The Case Against Abortion: Abortion Pictures
Length: 5:05
Page Summary:
Abortion is an act of violence that kills an innocent human being. Portions of this video presentation include graphic images of severe injustice. They are included to demonstrate the historic role that photography has played in forming public opinion and to expose the ongoing violence of abortion. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Video Text/Dialogue:
Portions of this video presentation include graphic images of severe injustice. They are included to demonstrate the historic role that photography has played in forming public opinion and to expose the ongoing violence of abortion. Viewer discretion is advised.
QUESTION: Is abortion an act of violence?
VIolence (is):
1. swift and intense force
2. rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment
3. an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power
Surgical abortion uses swift and intense force to destroy a human being in mere seconds. It is a fatally injurious action. It is an unjust exertion of power that takes an innocent human life without trial or consent.
But these are just words...
In the court of law, photographs are more persuasive than mere assertions of fact. And in the court of public opinion, photographs take hidden or abstract atrocities and make them real.
Around the globe, from Buchenwald to Saigon, from Cambodia to South Africa to Oklahoma City, photographs have the power to change public opinion and thereby change the world.
But you won't find pictures of abortion in the pages of news magazines or social studies textbooks. Nor will you find them among the counseling materials at your local abortion clinic. Mainstream media outlets have long used pictures of violence to prick the American conscience–except when it comes to abortion.
Not even the medical illustrations used to train abortionists depict what actually happens. This is their depiction of vacuum aspiration, and this is their depiction of dilation and evacuation (D&E). Both illustrations show an empty womb.
In actual practice, the womb is filled with a tiny, human body.
This is what that body looks like after a suction abortion. At 7-weeks from conception.
And this is what a human body looks like after a D&E abortion. At 10 or 11-weeks from conception.
Feminist author and abortion-advocate, Naomi Wolf, writes: "How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy…"
In 2012, an anonymous photographer published secret pictures of her own abortion. She writes: "My intention in documenting and sharing my abortion is to demystify the sensationalist images propagated by the religious and political right… At 6 weeks of pregnancy, my abortion looked very different than the images I saw when I entered the clinic that day."
While it's true that all of the abortion photos in circulation were taken past the point at which most abortions occur, she misinterprets what that means.
The only reason her pictures seem less disturbing is because there was nothing of her child left to photograph. Its tiny body was annihilated beyond recognition. The violence of early abortions cannot be captured by photographic means. But that doesn't mean it's a less violent procedure. Comparatively speaking, it's more violent. We just can't see it.
And so we must rely on pictures of older embryos and fetuses to make one thing very clear:
Abortion is an act of violence that kills an innocent human being.
Educate Yourself. Educate Your World.
The books, websites, and magazines displayed in this presentation were used in accordance with the Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. They come from the following sources:
Dictionary.com / “violence” © 2012
100 Photographs That Changed the World / LIFE Books / © 2011
Assorted covers with violent imagery: TIME, Newsweek, US News & World Report, NY Daily News
“Taking Care of You” / Planned Parenthood © 2010
Management of Unintended and Abnormal Pregnancy / Wiley-Blackwell © 2009
Wikipedia.com / “Naomi Wolf” © 2013
“Our Bodies, Our Souls” / Naomi Wolf / The New Republic (accessed via EBSCO Online Research Database) © 1995
Thisismyabortion.com / CC 2012
Abortion photographs provided by The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (AbortionNO.org).
