Posted on 01/15/2002 7:29:08 PM PST by Ronaldus Magnus
MONROE, Wis. -- An abortion opponent who publicizes his protests with large scale pictures of aborted fetuses said he's ready to continue his fight against Monroe if the city adopts another sign ordinance.
The Common Council will hold a public hearing tonight on a second try at a sign ordinance.
The first one it adopted was declared unconstitutional after Pastor Ralph Ovadal (pictured last summer at a Mazomanie nude beach protest) and Christ the King Church challenged it.
The previous ordinance restricted the signs to 3 square feet, except for business signs.
Ovadal and his followers had taken their large signs to the city's business square where Planned Parenthood has an office.
City officials agreed to repeal the first ordinance and dismiss citations against Ovadal and his group to settle the federal lawsuit.
Ovadal says the new sign proposal is simply the old one dusted off.
Ovadal and other church members were cited earlier last year for placing literature on parked cars in Monroe that was critical of Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and for displaying signs in a grassy area along side Highway 69 in Monroe.
And when one looks closely at the earth, from deep in the oceans to high up in the sky, and on to all four quadrants, and on every continent, and in every quarter, the whole world is teeming with one thing: Life.
I don't think such pictures should be illegal, but I really think they hurt rather than help the cause. I think the same is true, BTW, of some of PETA's "shock" ads. Attempting to make someone uncomfortable is more apt to make them dislike you than anyone else.
These photographs are the most accurate image of abortion available. Those who fear the revelation of the truth usually have something to hide.
In a sense they are the most "accurate" image, but in another sense they miss the essential point. I think it's much better and more effective to focus on the positives of life. Things like the picture of the fetus grasping at the doctor's finger after he performed surgery on it.
Trying to illustrate abortion by showing pictures of blood and gore is like trying to illustrate the Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statuary by showing pictures of the rubble. Far more effective to show what once existed and does no longer.
Pick a side, never waver, and fight with everything you have.
Have a good life all.
I am not hoping to make anyone dislike anyone else. I simply want people to have the right to show this atrocity for what it is. I agree that it is beneficial to show the positive option, but I also feel that it is necessary to show the consequences of the negative option. This is a two sided issue and focusing on one side of the argument at the exclusion of the other prevents a conclusive result.
For instance, let's pretend it's 1943 and I am in Germany protesting the state sponsored internment and murder of people of Jewish ancestry. It would be good for me to portray the positive potential these people could have if they were free, educated, and respected with full human dignity. This, however, is insufficient. It is also necessary to show the horrific repercussions that result from their subjugation for people to be able to make an informed judgment. If you are ever ever in Washington D.C., visit the Holocaust Memorial and you may develop a better understanding of this distinction.
I have been there, and appreciate where you're coming from. There may be some useful parallels, but I don't see the shock-photos of aborted fetuses fitting that categorization.
At the Holocaust museum, there are some photos of stacks of corpses, but the museum shows nothing like the blood and gore of the anti-abortion shock-photos. Instead, the museum shows the "machinery" of the holocaust, and emphasises its truly aweful scale. The photos of corpses are not set out to be visually shocking, but instead have a disturbing 'matter-of-fact'ness to them.
Indeed, if one is trying to expose the horrors of abortion, this would be a much better tack to take than pushing shock-photos on people. Not sure how it could best be done, but it should be considered...
Hey, I have a good idea, instead of showing real photos, they ought to dress up the little tikes, you know, put clothes on them.
They can do just like they are doing with the statue of the three firefighters raising the flag on the World Trade Center. You know, change them so they are more politically correct.
With all that you can do with a computer graphics program these days, I am sure they can do a lot to make the aborted babies look cute instead of gorry. I mean, just cause that is what they actually look like is no reason they should look like that.
We may actually be onto something here. I agree with you, the aborted babies should not look like that.
Perhaps that matter of factness is due to the fact that most of those holocaust pics were taken by the perps themselves. By the time other folks came around with cameras, all that was left were gravesites, machinery and graves.
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