Abortion propoganda, and appropriate response.

[darkstar3]

Last edited Mon Jan 30, 2012, 11:24 PM - Edit history (2)

We've all seen them by now: Billboards with various pictures, laughable claims, and a tagline that has been used for decades..."Abortion stops a beating heart."

I think, perhaps, PETA has offered up one of the best responses to this hypocritical idiocy ever devised. Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit that putting this billboard up in TX is a clever move.



ETA: For those who don't know, this is a new billboard put up in Austin, TX. Austin is the capital, and TX recently upheld an anti-choice forced ultrasound law. It was radical, right-wing religious conservatism that gave us this law, the same as the kind that gave us those idiotic billboards and bumper stickers.

[CrispyQ]

1. Peta is right.

You can't argue 'right to life' with a piece of hamburger between your teeth. Once you put one species on the hierarchy over another, that 'right to life' argument looses all validity. It doesn't help that they are also war-mongering, execution applauding hypocrites.

[darkstar3]

2. Which is why I love this billboard.

It wraps into one perfect jab all of the necessary and completely correct criticisms of the American "pro-life" (my ass) movement.

[CrispyQ]

3. Me too.

I might copy it & put it on a tee shirt. He's a cute little pig.

[The Straight Story]

4. So an abortion does not stop a beating heart ever?

I am confused....I thought the heart started beating 4-6 weeks along?

[xfundy]

6. Not positive on this, but

I think most abortions are done within the first month.

And the brain, and the ability to feel pain, long after.

[The Straight Story]

7. I can grep that

But I would argue those outside the first month do. So technically both groups are correct.

Although I would say eating too much pork might stop two beating hearts

[darkstar3]

8. A separate pulse can be detected between the 4th and 6th week,

but the heart itself isn't actually a heart so much as a quivering mass of splitting cells until week 8.

Of course, that couldn't be further from the point. The idiocy and laughable claims I'm talking about involve wild shit that basically describes the fetus as fully formed before the baby bump even shows. I thought that was painfully obvious, but then perhaps you haven't experienced the preponderance of those idiot banners.

[The Straight Story]

9. Overall though

PETA thinks killing animals is bad (generally speaking) but abortion is ok with them (I am talking about past the first 6-8 weeks).

At what point do folks think an abortion is, shall we say , morally wrong?

I'm pro-choice (on many things,not just this one thing - which gets me labeled a libertarian at times) yet there is some validity to saying abortion stops a beating heart/life at some point. Yes, there are serious idiots who probably think sperm is a soul delivery device/etc. I see folks though against the death penalty (I am against it), believe killing animals is wrong, but when it comes to abortion have no qualms with it all (and again, not talking about outlawing/etc, more about moral equivalency and using the same values in different situations. ie, consistency in argument).

[darkstar3]

10. And where are you getting that information?

PETA is really a one-issue group, so how do you know what the various members feel about the concept of abortion? I think you're making an assumption in order to stretch a moral equivalency argument.

The ad is clever, in both its placement and its satire. For a group with which I so often disagree, it's a refreshing change.

[The Straight Story]

11. Ok then

What are your thoughts on it?

And 'where did I get that information' - basically from simple logic. Someone is opposed to killing animals but is not opposed to killing something else. How do they reconcile that issue?

[darkstar3]

12. Did you miss the part where that's an assumption?

Bored now...

[The Straight Story]

13. No, I didn't miss that

And it is not about an assumption but about a 'value judgement'. Someone says they believe X and apply it to a situation and then when you apply those same values to situation Y that same person no longer thinks X fits.

If you believe killing is wrong when it comes to animals/humans (death row/etc) and don't believe the same about a fetus past a certain date (like when it has a heartbeat) is that consistent? If so - why?

People have power over animals, and other people, and if you think using that power is wrong when used to kill is it any different in the case of abortion than it is in other cases?

Not talking about PETA itself here but in general.

