I'm considering this new look header for my vigorously pro-life blog.
Do you like it?
I can't see any reason why this header would put people off reading my blog, can you?
IF CATHOLICS WHO ARE AGAINST ABORTION CANNOT BEAR TO LOOK AT THESE IMAGES AND FIND THEM OFFENSIVE, THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD 'PRO-CHOICE' MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC REACT OTHERWISE?
Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
UPDATE:
ABOVE WAS A GRAPHIC ABORTION IMAGE.
IT HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN UPON REQUEST BY A PRO-LIFE CATHOLIC.
THE REQUEST TO REMOVE IT CAME APPROXIMATELY
1 MINUTE AFTER UPLOAD.
1 MINUTE AFTER UPLOAD.
IF CATHOLICS WHO ARE AGAINST ABORTION CANNOT BEAR TO LOOK AT THESE IMAGES AND FIND THEM OFFENSIVE, THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD 'PRO-CHOICE' MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC REACT OTHERWISE?
Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
42 comments:
For God's sake delete that. Tell people to Google "abortion" if they want to see the reality.
It just comes across as bullying, and bullying doesn't change hearts and minds. The "tough love" approach is perhaps justified if it has the desired effect; however, since it does not come across as an act of love I think rather than having the desired effect, it is more likely to harden a heart.
“Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness.” As the Bard says.
Oh grow up Laurence - nobody wants to see the mass graves of Auschwitz but anyone advocated nazism or anti-semitism or eugenics SHOULD be told what their co-operation with evil involves....
Why do charities use graphic campaigns of starving - dying children? Because the revulsion reaches through to basic common decency - it shocks-repulses and provokes - and may just prick a conscience enough to act or change their mind about something...
How many anti-semites had their mind changed by the 70s mini-series Holocaust? Ditto How many racists were shamed into metanoia by Roots?
How many trendily Pro-Choice Catholic teenagers had their lives changed irrevocably because they saw EXACTLY what they advocated in the video of the silent scream?
QUIT BEING PART OF THE PROBLEM
Watch the Greg Cunningham video and realise that you wish to remove a weapon - and it is a weapon - in a war against the greatest genocide humanity has ever encountered - over 1.8 BILLION - which may save lives...
We need to start fighting - there is no gentleness in a lie - there is no strength in denial - there is no truth in euphemism or pretending what is going on - genocide and humanity's conspiracy with it...there's no use pretending that this gravest evil is merely - as faux-life 'catholics' who don't wish to offend call it - 'a personal tragedy'.
When one has lost a child - and I have - I do not want any woman murdering her child and being equivocatingly told she didn't commit murder - there were all manner of excuses and she was merely a victim - she wasn't - she had a choice...and women choose to kill...
Women wanted to kill
The state let's them
We called the Spartans barbaric for exposing their sickly newborns - we considered the eskimos diabolical for putting their elderly on the ice-flows
We need to wake up
...and the Pro-Life cause needs to get professional and effective - nearly fifty years of failure and ineptitude and counterproductive compromising strategies DON'T WORK!!
And you start with this handwringing posturing blether and fallacious argument that repulsion at a murder victim means we don't show murderers and accessories to murder what they've done to be so ill-mannered and offensive as to show them what happens in an attempt to stop them from what they're about to do?
I don't know who you've been listening to or what stuff you've been reading but all I can suggest in future is AVOID!!
Better to use ultrasound images of foetuses at various stages of development with text. There are also plenty of 3D images of babies in the womb.
The world is awash with gruesome overload. People will simply refuse to look.
It's been well established for some time that the public response to charities tends to be better where a picture is used which is a positive image of the thing one is working for, rather than some horrendous image of the thing one is against.
For example, there was a Catholic relief charity which for many years had as its logo a crude line drawing of a starving and obviously dying child. They eventually realised this was counter-productive and – however accurate it was as a representation of the thing they were working to eliminate – it wasn't helping their cause.
Your critics don't seem to appreciate that, for all the warm moral glow they may get from "telling it like it is", the object of the exercise is to persuade people not to have abortions. There's no merit in adopting an in-your-face attitude if you can achieve the same or better outcomes by taking a less offensive approach.
