'PRO LIFE' CAMPAIGNS

ON GRAPHIC ‘PRO LIFE’ CAMPAIGNS

Hey kids!  Today I’m slapping the fundies and the conservative zealots with logic and awesomeness, and this lil’ piece is going to be sooooooooo inflammatory that no amount of ibuprofen could ever take away the glaring swelling of reality.   

I am tired of hypocritical, obsolete reactionaries calling themselves "Pro Life" and concerning themselves with what choices women make with their bodies.  It’s kinda like sticking your nose into somebody's business.  But it’s more like sticking your inconsistent moral code into somebody's vagina.

I have noticed a few two tonne trucks roaming the city lately, all decked out in bloody, graphic anti - abortion livery.  Cruising down the street for anybody to see are huge full colour images of freshly aborted foetuses and the like.  

Nobody wants to see this.  Not people on either side of this ridiculous 'debate.'  Anti - abortion people don't want to see this because it's preaching to the choir, and it's graphic.  Their eyes are too fragile.  Sensible, democratic people don't want to see scare tactics pandering to misguided emotion, because they can educate themselves and make their own informed decisions when they choose.  Such images are available for those that seek them out.  Talk to your doctor.  

If you are at a stage in your life when you are considering your options and contemplating parenthood, adoption, or abortion, there are many resources available to you, and the health care community won’t lie to you.  When you need  them, there are options, and when you need it, there is a wealth of real information to be found.  And it won’t be found plastered to the sides of f*****g delivery trucks.  [Delivery trucks.  Ha.]  

People don't purposely conceive a child simply to 'kill a baby.'  They choose to abort undeveloped organic matter before it becomes a child that may not get the care it deserves.

I’m not calling for an end of these abortion ‘still life’ images.  Humans have the right to document most things they experience.  But bloody pictures of lumps of dead flesh - enlarged to show texture, like Mini Wheats - should be an 18+ experience.  I mean, if Robocop’s Rated R, then maybe uterus related jazz should be as well.  In reality I’m always against censorship and age limits, but let’s at least have an even playing field here.

I am not suggesting these propaganda pictures are not accurate.  They probably do depict an operating table scenario.  A scenario an actual doctor or mother could explain.  But maybe instead of blown up shots of bloody, undeveloped limbs of no educational value, accompanied by bait words like MURDER….  we could turn to….  I dunno…. EDUCATED PROFESSIONALS WHO DEAL WITH THE REALITY OF ABORTION EVERY DAY.

And so it comes to pass that I urge these so called 'pro lifers' to curb their hypocrisy.  These same people who jack off to censorship at every opportunity and call for strict artistic guidelines, ambiguous rating codes for films, and 'parental advisory' labels for music are advocating taking bloody X - Rated foetus photo ops on a public cross country tour?

Really?  

Art should be censored, but any innocent child on a sidewalk, regardless of their ability to read, should be subject to images such as these?  If these scenes were included in a film or art display these same alleged 'pro lifers' would protest the art and call for censorship.  They would demonize the artists and lobby for content removal.  Because when you’re a religious zealot, you can get away with anything, simply by whining like a feeble b***h and crying that you’re ‘offended.’  If you’re democratic, progressive, rational, accept science, and live in the year 2012, it’s an uphill battle.  Reason, liberty, and choice become threatened rights in the face of a violent, entrenched enemy of irrational bigotry.

We could debate ‘when life begins’ forever.  Damn, we could go Ultra Crazy Fundamentalist and say that life begins with a sperm or an egg.  In which case, with every ejaculation, every coupling, every menstruation and every wet dream we all become mass murderers.  Hell, last week at your sister’s I must have committed genocide, what with all the protection and messiness and all.  

But when the sun sets none of this really matters.  What does matter is that there is a discourse going on in the public sphere, and this discourse may influence the way some people see abortion.  This is a conversation for those interested in the subject and willing to learn.  It is a conversation for the homes, and, perhaps, the schools.  But this conversation should always employ facts and reason.  It should cite sources and engage professionals and ask hard ethical questions.

What it should not do is reduce itself to tasteless, pandering, bloody distraction on the side of a truck.

So to all you anti abortion fanatics out there:  I disagree with your cause and your supposed case.  But even if I was on board I would want to engage in a real dialogue, and not wrap trucks in Graphic Horror Quasi - Snuff Pics.  That would seem pretty damn hypocritical for somebody who values censorship.

My advice to y’all dinosaur pro lifers is simply this:  You have the right to fight for your cause, however obsolete and ridiculous it may be.  This is because the progressive values of liberalism have granted you these rights.  I understand your rights, and I understand that’s you are legally entitled to advertise and promote your views to the public.  I support this.

I also think that slimy red foetus campaigns are tasteless, desperate, and contribute nothing to the discourse that actual thinking people are engaged in.  

If my kid is forced to see bloody images on the sides of trucks then your sad shell of a sheltered sperm should be forced to watch Robocop.  

Let’s have an honest debate with words, because if you opt instead to drive around in a large f*****g truck with tiny bloody limbs plastered to the side, I’m going to cut you down and apply the C word.

And nobody wants to be called cantankerous.