{"id":9716,"date":"2013-02-16T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-02-16T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?p=9716"},"modified":"2017-02-08T22:13:06","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T05:13:06","slug":"why-do-photos-of-aborted-babies-upset-pro-choice-advocates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2013\/02\/why-do-photos-of-aborted-babies-upset-pro-choice-advocates\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Photos of Aborted Babies Upset Pro Choice Advocates?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A picture is worth a thousand words.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This is a photo of a baby who was murdered in an abortion.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s surprising how human they look.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I wrote the post Real Men Don\u2019t kill Their Children<\/a>, I decided to illustrate it with this photo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I did this because it seemed to fit the brazen indifference to human life and suffering evidenced by Toure Neblett, the news commentator. Mr Neblett gave a commentary supporting Roe v Wade in which he discussed the abortion death of his first child. In it, he took narcissism and selfishness to new lows.<\/p>\n

He made the statement that seeing his second child on an ultrasound had bothered him a little because \u201cit\u2019s surprising how human they look.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t and I don\u2019t think any other photo would do justice to this attitude.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t surprise me at all when pro abortion people clocked in with their usual anger over the photo. It was, they said, an attempt to \u201cshock\u201d people.<\/p>\n

No. It was not.<\/p>\n

It was a factual presentation of what babies look like after a late-term abortion.<\/strong> Of course, that is shocking to people who base their entire flimsy arguments in favor of this killing on the preposterous idea that these babies are \u201cnot human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos like this put that nonsense to the lie that it is.<\/p>\n

I believe that the stripping away of the lie, not some misplaced sense of propriety, is why this photo makes them so angry.<\/p>\n

Photos have a way of blasting right through carefully constructed lies and showing the truth of things in a way that anyone who looks at them can understand. I don\u2019t enjoy making people uncomfortable, but there are truths we need to see because seeing them is the only thing that will blast through the carefully constructed facade of lies we use to shield ourselves from the reality of what we are doing.<\/p>\n

For instance, this:<\/p>\n

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And this:<\/p>\n

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And this:<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t often put shocking photos on this blog, but there are times when I think they serve a purpose. The photo of that dead baby, juxtaposed against Mr Neblett\u2019s words, said a lot.<\/p>\n

The angry reaction of pro abortion and pro choice people told me quite plainly that for them, the photo said too much. There are truths we do not want to know, photos we do not want to see, because if we acknowledge what they are saying to us, we will have to change.<\/p>\n

Photos like that one force us to make a choice. We will either have to give up our illusions about what we are doing to other people, or we will have to give up our illusions about ourselves as kind, loving and compassionate persons.<\/p>\n

This is more than most people who define themselves and their morality by the lies our society tells us can handle. Of course those photos are shocking. But the fact that they are shocking is not the reason for posting them. The reason for putting them in the public eye is that they are true. In the words of Jack Nicholson\u2019s character in A Few Good Men, some people \u201ccan\u2019t handle the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n