Viewer Discretion Advised

at

Saturday.

Dame Street, Dublin 2

Pro Choice protester Clare Woods (above right) joins a counter protest against a street exhibition by the Irish Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

The Irish Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform is a group “working to establish prenatal & reproductive justice and the right to life for the preborn”.

Irish Centre For Bio-Ethical Reform (Facebook)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

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48 thoughts on “Viewer Discretion Advised

    1. newsjustin

      Why would anyone be offended? Isn’t it just like a heavy period? What’s wrong with showing a heavy period?

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        I’m sure you can google pictures of full sanitary towels if that’s what you’re into.

        1. newsjustin

          They’d look like the above images, wouldn’t they Daisy? An aborted foetus just looks like a period?

          1. newsjustin

            Why is it strange dav? Are you embarrassed by normal bodily functions.

            Depends how early Daisy. But remember, looks can be deceiving. A miscarriage or abortion does involve the death of a human being. These poster’s do highlight this.

      2. Nigel

        I bet the people who put up these posters would be offended by a depiction of a heavy period.

          1. Nigel

            Maybe you’re right. Maybe they’re genuinely part of a new Cronenbergian cult of the fetus that worships and proclaims gruesome biological imagery. All hail the pre-born flesh.

          2. newsjustin

            Why do some prochoice people find these images of aborted foetuses repellant? This is the reality of an abortion. Why would one seek to legislate to allow something one can’t bear to look at?

          3. Mick

            I really don’t like looking at pictures of tonsils being removed or heart operations happening or fungus growing on toes.

          4. Nigel

            If more ordinary medical procedures were made illegal through legislation you might have a few more examples of this, but it’s just this one. If vasectomies were illegal, would you oppose their legalisation just because blown-up photos of the procedure on main street were regarded as a bit much?

          5. newsjustin

            It’s not an ordinary medical procedure. It may be commonplace in certain jurisdictions but it is an exceptional procedure, like no other.

            No re vasectomy Nigel. The point re the pictures and legislation is that it’s odd, to say the least, that pro choice people are uncomfortable seeing the reality of an abortion, any abortion.

          6. mildred st. meadowlark

            No it’s extremely commonplace, newsjustin. It’s one of the oldest procedures on earth, is abortion. Women have been having them for many centuries. If I remember correctly, it may even be as far back as the Egyptian era.

            To say it is not a commonplace procedure is simply not true, however, because it is a fact of life for many women, and has been for countless years.

          7. mildred st. meadowlark

            Ooooops sorry! I completely misread your comment.

            I feel altogether sheepish. Apologies.

        1. Nigel

          Why is it odd? Pictures of commonplace surgical procedures prominently featured in public spaces are not commonplace. It’s odder to attach some moral significance to reactions of non-medical members of the public to large graphic displays of surgical procedures.

          1. newsjustin

            Maybe hypocritical rather than odd.

            You’re right though. Such sights aren’t commonplace.

          2. Nigel

            You’d need to identify a double standard for it to be hypicrisy. There’s nothing about being pro-choice that intrinsically requires anyone to support graphic public displays of surgical procedures. Really it’s just another way of shaming women and promoting the idea that women’s bodies are gruesome and women’s health is disgusting. And you joined in with your ‘heavy period’ crack.

          3. newsjustin

            But women’s bodies aren’t gruesome. There’s nothing shameful about them. And nothing strange or weird about periods.

            There’s nothing strange or gruesome about pregnancy or foetuses.

            Deliberately killing a human foetus is disturbing though. It is an ugly affront to humanity and not just like a heavy period (ad some people claim and I was lampooning).

            What seems obvious to me is that some prochoice people don’t like to see an aborted foetus because it just confronts them with the reality of abortion.

          4. Nigel

            I’m sorry no amount of graphic displays in public spaces will make gruesome = immoral. Of course there’s nothing shaming or misogynistic about insisting that a medical procedure for women is an ugly affront to humanity. There’s nothing gruesome about women’s bodies, just about allowing women to have control over their bodies.

    2. Mick

      They are not photos. Imagine trying to stick a camera in there to get that aspect…. sure she’d have to have a 6″ womb….

  1. kirkbadaz

    they out up a trigger warning? snowflakes.

    anyway that doesn’t get them around the law relating to items and images likely to cause offence

  2. Boj

    Just sayin’ like, but I wonder what would have happened if a ‘pro-lifer’ joined a counter-protest on their own during a pro-choice street exhibition?

    1. Brother Barnabas

      Not being funny, like, but how could someone “join a counter-protest on their own”?

      1. Boj

        sigh…ok so…
        “start a counter-protest on their own”?
        or
        “join a counter-protest”?

        Your *choice*

        1. mark

          They do, all the time. Waving crucifxes and shouting about Mary or god or one of the band through a shitty speaker.
          They are usually ignored.

    2. realPolithicks

      What do you think would happen, how about expressing an opinion in addition to posing a question.

  3. medieval knievel

    i’m always bemused with the notion that a poster showing something which can be a bit gruesome, should somehow support the notion that it should be illegal.
    if that concept held, we should be banning open heart surgery, autopsies, popping zits, etc. etc.

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        Then why aren’t you campaigning to repeal the 13th to keep women from travelling for abortions abroad?

  4. nellyb

    Soon they’ll be holding testicles filled with sad underactive zoids. Pardon me, the oversized posters of such.

  5. :-Joe

    If there was no such thing as bad pr, the more people see these posters the more it will be normalised.

    The black lung pics on ciggy packs did little to stop smokers from buying them.

    An sperm, embryo, foetus etc. is a life form but women should have the final word on their own bodies and the planet has an over population problem too. Eventually there will be a safe drug in the form of a pill that will render debate on the issue pointless when anyyone can deal with the issue anonymously in the privacy of their own home.

    :-J

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