Goings On

[muscadine]

To "celebrate" the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, a pro-life group has placed a huge set of banners on the mall depicting aborted fetuses. There is also a praise choir singing praise music. Not somber hymns that speak of human suffering or injustice, mind you, but cheery "praise God" stuff. Thus walking through the mall becomes an exercise in cognitive dissonance. This might actually be the plan, since cognitive dissonance is supposed to be an opportunity for acquiring or modifying beliefs, but I think it possibly is creating subconscious connections these people don't intend.

acceptmyreality offers commentary wondering why we allow such a display while sexually explicit material or artistic expressions that might be construed as debasing of religion are censored as "obscene." One reason might be because it's being portrayed as violence - murder to be exact - and our culture is highly tolerant of depictions of violence. For example, it doesn't take much sexual content to press a movie into NC-17 or "X" categories, while rather gruesome depictions of violence merit only an R. Perhaps we should start a campaign placing these pro-life propaganda pictures (and perhaps some other violent imagery) alongside pictures of couples having sex and asking "why is this ok to display in public, but this not okay?"

...

Intramural softball is starting on campus and the Sociology dept is fielding a team (the Sociopaths). I'm going to try to participate this year since it's on Tuesday evenings.

* Go to OSCR to get Sophos fixed (Replaced with AVG)
* Pick up print outs from CCIT
* Attend first working group meeting
* Work on master's paper revision
* Find a preface to discuss in FM class for Thursday (Nickel & Dimed)
* Finish my GPSC travel grant application

Comments

[feelmymoment.livejournal.com]

The choir sings on the mall a few times a week, I think.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

So it might just be happenstance that they were there.

[i12bmore.livejournal.com]

It just occurred to me that these same people might be aghast at photos of mutilated post-foetal people posted in public. Which makes me wonder if they really value the lives of the preborn as much as they say they do. (I'm having fun coming up with these words.)

On a similar note, all around St Paul (and interestingly but not surprisingly, *not* Minneapolis), there are billboards from a prolife organisation. They used to say "What!"*, followed by a factoid, like, "I sucked my thumb 3 months after conception"--different billboards had different slogans--accompanied by an adorable little picture of a baby. I like adorable little pictures of babies, who doesn't--which makes for smart marketing. But when stem-cell research hit the fan a few months back, these signs changed. They still had the "What!", but now all of them are followed by, "Embryos are babies!", with the same adorable baby pictures. And it strikes me, why aren't they displaying a picture of an *embryo* with that statement? They continue with the smart but brainless treacle marketing. If there was ever anything that has decisively swung me into the prochoice camp, it's this campaign. (Well, that, and researching a bit into what some Christians claim Jews believe about the issue, and what Jews actually believe.)

*I think they meant to write "What?" or more likely "What?!" But when I see "What!", the only voice I can imagine is Gilbert Gottfried.

[travspence.livejournal.com]

Which makes me wonder if they really value the lives of the preborn as much as they say they do.

I think the pre-born are all that matters to them. A lot of the people who are pro-life are also anti-universal health care, anti-welfare, anti-raising taxes for education, pro-death penalty.* Once that sucker pops out of the womb, it's every baby for himself. Life is only sacred when it's potential, not when it's real.

*Seriously. There have been studies and polls and everything to demonstrate this but I'm too sleepy to research and cite it properly.

[alienacean.livejournal.com]

stop thinking so much. or at least stop writing about it. Bush is watching, and he'll come for you.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Wow, I've seen other questions juxtaposing pictures of violence and pictures of sex before and asking why one is considered more objectionable to display in public than the other, but I really like the idea of using specifically the pictures of aborted fetuses as the example of violence. Not only because they're so obviously associated with being displayed by the right wing, but also because they're thematically related to the pictures of sex - that is, the fetuses' existence resulted from sex.

[acceptmyreality.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we should start a campaign placing these pro-life propaganda pictures (and perhaps some other violent imagery) alongside pictures of couples having sex and asking "why is this ok to display in public, but this not okay?"

We really should... or just toss this same display into an art museum and watch censors scramble to explanations that can't be justified. I like this. Hm, I would also love to talk to Catherine MacKinnon about this.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

Indeed.