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...
I don’t think anyone was arguing against having the signs at abortion clinics. If I recall correctly, we all agreed that was appropriate.
>>I sincerely believe that this group is not taking the trucks to beaches and amusement parks<<
I don’t appreciate being called a liar.
You can look back at this thread and see examples.
However, there is no sense discussing with someone who disregards the truth.
I thought it made the point with the truck signs, too.
You’re talking about adults.
I have no problem with targeting adults.
I have a problem with targeting “family venues”.
>>I thought it made the point with the truck signs, too.<<
I would LOVE to see those trucks in our downtown area at 9:00pm on a Friday night I would whoop and holler support as I drove by.
Tact is a marvelous thing. More flies can be caught with honey than vinegar. At 2:00pm, at a beach parking lot, this shows no tact.
And in my opinion, does no good.
It is also possible that seeing pictures of babies in the womb would be more likely to change their perception of what is happening inside them, but perhaps that varies from woman to woman.
The concern of some on this thread is that every effort should be made to prevent young children from viewing the pictures of aborted babies. I am one of those who believes that young children should be protected.
I didn't "call you" anything! I simply posted my opinion.
If you weren't so rude, I might consider asking you why you think this group is the same as the one you saw, but considering your attitude, I can't be bothered.
I understand what you and others are saying and would be tempted to agree with you, but still take issue with shielding from the truth. It is the killers who made what is in the pics and that is truth. Does it traumatize the children? Maybe and just maybe not, but let me tell you about my wife.
We as parents naturally want to protect our children from harm and evil, but we also do not want to cover up truth even at an early age.
She was born prematurely because the Nazis invaded her town and she was raised under the clouds of war, seeing from infancy the brutality and ugliness and body parts war brings. Yet, when the good guys, us Americans, came to drive out the enemy, she recognized that truth even at a tender age, instinctively ran out to greet the liberators. But they could not put blinders on the kids as they drove out the enemy. The kids saw what they saw and amazingly understood. Kids can be resilient in recognizing truth and not be traumatized.
I know several from that cohort and to a person, they are solid in their lack of traumatic damage. What good would shielding have done to any of them? None.
Well more than sixty years later, my wife retains a strong stable character in spite of or perhaps because of that exposure to horror. She has carried those same posters and she approves of the trucks. We have never thought of hiding kids from truth, would rather stomp out the killers. And that is what we are about.
Other than anecdotal evidence, do you have any proof your technique works better than other methods of persuasion? Your post tells me you see the world in black and white. You find it impossible to believe that anybody can see the world differently than you do without being forever doomed to hell.
It's impossible to conduct a logical discussion with radical activists of either side.
People who inhabit these threads actually seem sympathetic to Eric Rudolph.
Holding a discussion is thus pointless. Flame on, I'm outta here.
I'm glad my parents were kind and caring enough to do so for me. I would hope that other parents would do the same.
Last night you had the unmitigated gall to compare the pro-life movement to Code Pink. Today you exhibit the same disrespect for the pro-life movement with the pathetic claim that we are sympathetic to Eric Rudolph.
Of course, on MadmanIvan's anti-FReeper site you responded to this post:
ROFLOL ~~~~~ I just had a vision with your post instead of people checking the DU to see what they are saying of people checking FR to see what they are saying. Seems there isn't a lot of difference these days.
With this reply:
I forget when I first heard the idea that the political spectrum is more like a circle than a straight line. The far "left" end and the far "right" end are actually right next to each other on the circle with the rest of us falling to some distance away from both of them.
This is true. Abortion is a moral crime that will someday be viewed with the same "I can't believe our country used to do that" horror as slavery.
>>I didn’t “call you” anything! I simply posted my opinion.
If you weren’t so rude, I might consider asking you why you think this group is the same as the one you saw, but considering your attitude, I can’t be bothered.<<
You state that the facts that I am telling are not to be believed.
Yet, I’m rude?
Okay.
I understand your desire to shield children from life’s harsh realities when they are tenderly young and vulnerable to shocks...
But the shredding of 40 million plus unborn children, mostly on the altar of convenience, is something that I am sure is intolerable in the eyes of God...this is a horror that few of us can bear to fully comprehend. We SHOULD be shocked, even or especially those of us who are putatively pro-life. We, and our children, should meditate on this, that every day 3,500 more dead, innocent, unborn children make their way to the Throne of the Almighty to accuse us of indifference. Yes, indifference.
The pro-life movement has lost its passion, and become merely a catch-phrase of moral back-patting. How do we know this? By realizing that we firmly believe that the evil we pretend to deplore is something to protect children from knowing about.
The dead children in those photos should be mourned by everyone. All the dead children should be mourned—where are the tears? Too unfashionable, too embarrassing. They should be giving all of us—especially adults—nightmares.
