The quality or state of being late.
-Webster
One of my most salient childhood memories is of going to the Polk County Fair in Fertile, MN and having a run-in with the Pro-life booth. I remember looking at the displays of aborted fetuses in various stages of development, horrified and enthralled by the bits of alien-looking flesh floating around in little jars of preservative. I didn’t believe the man at the booth’s claim that I was looking at babies. I’m not positive I even knew where babies came from at that point, but I knew I’d never seen a baby that looked like that. I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. None whatsoever. The part that stuck with me was not so much the images, but the feeling that I was looking at something that perhaps wasn’t supposed to be on open display. This was solidified by my mother’s demand that I immediately throw away all of the literature that I collected at the booth.
A few times a year, I run into a similarly themed display. I usually have to resist the urge to ask the attendants about their heavy metal band and if they have any records for sale. I mean if your metal band has a promo booth of that magnitude, surely you must have some merchandise to go along with it. Promo material is expensive.
I looked at Orlan’s manifesto (http://www.orlan.net/texts/), and I can’t help but wonder if groups like ProLife America draw inspiration from the same place as she does. Here’s a quote from Orlan’s manifesto: “Carnal Art is not interested in the plastic-surgery result, but in the process of surgery, the spectacle and discourse of the modified body which has become the place of a public debate.” I’ll make the argument that ProLife America’s focus is on the surgery as well: If they are indeed really for life, should they not be for all life? So why do we not hear them argue for things like frank and accurate birth control and sexual health awareness, more money for social welfare programs, especially those that would aid impoverished new mothers, free and easily accessible education, or the abolition of the death penalty?
PETA uses similar tactics. PETA’s imagery shocks us into attention. They show us things like naked bodies, skinned animals, and clinical food production plant photos in order to get us to believe their message. PETA claims that a world free of animal bondage would benefit all of us, but we don’t hear them argue for things like aid for developing economies dependent on animal agriculture, research dollars for alternatives to animal testing, or plans for the millions of animals that currently are in bondage or the species that have been entirely domesticated.
Those images of aborted fetuses were one of the reasons that my group included the image of the fetal dolphin next to a pin, emphasizing how small it was. Never before had I seen an image like that that WASN'T making a point about abortion being evil. I completely see where you're coming from linking PETA to these anti abortion organizations. In some ways they are very smart; a picture is worth a thousand words. But at the same time, maybe those words aren't the best ones to chose. They end up further distancing us from the issues because they are so nauseating and terrible that one can't look at them! What are you supposed to do with them?! And when they're accompanied by people yelling at you and calling you a murderer, it is much easier to block the whole thing out entirely.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but agree with you - actually, I was thinking along similar lines when looking at some of the absolutely ridiculous ads PETA had concocted and some of the relatively crazy statements they made - especially the one about cancer, how even if the cure for cancer was found using animal testing, they wouldn't back it. WHAT!?
ReplyDeleteActually, the other week on campus I was walking around and got side-swiped by some guy who was handing out pamphlets. I accepted one and when I looked at it I was so taken aback I turned into one of those annoying people who stops in the middle of the sidewalk despite the obvious crowds of people trying to get by. The pictures were absolutely obscene - "ProLife" is all the pamphlet said, and the rest of the front contained pictures of aborted fetuses. Why am I being accosted in this way!? If organizations like PETA want to get their point across, tell the public real facts, use actual statistics and data, because those are horrifying enough. Creating studies that are not truly tested only hurts their case. These are simply tricks they use and a part of me wonders if organizations like this think people aren't smart enough to understand or to be educated and so instead they employ scare tactics such as this.
One of my favorite things about the Pro-Life argument is the interesting way in which they have made themselves relatively immune from attacks about "true" pro-life policies and why they ought to value things like birth control and oppose things like the death penalty -- and they have an answer--and that answer is "innocence."
ReplyDeleteBeing "unborn," a fetus could not possibly rise to the level of guilt (like someone who has received the death penalty) or personal failure (like welfare recipients) that bodies that this movement devalues have. These are not arguments that I necessarily agree with but they are arguments that have been incredibly effective for the Pro-Life movement. If we are self-contained individuals with completely free will that is independent of political institutions (which seems to be something that we believe, or at least something that many people believe), then one of the only genuinely "un-harmable" entities is the fetus---having not been born, they could not have committed any sin and can only have sin committed against them.
Regardless of whether these kinds of formations hurt or harm arguments by Pro-Life groups (or PETA, with their "studies"), they have been very effective tools in recruiting support. There is a huge population in this country with a lot of influence that not only detests talk of "studies," but actively hates people in "elitist" institutions who receive subsidized studying opportunities to become literate in the language of "studies" that are "real."