By the time the formalities of getting an abortion are completed, most pregnancies are reaching 12 weeks. I suggest you replace the deleted image with one of a 12-week foetus - clearly labelled as such (plenty available on the net). The favourite slogan of the abortionist is that "it isn't a baby - just a clump of cells". A picture of one such "clump of cells" will make your point far more effectively.
By the time the formalities of getting an abortion are completed, most pregnancies are reaching 12 weeks. I suggest you replace the deleted image with one of a 12-week foetus - clearly labelled as such (plenty available on the net). The favourite slogan of the abortionist is that "it isn't a baby - just a clump of cells". A picture of one such "clump of cells" will make your point far more effectively.
I suspect that google accounts has either refused to accept, or has facilitated multiple submissions of my comment. If the latter, please accept apologies and delete superfluous for me.
Blimey. (I missed the pic.)
Isn't Our Lady of Guadalupe lovely. A young pregnant girl with a whole load of beautiful roses at her feet. Perhaps we should take her as an example for pro-life pics. Show happy, pregnant mums. Set up a table and chairs, parasol, take tea and bickies and ask them "do you want to talk about it?". Pregnancy can be isolating. Some men don't have a clue about the tiredness, queasiness. Some men expect the woman to know how to instantly, miracuously cope with everything. And some men abandon them.
LMAO! Too funny, Bonester!
Seattle kim
Well, you know what? Perhaps the very small children shouldn't be exposed to the graphic pictures, say perhaps up until age 8 or 9, thereabouts, but older ones would actually do more good than harm. And I believe pornographic images are always and ultimately much more harmful and 'death-wielding' than an image of an 'aborted' baby!! The pornographic pictures destroy and 'tear-apart' children's souls and the 'abortion' destroys and 'breaks-apart' an actual 'pre-born' baby, so which is worse? It's terrible to even take the pictures and display them or to feel the need to do so, but those are the times we are living in.
This is not a should we/shouldn't we subject. It is a question of the relationship between motivation and location. Where the location is a website or a home, or a school, the motivation is to educate people about the truth of abortion and the gift of life. That calls for a balance of images - life and death.
But where the location is the outside of an abortuary, the motivation is to alert people to the fact that other people are being murdered inside that building.
I like to think that Our Lady of Guadalupe is pregnant mums' special Mary and she looks after them. And remember how Our Lady went to visit Elizabeth when they were both pregnant.
I wonder what would happen if a life-size picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe were taken on display in front of an abortion clinic?
I realise it could be a bit risky because 'all things Catholic' sometimes get abuse, but I wonder if she'd help the pregnant mums?
Our Lady of Walsingham and Jesus are both happy and contented looking, same as Our Lady of Luxembourg (other title - Our Lady of the Afflicted).
Just a thought.
OTSOTA - um, aren't you being a tad OTT?
Nuns. Way back I read (was if Fr Finigan's blog?) that a convent in a major city in Poland had this kind of cupboard in its wall, where mothers could leave their unwanted baby, press a buzzer, close the hatch and a nun would take the baby away. Much better than leaving poor baby on a cold step (shouldn't be left at all, but...)
Vatican II destroyed so much help that it could be giving to people nowadays. There's something about a nun in a habit, which you don't see now. Nun's just blend in like the rest of us, but sometimes someone needs to reach out, like the bleeding woman grabbing Jesus garment. Think how many babies could be given to convents today. I know some have had some bad press, mostly untruthful, but most nuns are good brides of Christ. Seems to me once the nuns cast off their habit and lost their 'bride-liness', more women have lost their femininity and motherliness and abortion has soared.
If the one, true, Church steers off-course I think this is what happens.
(I guess I should have put my comments in one big comment...!)
We have to have real abortion photos. It is murder of which cries out to heaven. To say it is bullying is not only irrational but calling the prophets the bullies when the bullies are those who killed the babies.
Why are Catholics so afraid of the truth?
We need to see graphic images of Auschwitz in order NEVER to forget these things happened. I lost family in the Holocaust and I want people to look at the bodies and never ever forget what man can do to man.
Unless Catholics face up to the reality of the hatred of truth, they will compromise when faced with the decision to stand up for the Faith themselves. And this day is coming soon, very soon.
All of these chances to show truth are tests for us.
