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...
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I am against abortion.
I am horrified by it altogether.
I teach my children the horrors of it.
But that’s the thing, I teach them. I find these trucks to be offensive when they go where children can see them. My nephew was horribly traumatized by one of these at the beach. It wasn’t fair.
They give Pro-Life people a bad name.
Flame away.
I agree that these images are offensive, but they should be offensive, 3500 abortions a day is far more offensive to me. And yes, they can be particularly traumatic to children, but not nearly as traumatic as the infanticide endured by 50 million babies since 1973.
Checkmate!
I applaud their idea and actions.
Not as traumatized as the victim.
Until the society face up to the evils of abortion, it will never stop, and how can society face up to the evil if we can’t show why it is evil?
The pictures are gruesome because the act is gruesome. I’m sorry but I’m glad your nephew was traumatized, the problem right now is precisely not enough people are traumatized. A million dead babies every year SHOULD traumatize us all. It should make us all scream in abject horror.
I wonder though, what kind of name do these trucks give Pro-Choice people?
Your nephew was traumatized because the predominant message he gets from his school, his friends, and the media is that this "fetus" thing is not a human being. He should have seen those images within the framework of his moral training by his family.
May his trauma develop into activism within his age group to educate his peers that it's a child, not a choice.
“...And yes, they can be particularly traumatic to children, but not nearly as traumatic as the infanticide...”
So you are saying it is the equivalent to collateral damage in war. You’re probably right. But from a purely war-of-words strategy I’m not completely convinced that graphic bloody photos are the way to go. I think the high quality photos or videos of the babies in early development and looking/acting like wonderful human babies are perhaps our most potent weapon.
The testimonials of women who regret the decision to abort and are haunted by callous “doctors” performing the abortion and saying things like “he is trying to get away” are supremely powerful.
The Drudge and elsewhere run photo of the tiny arm projecting from the tummy was a memorable image.
>>I’m sorry but I’m glad your nephew was traumatized<<
You can’t be both.
FReepers champion “parental rights” when it comes to many things.
This should be another.
You don’t have the right to scare or sicken children so that you can show these horrors to the adults that need to see them.
Stay away from the beaches and amusement parks. Show some class.
>>The Drudge and elsewhere run photo of the tiny arm projecting from the tummy was a memorable image<<
That would work for me.
It’s not collateral damage, the truth hurts sometimes. but it must be faced.
You cannot demonstrate the evils of murder just by showing the beauty of life, you also have to show the horrors of ending that life through violence.
You’re not alone in this opinion. I agree with you completely.
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