[LAGC]

14. Well, I can't speak for darkstar, but for me...

Until a fetus is viable enough to survive on its own without its host mother to support it, it's part and parcel of the woman, her decision and her decision alone whether to carry it to term. (That would fall pretty late in the pregnancy.)

But of course, the vast majority of abortions happen in the first-trimester anyway, only later most often if there's risk to the mother's health in delivering. So its really pretty silly to argue when exactly viability occurs, since it almost never an issue in practice.

[LeftishBrit]

15. The point is...

that, at least until very late in pregnancy, foetuses' brains are not sufficiently developed to feel pain or fear or indeed experience any sort of conscious awareness. People who are executed, or killed in wars, or die of diseases due to poverty and lack of healthcare, are capable of awareness and suffering. One can argue about the level of development necessary for an animal to be capable of suffering, but I am sure that farm animals have passed that level of development, whether or not e.g. insects have.

I am against war and capital punishment and failure to intervene to prevent poverty; am pro-choice about abortion; am pro-animal-welfare and against fox-hunting, but am not a vegetarian. The last point may make me a hypocrite. I don't think being pro-choice about abortion does, however.

[darkstar3]

20. First,

find someone who actually suffers from that moral dilemma.

Next, ask them how they reconcile their views.

I frankly neither know nor care. I'm not interested in a hypothetical sufferer of cognitive dissonance.

[Critters2]

22. PETA has no official position on abortion. It's an animal rights group.

Its members probably hold a variety of positions on abortion as individuals. But the org has not taken a position.

[Brettongarcia]

27. Is a clump of 12 cells even an animal?

Arguably, even a human embryo with a beating heart, still does have as as much of a mind or spirit, as a young dog.

Or a young pig.

[Lost-in-FL]

23. Peta = People for the ethical treatment of animals

They are not exclusively against killing animals but also about being against ALL kinds of "animal cruelty". They can care less what humans do with fetuses or about the life of humans.

[Curmudgeoness]

18. Huh? This billboard does not say anything about abortion.

It is just pointing out that if you are concerned about stopping a beating heart, you have to consider animals that you kill for food. There is no abortion fight here. You are creating controversy where there is none.

[Leontius]

19. What is the OP title? Who's creating controversy?

[Brettongarcia]

24. A beating heart does not matter; a pig has a beating heart, but is not human.

The key thing, is when does the embryo develop a human mind or spirit. Which has to wait for the fuller development of the brain, more than the heart.

[2ndAmForComputers]

25. That simple truth is ignored by anti-choicers with a white-hot zeal that can only come from insanity

[iris27]

26. Well...mine was 5 weeks, 4 days...no detectable heartbeat on ultrasound.

Actually, nothing more than a tiny, just-barely visible dark dot on ultrasound. Maybe the size of a pencil eraser.

[xfundy]

5. Great double entendre!

The pig dies, of course.

And pork, or too much of any meat contribute to heart disease.

The topic of abortion, however, sure as hell stops a lot of functioning brains.

[LeftishBrit]

16. One further point about the 'beating heart' slogan...

Last edited Tue Jan 31, 2012, 08:31 AM - Edit history (2)

is that stem cell research does not stop a beating heart. I realize that not all anti-abortion campaigners take it to the extreme of opposing stem cell research, but some do, and it basically implies that it's better for born people to suffer and die, than to sacrifice a pre-implantation embryo.

I realize that there are some people who are anti-abortion and anti-war andanti-death-penalty and vegetarian. I have known a few such people personally. Whether I agree with them or not, they are genuinely pro-life. But most people in the political pro-life movement combine being anti-abortion, not with these other pro-life attitudes, but with being anti-gay-rights. Thus, for such people, it's not so much about being pro-life, as about being anti-sexual-'immorality'.

[Goblinmonger]

17. Post this in GD.

I double-dog dare you.

[darkstar3]

21. I shouldn't take that bait.

Oh, look what I did.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002248968