Yes the murder of babies is gruesome. That is the point.
So, what happened to the strong British temperament seen in such as Margaret Roper, who enshrined her father's holy head in the Roper church?
People get real. We do not have time for niceties. Time for honesty on line and in print will end soon.
Damask Rose, showing happy pregnant mums is great but not for the dead babies, who are crying out to God for vengeance which will come. And, we shall be caught up in that time of trial.
I do not think you understand that we are in a huge spiritual battle with the demons who want to crush the Church, society, the family and Christianity.
Start talking and acting like a solider and not like a socialite.
Dear Laurence,
I am appalled by the reaction of so many Catholics. With such lily livered and wishy washy "Catholic" opinions holding sway, is it any wonder our Holy Faith is losing so much ground to Islam?
The difference between Good and Evil is stark here. Abortion needs to be brutally exposed for what it is, not protected by the namby pamby sensitivities of those who don't think the realities of mass industrial child-murder are "Nice".
The crucifix isn't nice, either. Should we also dumb that down to make it less representative of The Truth?
Fight the Good Fight Laurence and don't be put off by squeamish sanitisation.
Well done Supertradmum.
Nil Points to Bruvver Eccles and his misplaced squeamishness which serves only to defend the Devil.
Grow a pair Eccles, and face the truth of abortion in its stark, revolting, mortally sinful reality
Wake Up England: I'm as pro-life as you are, deacon, but giving nightmares to kids is not the way to win the argument.
OTSOTA: could you give more details please? You always stop just as it's starting to get interesting.
Eccles, remember the rule:if you don't show strangers pictures of dead babies covered in blood, then you are not pro-life enough.
And how many here have actually been faced with an unplanned pregnancy and actually speak to actual women on a daily/weekly basis and how many are just theorising?
When I had an abortion I did not see it as killing or as a decision to kill. I genuinely believed that there was no baby, and that I was getting rid of a blastocyst before it had time to develop into a baby.
Which is why gentle foetal imagery along with a lot of positive support and congratulation and confirmation that I was already a mum, would have been much more effective. As it is for most women.
Wake Up England: No-one here is being "squeamish" or refusing to "face the truth of abortion in its stark, revolting, mortally sinful reality". We're all on the same page as far as that goes, and it does your argument no good to suggest otherwise.
But there is nothing inherently more virtuous, or brave, or even truthful, about the approach favoured by Abort 67. The sole criterion should be: which approach actually saves lives? Anything beyond that amounts to smug self-congratulation ("Look, aren't we being virtuous, brave and truthful!"), which simply detracts from the desired aim and, in the context, is morally deplorable.
Eccles: For heaven's sake don't encourage OTSOTA – I'm not sure he gets irony …
Bruvver Eccles:
What about the crucifix which (used to be) displayed on every Catholic altar?
By your reasoning, such a bloody and graphic image of a young man being tortured to death ought to be immediately removed, in case it "upset" a child.
And of course, any mention of the possibility of Hell would probably upset some children too; so are we to re-write Our Lord's words so they're less disturbing?
Of course the stark and shocking evil of abortion should not be hidden away because it's unpalatable; and your suggestion that the Truth should be sanitised does nothing to help defend the thousands of babies who will be murdered by abortion this week-end.
You're terribly amusing with your arch whimsy and we all laugh at your pithy wit; but supporting the "Downplaying" of abortion is not amusing. THE TRUTH is not negotiable, Eccles.
Floreat Bones. Boo to Eccles.
I've hesitated to comment on this topic. Between ages 18 and 26 I had 3 abortions. I was very pro-choice but rarely discussed my own abortion history and never admitted to having had 3. Later in life I came into the Church after attending a Rachel's Vineyard retreat. I just wanted to go to confession and 1 year of RCIA later I did.
I never saw pictures of dismembered fetuses until years after my conversion. I was horrified.
I would like to think that if I had seen such pictures, I would never have had an abortion. However, I am afraid I may have been so cold hearted and determined to not be pregnant that I might have rationalized my abortion even after seeing such photos. My abortions were all at 6-7 weeks and I would probably have just decided it couldn't "feel" anything since his/her nervous system wasn't developed enough or that it resembled a baby but not totally. I'm kind of glad I never saw those pics because I would be even guiltier for having seen them and still gone through with the abortions.