When was the last time WE had a nightmare about abortion?
No wonder pro-choicers can defeat us so easily in lawmaking. We have no tears, no passion, no love for the dead unborn. We feel superior, likely, to the woman who aborts her baby. Well, I remember what the Bible has to say about the lukewarm, and I have a concern that all of us conservatives have become that way.
The trucks with pictures are at least presenting the dreadful truth. Your nephew will make it past the “trauma,” especially with such a doting aunt.
Meanwhile, unborn children in the thousands are shredded and murdered every day.
I just wonder what we have become, us peaceful, loving, pro-lifers. Us gentle protesters against the holocaust. Us tidy, emotionally healthy, kind, detached pro-lifers.
I mentioned my wife was exposed to the horrors of war early on. Her mom would have loved to shield her, but there was no choice and she was two months premature at the beginning of the horrors. So she was exposed to the raw uncoated truth of that evil throughout her tender years when we protective parents would love to block it all. Yes, there was an effect. She can see keenly through sugar coated wrappings and perceive the evil that is covered up and does it very well. What about trauma and shock and nightmares? Nope, not there. Would it have helped if the occupying enemy dressed the dead bodies in nice clothes and made them look peaceful? Nope.
Back to 9/11, they did all that early in the morning when kids could see, and people could see the horrors of that atrocity anywhere they saw a tv. The MSM and those who wish to favor the terrorists want us not to see those images. They want us to spread the honey. Me, I see the honey useful as attracting the bad guys and including a big dose of fire ants.
The one who responded to my earlier post got the zot, but said I saw things in black and white. So I better add so nobody thinks I am a right wing radical crazy zealot, that we were at those demonstrations with our horrible image posters on behalf of our mentor of the day, Father Paul Marx, founder of Human Life International and dubbed by the Pope as Apostle of Life. We are both very conservative Catholics much due to his examples.
When I was young, I tried to protect my little brother from seeing any evil, did my best to keep him naive. Now I see it wrong and would not repeat that. Remember we are showing the horror done by the bad guys and we are keeping them from hiding it. They want us to hide their atrocities, they want to cover the bitter with honey. We abet them when we cover our kids with the honey. And, as parents, we cannot sell our kids short. They know what that honey is and they know they are being shielded. Maybe that is not the best lesson.
And since it's perfectly legal, that makes it okay. I getcha.
Do you apply the same logic to abortion? After all, it's perfectly legal.
You know how I posted on the Michigan forum that my neighbor and good friend Ruth was murdered two weeks ago? All of my kids knew Ruth. Josh knew her best, since he is the oldest. He's known her for five years, since he was just turning five years old.
He wanted to know why I was crying and praying so much the day she was attacked. I told him that someone beat her up and that she might not get better. He made a few comments which made me realize he thought she might end up wheelchair-bound or bedridden (she died two days after the attack). I explained to him that she was hurt so badly that she would probably die. He was very upset at that, obviously, not because he knew her and liked her but because he's a kid. He was scared to know that the person who beat Ruth was not caught. I spent a lot of time that weekend making him realize that his Dad and I do everything we can to keep him and his brothers safe. Two weeks later and he's still jumpy.
I did not tell him the particulars of the beating. I did not tell my nine year old son that a woman he knew was struck at least four times in the head with a hammer. I didn't tell him that the emergency surgery performed in an attempt to save Ruth's life involved removing part of her skull and part of her brain, and still she died. I didn't need to tell him any of that. He was horrified enough to know the palest facts of what happened. I shudder to think how disturbed he'd have been if he'd accidentally been shown the autopsy photos--but at least then I could be sure that he got the point: Murder is bad.
There are so many places the debated images could be used effectively--you've named many of them yourself, and I agree with what you've stated. I could name ten places off the top of my head--right here in the Lansing/East Lansing area--in which the images could be used quite effectively, and none of those places are venues in which children are known to frequent. But why should the pro-life movement limit itself in such a manner when we are able to be just as irresponsible and thoughtless as the pro-death crowd?
I stand by what I have stated: The use of these images as billboards has turned more people away from the pro-life movement than it has saved babies. As such, it is an ineffective tactic.
Yep, as long as NARAL and Planned Parenthood are able to continue to brainwash the kids, it is okay to tell them the truth about abortion.
Do you apply the same logic to abortion? After all, it's perfectly legal.
LOL Nice try, but YOU'RE the one saying that we should be hiding the truth about abortion.
I’m so, so sorry Dear Heart.
Abortion is child abuse. Telling the truth about abortion, though it might shock, it not child abuse.
No wonder people don’t support libertarians.
ROFL Is that supposed to be some sort of insult, kid?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.