To think the tactics of CBR UK are disgusting? Trigger warning - pro life.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

I've been seething since Saturday when I encountered the organisation CBR UK on one of the busiest parts of our town centre.

CBR UK are a fundamental pro-life organisation claiming to have the interests of women traumatised by abortion at heart. Actually their roots are in the US and are underpinned by fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

Their way of educating and supporting women is to display 6 x 8 feet technicolor pictures of the aftermath of abortion in full view of women and children to get their point across.

A look at their Facebook page will prove to you I am not making this up. They place a warning sign ahead if the images, and also warn that they live film their activities, but it's obviously lip service.

They hand out leaflets and try to engage people

I challenged one of the very smug beatific older woman and suggested they must really hate women, but no, it's because they love and want to protect us apparently. And "God" - which slipped out as I took my leave and she called out God bless you. To which I responded how dare you bring God into this - and her parry was - why do you hate him that much?

Anyway, I'm posting this to make you aware that you might come up against this while doing your Christmas shopping.

Whatever your views on abortion, (Mine are pro choice and pro it's noone else's Goddamn business except a woman and her doctor) can we agree that this kind of "awareness raising" is almost psychological terrorism and should not be on our high streets in such graphic forms?

Women who have been rated, suffered traumatic medical miscarriages and are possibly accompanied by curious children don't need this shit rubbed in their faces while doing their Christmas shopping - or at any time.

AIBU?

Exactly! Don't agree with abortion? Then don't have one

I think there's something deeply wrong with forced birthers.

We have plenty of born and very much alive children in the world who need help, but they don't help them. Instead their focus is on preventing women accessing the medical help they require. And that's before they distribute obscene material to children. Sick fuckers!

I think there has been a concerted effort over the years to introduce the US abortion conflict into the UK.

This is not to say that the UK has not always had a number of home grown anti choice activists.

However, the use of inflamatory US memes etc feels odd. It doesn't feel home grown. It feels like a deliberate attempt to reopen something that is not currently a big differentiator in UK politics and turn it in to one with emotional attacks that trigger, polarise and harden opinions.

It's almost like, while hitherto it's not been as toxic and politically polarised an issue in the UK, we are primed to react from watching the US so jump quickly to respond as if we also had a history of toxic debate.

I do worry that the ... let's call it Global Right (apologies to small-r socially or economically centre-right people) ... are trying to introduce abortion as a wedge issue here as well, since it's been very successful for them in the US.

But this thread is not about removing choice. This thread is about placards.

Well if what you had to say was about removing the choice THAT YOU HAD from other women then you are correct, nothing you have to say on the matter is acceptable.

Take your kids of Catholic school then if you don't want them to have a Catholic education.

That doesn't alter the fact that it is.

I support decriminalisation of abortion to a point, but I don't relate to a lot of the pro-choice arguments here. It's perfectly possible to have a view that what's in the womb slowly evolves from being a ball of cells to being a baby, and that the switchover point might not conveniently coincide with viability. Personally I had an 8 week scan and saw a ball of cells, and a 12 week one and saw my beloved baby. PP is perfectly within her rights to see that point at 4 weeks.

In my experience the people I know who are explicitly pro-life also love babies after they're born, support new parents with enthusiasm and hold intellectually coherent positions on e.g. euthanasia as well, so I don't recognise this characterisation that they only care about controlling women's bodies.

Anyway, I came to this thread to say regardless of all that, I think it's not acceptable to show such graphic imagery in public as it's really traumatising. Those kinds of images stick with you forever. I'm not sure how the organisers cope with packing up every day and just casually glancing at those images in their car backseats on the way home...

At no point have I said that choice should be removed. Placards don't stop women accessing abortions.

It's funny isn't it that Mother Nature, or God, terminates pregnancies every day, with a free pass as "It's just one of those things". However, a woman exercising bodily autonomy is castigated.

Miscarriages are painted as Nature's way of sorting things out. Yet it doesn't always, and without abortion rights, a woman can be forced to carry to term a child with no viable chance of life beyond a few hours, or one that might survive but may demonstrably have little quality of life, continuous pain, and require medical support where Nature might take it's course if allowed.

I'm not bringing this up to upset anyone, and I have great respect for those who do care for extremeky complex needs children. I know they choose to do it out of love and it's not anyone's place to judge that.

But that's it - we're down to choice again.

Everybody should have the right to choose their path. Abortion is an available choice and should remain so without emotional blackmail from religious zealots who only care about controlling women and will happily punish children by leaving them in poverty because their mothers have "transgressed".