On the other hand I know women who did not have an abortion after seeing those pics and I know people who have become pro-life activists as a result of seeing them. My mom (who took me to my first) refuses to look at them.
Seattle Kim
Laurence it MIGHT actually help if you read what I said - nobody is obliged to utilise aborted foetal imagery - but using them in direct immediate critical circumstances as a recourse to prevent the grave evil of abortion IS PERMISSIBLE - it just is - if you don't like it - TOUGH!
Catholic moral teaching is clear - you don't have to actuate a just war - you don't have to kill in self-defence - you can accept being killed rather than submit to a rapist - but the Church permits otherwise - recourse to war, to self-defence killing and submission to violation to save one's life AND the use of aborted foetal imagery...
Deal with it!
If some people use them and in the process save lives HOW DARE YOU condemn them...
Your argument of alienating pro-choicers or waiverers is simply ludicrous and consequentialist...
This is a war - and it won't be won simply by conversion - women have a legal right to kill their unborn - they are not going to let that 'right' be taken away from them without a fight...
Just like slavery the fight against it was won by ABOLITIONISTS - not compromisers or those who made exceptions or those who divided up humanity into those enslave-able and the non-enslave-able or those who negotiated on an incrementalist scale of utilitarian hedonic calculus...
Now I repeat: For the sake of your immortal soul and your sanity - eradicate all these ludicrous consequentialist infections in your morality - it's an enemy of Church teaching on Grace - if you don't cut it out it won't be long before some of your arguments turn gradualist or jansenist or donatist or pelagian...I'm serious!
I'm not sure if the Roots and Holocaust mini series are a good comparison to an abortion photo. Many of the kids who were forced to watch the Holocaust by their teachers were traumatized and left resentful. And Roots has been proven to be fiction and plagiarized to boot.
I take it none of the resistant group have ever seen a Mexican or Spanish crucifix which shows the real deal of Christ's suffering.
The day we stop showing aborted babies is the day we take Jesus off the Cross.
Christ's crucifixion was horrible.
As to kids seeing these images, they see worse things on tv, in movies and in computer games, or are all those commenting referring to kids who have none of those things and have not seen those things?
I saw my mom have miscarriages in the home when I was four and a bit older, and I was not traumatized. I was very, very sad and upset at losing a sibling and having a sick mum, but not traumatized.
Are British kids so squeamish? I have a British son and I took him to abortion clinic prayer vigils with pictures at the age of 8. He was not traumatized and maybe, just maybe, it has partly something to do with the fact that he became very prayerful at this time as well, seeing the horrors of sin and the world.
W.U.E.: No-one here is treating the truth as "negotiable". Do stop these self-aggrandizing attempts to claim that there is only one way (your way, naturally) to set forth the truth.
Re. the crucifix: I for one have never seen a crucifix which has attempted to show anything even faintly approaching the full ghastly horror of crucifixion. If such crucifixes exist at all, they are very much the exception. You might want to consider why the wisdom of the Church has always been, in its public imagery, to stop short of (sanitise? negotiate? downplay?) an accurate depiction of the gruesome reality.
Supertradmum. My daughter has not seen anything approaching the gore of those images which transcend the boundaries of what would be accorded a 12A certificate. (She is 10). None of her non-Catholic peers have either. 10 year old girls don't tend to watch graphic films or gory horror, funnily enough and neither do we have any inappropriate material in the house.
Would these images be passed by the BBFC? It is no-one's place to deem what ought to be acceptable viewing for other people's children and the film classification is meant as a guideline. If this wouldn't be allowed to be shown in a film, then why should children under 12 be forced to view these images? You'll be aware that A67 display opposite a park in a residential area next door to a primary school?
For the record I wouldn't deem the Passion of the Christ acceptable viewing for her either, though Jesus of Nazereth (a series in the '80s) and Anno Domini are appropriate.
Children's innocence does not just cover sexual matters and it is up to parents to decide precisely what material or information their children can handle and when. Furthermore not all children who see these images have parents able to support them or give them the correct guidance to help them process it either. Why should my young children have to see images of dead bloody babies.
