Posted on 08/10/2007 10:34:35 AM PDT by wagglebee
CALGARY, August 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In contrast with the media blackout that pro-life Canadians are used to expecting at their demonstrations, media coverage of the Reproductive Choice Campaign trucks rolling on Calgary streets this week has been lively. The trucks feature three-metre high photos of aborted children and an email address for more information.
Local papers and radio stations were joined by CBC and Global News who took video footage, while CTV News Calgary has run a two-minute television news spot three times in the last two days and included the sponsoring group's website address. This coverage constitutes a frenzy compared to the nearly total media blackout that is traditional at pro-life events such as the annual March for Life event in Ottawa.
The Calgary Sun headlined today's article, "Graphic abortion images shock Calgarians" and carried the CTV story verbatim in print form. A smaller local paper, Fast Forward Weekly, ran the headline "Little truck of horrors" and quoted Stephanie Gray, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, the truck's sponsoring group, responding to the accusations of shocking onlookers. "If there is nothing wrong with abortion, the images shouldn't bother them," she said.
A talk radio station, CHQR 770, has been broadcasting their report on the trucks every half hour from noon yesterday to five pm today. 630 CHED radio in Edmonton will carry a live 30-minute interview with Gray and she will be on 940 Montreal at 10:35 am EST for ten minutes.
CTV's video spot, which is available online, clearly shows close-ups of the photos and reporter Najuma Yagzan says, "You can clearly distinguish a body, hands and feet."
Jose Ruba, a cofounder and staffer of CCBR who today drove the support car accompanying the trucks, told LifeSiteNews.com that this was likely the first time the GAP pictures had been seen on English-language Canadian television.
"We had the GAP photos in Ottawa in 2004 when Planned Parenthood was giving Henry Morgentaler a lifetime achievement award and the national French-language TV used the images. But even when the CBC covered the controversy over the GAP display at UBC [in 2000], they only filmed the GAP images from 30 or 40 feet away."
"The whole story at UBC then was about the signs, but they didn't even show them. So today's coverage from so many sources was a big win for us in that they showed the signs," Ruba said.
Onlookers interviewed by CTV agreed that the images are "shocking" but also that they depict something true. "I've had nothing to do with it personally, so you don't think seriously about it, but looking at that, you can see the murder aspect of it all," one man said.
CTV offered a counter argument from a spokesman of Sexual Health Access Alberta (SHAA), but declined to mention that the group is an abortion advocating organization that until September 2006 was called Planned Parenthood Alberta. SHAA's Executive Director, Laura Wershler, criticised the tactic saying, "In those circumstances there's no opportunity for meaningful discussion or debate."
But Stephanie Gray told LifeSiteNews.com that she and her group were still waiting to hear back from Wershler on their offer of a public debate. Gray said, "I contacted Laura requesting a debate partner and I'm waiting to hear back from her and this is months ago."
CCBR said they contacted Wershler on November 16, 2006 on behalf of the pro-life club at the University of Calgary. "I emailed her a sample debate format and agreed that the debate should be a civil one with a neutral moderator."
"I'm still waiting to hear back from her," Gray said.
Wershler did not return calls from LifeSiteNews.com by deadline.
Onlookers interviewed by CTV, however, showed no signs of psychological trauma from seeing the photos. In one street interview, a young woman appeared unsettled but admitted that the images were depicting the reality of abortion, "To me, that's really harsh, but that's reality I guess. It's what happens when you have an abortion. But, wow, that is graphic, yeah."
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Billboard-Size Abortion Photos to be Shown throughout Canada as Trucks Take the Message to the Streets
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07080802.html
Pro-Life GAP Display At UBC Causes an Uproar
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2000/oct/00102501.html
Bloggers Trump Mainstream Media With YouTube Videos of Canadian March for Life
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07051705.html
Watch CTV coverage:
http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/B/200...
Honey reaches more than vinegar.
Too bad most of the Pro-Life organizations are ignorant of that simple fact. 
.
I agree as well. I wouldn’t subject my young children to a photo of a beheading, or a shotgun blast to the face — that is murder as well and happens on a daily basis, too.
You know, the other day my eldest daughter and I were talking about abortion and why it was wrong. Afterwards, my youngest (9-years-old) approached me and asked why doctors weren’t put in jail because they are murdering innocent people! She didn’t need to see a graphic picture of the results to understand why it was wrong.
We have a responsibility to teach the horrors of abortion, but we also have a responsibility to respect and protect the children who are in our world as well... Psychological trauma can affect children in many ways — some not even apparent until they are older. If we truly wish to stop the culture of death we shouldn’t be so irresponsible as to disrespect those children who are alive!
Just my $.02 — and I still think abortion is murder...
Doesn’t light a fire under me... It makes me think of hypocrisy frankly... Respect life, but don’t respect the children that are HERE???
Not everyone thinks exactly like you, not everyone is reached the same way. Some people instinctively know it to be wrong, some people needs to see how terrible it is to recognize this fact.
