Banned in Ireland
September 20, 2010 by Patrick Madrid
Filed under Patrick's Blog
This is the commercial that the Irish Government feels you should not see, at least not if you are a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. What are they afraid of? That’s right: the truth. They can’t handle the truth. So, thankfully, YouTube and other internet outlets can be the conduits.
Daniel (NZ) 22nd Sept comment
As only a small percentage of surgical abortions are performed under 7 weeks (less than 1 percent). Too early could be hazardous to the woman. I think you have some re-thinking to do. In all the statistics I have found, whether in the US, Britain, Australia, NZ, etc, (and be mindful, age gestation is largely understated in abortion … but this is another discussion) around 92% of abortions are performed around the 8 – 12 week. At 8 weeks, unless one has eyesight problem, the unborn baby already looks like a small scale baby — with little face, feet and toes, hands and fingers.
At 9 weeks, this little person is already sucking his or her thumb. Now what about all the older 2nd trimester, and 3rd trimester babies who are aborted. The audacity to say, because a child has an abnormality she can be killed.
At what degree of severity of abnormality would you suggest killing a baby in the womb, or leaving a baby gasping after she has survived an abortion is okay?
Do some research, rape victims who get pregnant are not better off when they abort the baby. On the contrary. Eg http://www.afterabortion.org/Victims/index.htm
Countries spend billions, and I mean billions of dollars on weapons of war, and yet hardly any money goes into assisting mothers & families with disabled children.
If the unborn child was given personhood status, and valued, we (I live in Australia), would come up with creative and effective ways to assist pregnant teenagers and women who have found themselves in difficult circumstances; and also help mothers and their babies after the birth. This would include offer practical help, financial assistance, adoption, etc.
Patrick’s ad does not denigrate women, and certainly seeks to raise our awareness of the amazing uniqueness of the baby in the womb. For those who attack it are real short-sighted. Obviously no one can cover everything in a single ad. Well done, Patrick!!!
http://www.abortsa.com/
Very nice ad, clear and crisp.
Should you meet the immortal soul of your aborted child in the next world, what will you say?
To Muriel: I agree, it is a right-to-life issue, just like the anti-slavery right-to-freedom cause.
But, I agree with Patrick – you must show the 'treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself' card, where a doctor or any other person should ask, 'yeah, what if I was allowed to be aborted?"
"a life of ptoential life-long misery and trauma" = every single human being who ever existed.
"a life created by a loving God with a potential for life-long and eternal loving relationships" = every single human being who ever existed.
Who are you to determine whether someone's life is worth living or not. Once the baby exists, that is his or her life you are judging.
Why not go out and find born people who look miserable to you and end their lives? Because it is wrong to kill them, just as it would have been wrong to kill them last week, last year, 20 years ago, or in their mother's womb. Same person, same principle.
michael, a thesaurus does not an intellectual make. if this is still your hang up point, you have yet to scratch the surface of the issue.
Dear Patrick,
I have just started reading your book, the "Godless Delusion" and it looks promising. Please help me with the following:
I have not made up my mind as yet, whether to be pro-life or pro-choice. I find, until somebody explains it to me in a better way, that the pro-life stance is couched in a rosy, cotton wool wrapped, academic stance – with a strong emotional overtone that, either naively or with intent, overlooks some of life's harsh realities: My current personal stance is based on the potential future of an unborn baby. If it is patently clear, that conception was due to criminal and brutal rape or that the baby (a foetus looking more like a fish in its first stages of development) will be born into a milieu of crime, drug abuse and parental abandonment and if a woman then decides to have an abortion as soon as the pregnancy is detected (very important) then I would sanction an abortion. I would not, with all due respect to the pro-life approach, allow a birth that would lead to potential life-long misery and trauma. An insistence on pro-life approach in cases as mentioned above are, in my view naive, removed from reality, cruel and irresponsible. I suppose that this is my present dilemma – the seemingly ivory tower pro-life stance and the actual reality of life rooted in a world of duality, where things are either good (and where pro-life could be encouraged) or mostly bad, where pro-life is a precursor to potentially life-long trauma.
Regards and blessings.