Shoving gruesome bloody images 6 foot images in their face is abusive, no matter how worthy the cause.
Dear Cross William,
You've quite obviously not spent much time in Spanish, Portuguese, or Latin American churches. Most are full of extremely realistic and horrifying representations of the Crucifixion of Our Lord and other events from his passion. The Stations of the cross in some Seville churches prove you wrong; as does the crucifix above the altar at Tyburn Convent at Marble Arch.
Your problem is you don't know what you're banging on about. If you wish to be corrective and punchy, tat's fine; but please be accurate.
Let's face the reality here.
[cont]
[continued]
Kids are less shocked at the imagery and more shocked that there are women who actually kill their children and a world that fought for that right and violently defends that 'right to choose'...
..and to discover they have parents they have loved unconditionally and expect them to be the fount of all wisdom
who actually support this baby-killing? Or to the extent they may have even killed one of their brothers and sisters? Or them if the circumstances had bee different?
Is an unimaginable horrific cruelty for a child to endure...
It's not the imagery that causes the real distress...
It's the reality that people can commit such evil and frankly are evil - really evil - not twiddly-moustached villains from the cartoons...
And people - the ones with the nice smiles and the apparent loving, caring hearts, the huggy-mums - are actually monsters inside who defend the baby-killings...
Worse there are women around them who have actually done it and can still carry on as if it didn't matter...
A child's world becomes a nightmare where the solace and security and near-sanctity of motherhood...becomes non-universal..the wicked queen from snow-white and cinderella's wicked stepmother have nothing on what some ordinary women do their children...
From day one my friends' adopted children were led in family prayer to always remember their biological parents who loved them so much that they wanted them to have a life better than they could give them so gave them up...
From the earliest age my kids were led in family prayer to never forget their [miscarried] brother or sister in Heaven who was making the place ready for them...
Over the years in work/parish/school/college/pastoral life I have met many people whose lives were irrevocably psychologically damaged because their parents [usually their mother] told them they weren't wanted - a mistake - an accident...and it being said callously or nonchalantly or at times of family crisis where it was the worst possible thing to say...
So I'd say to anyone in such circumstances to deal with all the issues involved as soon as possible...
Delaying the inevitable can lead to two devastating undesired outcomes - it can alienate and make the child unforgiving and irreconcilable - never being able to see their mother in the same light. Or worse it can turn the child - out of an overwhelming desire to defend their mother - towards denial and justifying abortion itself [irrespective of how their mother opposes it - a teenager can be much more extremely reactive and hyper-defensive of close ones]
Children can fogive a great deal - children can understand and emotionally cope with more than we can imagine - but they are destroyed by lies and deceptions and shattered dreams and broken spells.
Look at how many children are carers, how many survive and endure and cope with substance-abusive/mentally ill parents or sick/handicapped/terminally ill siblings/family members...
Children are tough and can put up with a lot of hardship and ongoing struggle providing they have the security of living in a real situation with real people..where there is some unspoken truth hidden amongst some shabby love....
[to be concluded]
conclusion
...it's the lies kids can't cope with.
The fairyland which in reality is a realm of evil where baby-massacring temples of Moloch exist and parents and loved ones and respcted teachers and tv-heroes don't seem to care...
The horrors of the Moses story and Pharaoh ordering the murder of the infant males
Herod ordering the slaughter of the innocents...
The most evil historical events a child encounters...
...and to discover it's happening around them on a daily basis - in hospitals by doctors and nurses!!!??
..and there's not some diabolical tyrant forcing the murders...rather the women WANT IT?!!
Let's stop deluding ourselves...
It's not the pictures...
It's the reality - the delusions that they shatter in a child's mind that the world is a lovely place with wonderful people...
I often wonder how these yummy-mummies and daddies who wish to wrap their children in cotton wool until they reach 21 - like young Buddha behind the castle walls forbidden to see the poor, sick or elderly -
How can these 'parents' believe in God?
A God - Love Himself - who allows His children to endure so much - who thrusts 'too much truth' upon the young - a Father who 'cares so little He does not shelter His little ones from it' ?
There has to be a little cognitive dissonance somewhere...
I wrote elsewhere on sex education on my blog on how in this day and age you can only protect your children by making them informed armoured fighters...
