Don't Suck Out that Baby!

So recently, Alexandre had to go to the illustrious city of Cubatão for some work stuff. I know that Alex from Bossa Breezes is familiar with it, but for those of you who have never heard of it, you're missing out! It's a real gem. You know, a testament to the industrial revolution. Go ahead and do a Google Images search to see how pristine and clean it is. It's famous for being one of the most polluted cities in the world, so much so that babies started being born without brains. (Read more of the fun on Wikipedia.) Supposedly it's better now, but I've driven through it. It's not pretty.

Anyway, Alexandre was handed an anti-abortion flyer from someone from "the Association in Defense of the Source of Life and Family". From Cubatão. I FIND THIS EXTREMELY IRONIC.

I'll let you bask in that irony for a bit.

Now I'm going to show you the flyer, which Alexandre saved for the specific purpose of my sharing it with all of you. (He's so good to us!)

Here it is, in all its glory:

I don't want to translate all of it; I think the pictures are really what make the flyer what it is. Notice the tiny little baby in the adult man's hands at the top. And then there's the tiny little baby under the side that says "VIDA SIM!" (Yes to life!).

 Above it, it says, "the baby's tiny little heart starts beating at approximately 20 days." Then, the baby, which apparently can already crawl in the mother's uterus, says, "I'm completely formed, but I have to wait until it's time to be born!" This is the baby's status at the 12-week mark, according to the flyer. (Damn, I thought I was a cool baby for walking at 9 months, and for thinking at 1 year!)

 Then there's the little fetus crying. It says, "I'm innocent, and I've been condemned to death. I can't cry. I can't run. I can't call for help. Won't you do anything to defend me?"



Then, under the part that says "ABORTO NÃO!" (No to abortion!), the pictures of how abortion happens are even better.

I mean, look at that one of the baby getting sucked out of the uterus and broken up into tiny bits. Look at its little face of panic!

And when the abortion occurs through "curreting" (#2), it seems as though the baby's suffering face is left for last, and the baby can still feel pain, even when the rest of its body has been chopped up.




Oh yes, and apparently, babies cry when they're aborted. And according to type of abortion #3, which is "a c-section to kill the baby," "sometimes, the baby comes out still alive and is murdered afterwards."

I don't want this post to turn into a debate on abortion. I think my opinion is pretty clear here, and that's not the point. My first point of this post is to entertain you with the flyer's over-the-top nature. My second point is that this flyer is ineffective, because the few people whose sympathies would be swayed by a flyer like this (evangelical grandmothers) are already against abortion. I doubt that this misinformation and this oversimplified attempt to humanize a fetus are going to convince anyone new to join the pro-life movement. Try appealing to my intelligence rather than drawing and photocopying cartoons, ya know? I mean, try telling me something logical, rather than insisting, "but the poor little wittle baby's little wittle heart is beating and the wittle baby's gonna just be so saaaaad!"

Um, also, Cubatão? You're anti-abortion? Really? Because forcing all babies to come to full term has proven wildly successful for you in the past...?

One more point: Abortion's already illegal in Brazil, so this flyer is moot. Shouldn't the other side be the one making the flyers? I'll bet I'd be able to find some nice and gruesome pictures from this "Valley of Death" showing what happens when a woman isn't allowed to get an abortion, even if doctors know early on that her baby is going to look like this. Because that's the law right now in Brazil, and that's much scarier than anything this Christian cartoonist could think up.

I'll go ahead and publish all of your comments on this one! Just know that if you try to use my blog comments section as your soapbox, it's going to be about as effective as this flyer was on me. If you're offended, then please, by all means, call up the organization in Cubatão to offer your support, and stop reading my blog.