The Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform

My lovely and controversial summer job

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Amethystic
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The Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform

Post by Amethystic »

Alrighty, so I thought it was about time I share with you all my summer job. I am a summer intern for the Canadian Center for Bioethical Reform, where our goal is to make abortion in Canada unthinkable. CCBR is part of the educational branch of the pro-life movement, aiming to educate the public about the reality of abortion in order to influence public opinion.

There are a lot of pro-life organizations whose function is to do this, but CCBR's tactics are rather less conventional (and more controversial): our main campaigns incorporate the use of abortion victim photography, with the reasoning that, historically, all the major movements against human rights abuses used images of the victims in order to expose the injustice.

Abortion is also unique in that, unlike other human rights abuses, the victims have no voice of their own. By showing their broken bodies, we are enabling them to speak for themselves, to exist as testament to the unspeakable injustice that's been committed against them. A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes the only way to convey the horrible reality of indescribable injustice is to show it.

When it comes to ending abortion, CCBR's guiding principle is effectiveness: if something we're doing doesn't work, then we change it. The reason we continue to do what we do with the abortion victim photos is that we have seen, and continue to see, significant results. Humans are visual creatures that respond strongly to visual evidence, and as someone who's worked CCBR's front lines I can attest to the fact that what we do is changing the way the public views abortion. By showing these images and engaging in meaningful conversations with members of the public, we're making a huge difference in the way people perceive the issue of abortion. I haven't had any conversations yet where someone had a total one-eighty about abortion, but my coworkers have had many, many people who have completely changed their opinions about abortion based on their encounter with CCBR's campaigns.

So, that's the basic nitty-gritty of why we do what we do. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has, though I also recommend you check out CCBR's website, since the resources explain anything you could ever ask much better than I could: http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/

On a more personal note: I absolutely love my job. I've made fast friends with all my coworkers, who are all friendly, intelligent people, and any time not spent working to save babies is spent trying to make each other laugh (see office whiteboard below). \:D/ Not only that, but through our many social gatherings and various visits from guest instructors, I've become acquainted with a great many people who are crucial to Canada's pro-life movement, and I hope to become acquainted with even more of them as the summer progresses. :yes: Basically, I feel like I'm spending the summer with my heroes.

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Kairi
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Post by Kairi »

While I do understand--from a certain point of view--the ethics of giving a voice to those, beings or otherwise, who or that are aborted, I have to question the ethical use of photography here. How are those photographs collected? Did the mothers give permission? Obviously, the fetii cannot give permission. There's also something rather problematic about taking images of the powerless (and honestly, I'm including the mothers' bodies too) and using them for a campaign that's already very powerful.

Also, I wrinkle my nose at the use of the word "bioethics" used here--since the work your organization does seems to singularly work on abortion and not also include, say, patient care; the ethics of experimental treatments or treatments which can be more hazardous than the actual illness or discrimination against certain patients because of their disease (think AIDS) or race or even religion, I think it's more than a little far-fetched to be called the Canadian Center for Bioethical Reform. (And yes, I read the part on the website about why they only focus on one thing--but still, change the name to something a little more honest, in that case.)

And I really really REALLY think the Genocide Awareness Project is gross. But I'm not trying to rain on your parade. (And I doubt I'm going to, actually.) It's nice that you got an internship, though. They're few and far between.
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Post by darcie »

Not ethical really, although I suppose it qualifies as biology being regarding medical practices... Can't argue with the "Canadian" and "Center" parts though. Why not try to target the reasons why people decide to have abortions and come at it from that angle? Help people understand the biology aspect, how procreation works, what to do to prevent unwanted pregnancies instead?

Again, don't want to parade rain, but this is the most gruesome for the sake of gruesome and unnecessary side of the "Pro-Life" movement to me. It makes me sad that people target women in crisis situations like this. :(
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