The same goes for the culture of death...
All kids can be expected to be shocked and repulsed by such imagery...
But a child who understands the world is a bad place and people do bad things and we're supposed to be good and make the world a better place - WILL cope with the shock - will recover - will not be harmed....
But only the kids who have been lied to throughout their entire lives by irresponsible thoughtless stifling parents-in-denial that the world is one of fluffy bunnies and unicorns - only they are the ones who will be irrevocably damaged and traumatised
If we love our kids we have to protect them - and that means providing them with love and truth - not denying them it out of some deluded false compassion - or wishing to leave Christ off the cross for as long as possible...
On The Side of the Angels:
Full marks for your accurate, sensible and true posts above. Would that there were more like you in the Catholic Church. God bless and protect you.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Abortion is a great business that flourishes and makes huge money for private and state run hospitals and the big pharmaceutical corporations.
How to stop it?
Once I suggested to my former Parish Priest and part of the Parish Council to pray for the end of it, and the only answer I got was a strange look as if they were saying...'go away with your stupid reasoning...!
As St John Paul II said: 'Do not be afraid'. I think for God nothing is impossible.
Unfortunately a great number of Catholics have no idea of what it is at stake:
The Spiritual Warfare is a fact. We are dealing with creatures and demons that have already infiltrated every single corner of our society. The Relativist Agenda is fact and is even taught in the so called Catholic schools. The social media is part of it too by using comfortable slogans such as IT IS YOUR CHOICE!
Indeed Capitalism/Relativism gives us many selfish choices.
The Solution: More Perpetual Adoration in every Parish and the Rosary!
Paul the Catholic
blondpidge, do you tell your children about the new martyrs who are children who had their heads cut off?
We are going to be seeing that in our own society...
The Brits protect their kids way too much.
Do your kids watch tv?
W.U.E.: I've been to many churches in Spain and Portugal, and while they can certainly be fairly graphic I don't recall seeing anything which attempted to represent the full reality of crucifixion.
But in any case what works in one culture doesn't necessarily work in another. There is a reason – and a good reason – why such representations are very much the exception in our culture. It's nothing to do with being squeamish or wishing to fight shy of facing reality.
Mr. Bones, you wrote, "IF CATHOLICS WHO ARE AGAINST ABORTION CANNOT BEAR TO LOOK AT THESE IMAGES AND FIND THEM OFFENSIVE, THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD 'PRO-CHOICE' MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC REACT OTHERWISE?"
There are different reasons for each camp. The pro-life camp finds the reality behind the pictures offensive, whereas the pro-aborts find their consciences pricked by the reality of the pictures. Having been in front of abortuaries for 20+ years and witnessed all manners of stuff, I know a few things about what goes on.
That their consciences are pricked is a good thing; at least the consciences are not completely dead. We will proclaim - and show - the truth of the heinous evil that they commit.
I wonder if PROLIFE Catholic EVER (in their WHOLE LIFE) wrote to an abortion clinic or even called their representative or the PM DEMANDING that THE BABY MURDER DEATH FACIILITY be removed Immediately!
And if they did, what did they do when the representative, PM or abortion facility LAUGHED In THEIR FACE? Or threatened to put them in jail for DEMANDING the clinic be dismantled immediately!
Oh how we 'prolifers' lie to ourselves!
William the argumentative:
Rubbish. As is so often the case with you, William, you're talking nonsense of the most easily debunk-able variety.
Go and look at the crucifix at Tyburn Convent.
Go and look at the statue of Our Lady of Dolours in Seville's church of Immaculate Conception.
As I have said here before, William, If you're going to be corrective and punchy (to the point of rudeness) at least try to be accurate.
WUE (He Who Must Not Be Disagreed With):
You think a general statement, to which I acknowledged that there were exceptions, is debunked that easily? I've seen the Tyburn crucifix, and maintain my point. Go the length and breadth of this country and see how many examples you can find. And then ask yourself why. (And, in drawing examples from other countries, take on board my point about cultural differences.)
"As is so often the case with you …" That's funny. I don't remember coming across you before. Do you think you've seen me elsewhere than on this thread? I wonder who it is who's being argumentative and rude here.
(I shan't engage any further – you can have the last word if it's important to you.)
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