It's hardly ever men being targeted by these organisations, yet it takes two to tango.

Well according to you such images stopped you from having one.
I am pleased you are happy with your outcome, many women may not be

@OneAmberFinch " PP is perfectly within her rights to see that point at 4 weeks."

Of course she is. For herself. Not for others.

Evidence clearly shows abortion is health care and is positive for women. Evidence also shows between 95% to 99% of women who have had abortions don't regret having them.

Legal abortion is a positive. It restores womens health, their lives, and means they aren't Gestational Slaves. It's about human rights for women. It is a good thing, and I genuinely believe there should be more abortions because too many girls get pregnant and keep the baby when they shouldn't. There is no negative to abortion, only positives.

Placards could easily be the beginning of removing choice.

Religious zealotry is behind it, imported from the US. The religious right are meddling in politics in many areas right now, and women's rights are a huge target.

Ok... Annabella.

But the number of women fighting for, in favour of and not regretting their abortions carries more weight in working out the net outcome for women than your personal account of being glad you chose not to have one. Annabella.

You wouldn't have 'killed' a 'child'. It is a thing with no brainstem, no nerve receptors and no sentience. As you have a born child now, one would think you'd know better, and know the difference between a blastocyst/embryo/fetus with no sentience at all, and an actual human being.

I would be furious. I want to shove the placards where the sun doesn't shine. I'm pro free speech but this is wrong.

In life, we have to do horrible things. Sometimes, that horrible thing is to terminate a zygote ( I can easily live with that tbh. ). At some point, it becomes difficult when the feotus develops to a point whereby we can see and recognise human life. There will be occasions as sickening as it may be, where this needs to not progress. The lives of women and young girls and the well being of potential unborn children depend on this.

Every single person pro life I call absolute bullshit. It is never about the zygote or the unborn feotus. It is about something else, always. I would like to see these pro life idiots lining up to care for the unwanted foetus if it were to get to full term, rather than leave them to a life of misery so many unwanted children end up having.

Something needs to be done to regulate this type of protest surely.

I'm not sure how the organisers cope with packing up every day and just casually glancing at those images in their car backseats on the way home...

They cope just fine because they're gory, grotesque sick fuckers.

@Annabella92
What do those placards represent? The holders aren't interested in education, only removing choice. I don't particularly want images of medical procedures/products being displayed when I'm shopping. I don't think that's an unusual viewpoint. What are they campaigning for? It's stupid, they're campaigning for something that has zero impact on their own lives. Just using it as an excuse to involve themselves in other people's business.

I had an abortion. If I had that baby I’m sure I’d have loved it, but I’ll never know and I don’t really care because I’m not living it, I’m living another kind of life, and have no regrets.

@Annabella92 no it bloody well hasn't. In a group of 20, I know personally, not one single regret, ever.

We are all mothers.

Who believe they are doing "Gods Work"
This type seem to think that any behavior is justified if its in the name of religion, it stops them looking at themsleves too closely

I would be interested to hear your reasoning as to why safe healthcare and avoiding poverty and unhappiness has been bad for women

These are probably the types who would say "this hurts me as much as it hurts you" or "it's for your own good" while meting out cruelty. No, you're not doing God's work, you're a deluded sadist.

I’ll tell you why - they fucking hate women

From an entirely neutral viewpoint (I have no skin in the game) my impression is that they are relatively fundamental Christians. And their religion says "thou shalt not kill" and they see abortion as killing.

There is no other legal killing happening in developed, peaceful countries - as it were - so they fixate on abortions.
(If our armed forces do any, it tends to be on other soil (and there will be a rhetoric/interpretation that might make it acceptable to them; "it's national defence", "they're bad people" etc).

I think the fact that it is a foetus, a potential baby, is also very emotive to them.

If they are devout/fundamental - they feel they have to (to be a good Christian and a good person) save people (make sure they believe in Christianity) and try to stop killing. Since it's a major tenet of Christianity. They probably feel they're failing or not doing their duty or not doing "right" if they don't.

I think everything else, including women's issues come second to that.
So it's probably not that they hate women per se. It's just that they think they have to try to stop everyone, including women, from doing what is outlawed by the commandments; especially the (apparently) most important one.
They think they would be turning a blind eye and doing nothing about what they see as a sin/travesty/crime/outrage/deeply immoral action and feel they shouldn't.

The zeal supercedes any considerations about anything else.

(There probably are, of course, men in the movement who do see it as a tool for control of women, but I'd imagine most of the women & a portion of the men are more just fundamental Christians who feel it's breaking one of the central tenets of their beliefs).