In the case of a blatantly widespread evil, it’s good if children get shocked about it. Nobody’s complaining about how, for example, the skeleton and ghost motifs of Halloween are shocking children. I guess it’s different when we play for keeps. How many days of abortions would it take to equal the carnage count of a decade of American beheadings and shotgun blasts in faces? Well under a month? “A little child will lead them.”
I'd think it wise for pro-life parents to tell their children the reason that people are showing horrible images of this stuff. I'd bet the children, though horrified at the sight, would then well understand.
>So would YOU be as supportive of a group showing dead and butchered soldiers to end the war? That’s what war is really like.
No, I don’t support it, because I don’t support their objective, and their methodology is irrelevant
But I do support showing the pictures of what happened on 9/11, which the MSM have almost completely censored, because seeing them might “traumatize” (there is that word again) people. Do you think that’s the real reason, or do you think it’s because they are afraid seeing those horrific pictures might get people angry, and motivate them to do something about it?
I remember a woman who commented on the fact that the crucified Jesus was traumatic to children and some people found it offensive!
My husband and I are very pro-life and we have always had a pro-life sticker on our car. Well one day a good friend of ours confided in me she had had an abortion and after telling me she also told my husband that it really bothered her when she saw that pro-life sticker on our car BUT she never would have never asked us to take it off. I have two other friends who have had abortions more than one and they all know how I feel about abortion but they knew my compassion was not just for the baby but for them too. I also met a young girl whose mother had been raped but decided to keep her. As I looked at this lovely girl I was confronted with the fact that so many people believe she should have been murdered through abortion. But evil did not get to claim this young girl.And that is what we are fighting EVIL. And if we the American people cannot stand firm and fight for these defenseless children then we will be doomed by it!
Oh no pictures of dead babies.....don’t show us pictures if dead babies.
The reason you all need to see pictures of dead babies is - there are dead babies! More every day.......being killed every day ........and your concern is the pictures.............geez.........complain to God, why don’t you? “God I had to and my kids had to see these awful pictures of dead babies”, “God these people who show the dead baby pictures are horrible”......”make em stop”!
Yea just like every time the holocaust is presented in the context of “never again”....pictures of happy, healthy and safe Jews and Gypsies are shown.
The truth sets people free and the truth about abortion is ugly and vile. It still needs to be shown not whitewashed with little cutie pictures that don’t offend the sensitive “I can’t handle it” type.
"In those circumstances there's no opportunity for meaningful discussion or debate."
Laura's side doesn't like the images because they show that there is no debate. Her side depends on sophistry, whereas a photograph depicts reality.
Seeing something like your sticker might remind her that deep down, what she did was awful. It jars her out of her comfort zone.
Post-abortive women who come to terms with that do so in tears, and very often become staunch defenders of life. Let's pray that friend becomes one of them.
Carolyn
Don't try to put words in my mouth!
War is a necessary evil, abortion is not.
The “honey” of motherhood images are available every day in American consumer advertising. This particular campaign is meant to educate people to the idea that throwing away unborn children is ugly and terrible wrong.
A statement about the Face the Truth tour:
http://www.prolifenews.tv/index.php/site/C8/
DefendLife.org Face the Truth Tour 2007 To Be Held July 30th - August 3rd
The Washington D.C. area Face the Truth Tour is hosted by DefendLife.org and will be held next week from July the 30th to August the 3rd. Stops will include Charlestown, WV, Naval Observatory, Holocaust Museum, Harford Comm. College and many more. Go to DefendLife.org for the entire schedule and to read more.
A Face the Truth Tour is an event where Pro-Life people show up at heavily trafficed areas, pull out large signs of aborted babies, and proceed to show people driving and walking by what abortion really is. This event is held around the country in different cities.
This year, ProLifeNews.tv will be broadcasting live video and audio from the field so people can see what a Face the Truth Tour really looks like. Go to the ProLifeNews.tv website on Monday for broadcast times and events.
The event is highly controversial, even in the Pro-Life movement. Many people say that the signs shouldn’t be used in public because children might be exposed to them. Pro-Life people who use the signs say that not only have they saved lives after men and women have seen them, but that they are necessary to show people what the truth of abortion looks like.
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I don't think that's what he/she meant at all.
I am reminded of another horror with far less victims. On 9/11 murderous slime attacked us and it was covered by the media. Using the same approach, the MSM wanted us to forget what we saw and not to look at the pictures of the crimes perpetrated against us Americans. We were to offer honey instead? We were to forget and not think about it?
I have told the story before of one decent lady who confronted us and we asked what happens when an abortion takes place. She said the pregnancy just sort of goes away. She could not confront the reality that a human being is shredded alive in the process. We are not supposed to consider the images of the people falling from the towers either. We may hurt the feelings of some of the guilty. I remember another time a priest pulled a little baby corpse from the dumpster and held it in his arms. The murderers so outraged at the images like on the truck reacted. One pulled the little body from the Priest's arms and stomped it into the ground. That is one way to rid oneself of those awful images.
Evil is evil. We can confront it or hide from it or stick a flower in a gun barrel and hope our enemies will be nice.
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