Dear Katy, I note you asked "What is their problem? Ireland used to be one of the most Catholic Nations in the world. Abortion IS still illegal there, is it not?"
I live in County Cork in the west of Ireland.
The 'morning after' pill is legal here (touted by the Government) and any woman wishing to have an abortion when their pregnancy is more advanced is accomodated in travelling to the UK to have the abortion performed.
The Irish Government only pays lip service to pro-life sentiments and is terrified of offending the EU out of which our subsidies flow and which has a rabidly pro-abortion position.
Oh yes we've had an 'abortion' exemption granted us for now by the EU but that will go altogether in future.
We are all living in the belly of the beast here. Pray for Ireland!
Afraid of the truth and can't handle the truth? Umm, not really. It is blocking the truth and hiding the truth. We have that worldwide, where people are bought and sold for personal and ambitious gain, including those who use the Catholic church for their own agendas. Masonry, duplistic lives, money making agendas, counterfeit missionaries, whatever tag one puts on it, it's all there under guises. Interesting times indeed.
Regarding my earlier comment, that the ad is least confusing, if not misleading, regarding the developmental age of tbe baby portrayed in the video: Here is a link to images of babies at 8 week's development:
http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T4TSNB_en___US356&q=fetal+development+8+weeks+picture&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=uCiaTNsOlJ6fB7aWtMcP&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQsAQwAA&biw=1003&bih=361
You can see that the baby in the ad is not at 8 weeks development, even though the voice over implies that she is.
Again, an 8 week baby is just as valuable and human as an older baby. I'm just saying that we need to be careful to be careful in making sure we can't be accused of misleading people.
Have you noticed other areas of censorship of the Gospel message? I have. Censorship is a direct threat to the Church. How to combat it?
The only way is to stick strictly to the very nature of God which is love.
This ad was cast in the negative light. If this group would promote the positive light of life in the womb, the message would not have been censored. When there is life in the womb, all heaven rejoices because this occurrence is a direct miracle of God, Himself.
I feel very strongly that in spite of the fact that Satan is prompting a direct response in like fashion–an equal reaction in reverse toward his work–Christians need to say "Get behind thee, Satan." They need to not ignore but counter with professing who God is, what his nature is all about, what He desires for this world.
Joe, I'd refer you back to my earlier comments about this. As I see it, the underlying point of that commercial (i.e., not the superficial question that Muriel was reacting to) is that 1) society values people for what they do, e.g., doctors, scientists, etc., and would never condone murdering them; and 2) that the baby in the womb is the same person as he or she would be when fully grown. The commercial, at least as I see it and understand it, is not arguing on the basis of "what if?" It's simply using that motif to make a much more subtle and powerful point that most people who support or are indifferent to abortion would never otherwise think of for themselves. In other words, the commercial isn't really about "what if?" It's about the intrinsic value of all human life. That's why I think Muriel was responding to a side issue rather than the underlying premise.
The point Muriel is trying to make is that when discussing abortion with those in the Pro-Choice camp, those in the Pro-Life often tend to use the argument of what that person could become and what value they could have given to society. Which, from Pro-Choicer's perspective doesn't make a rational argument (I know, as I was one day there). The argument of "What-if" is flawed in two ways.
First, it can always be countered by "What if they become a serial rapist?"
Second, it says that the person making the what if argument values the person because of what they become not because of their being and essence.
Since coming back to the church, I have found a better argument to be one in which you point out that the average American Soldier deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for 9 months. That deployment was quite uncomfortable. But we praise them for being discomfortable in support of our freedom. Yet we somehow think it is ok for a women to choose to not be uncomfortable for nine months in support of the freedom of an unborn child.
Or
Can you really tell me that nine months of your discomfort is worth the entire life of your child?
The last one may be a little harsh but it has proven to be a difficult position to argue.
God Bless,
Joe
I think this is a beautiful commercial and I fully agree with its perspective on the value of all human life. However, I do have a question – it seems to me that this ad is implying that the baby being portrayed is 8 weeks old. (ie, she says "at 8 weeks she was sucking her thumb" and there's a visual of this baby sucking her thumb).
I don't believe that this is correct – the baby in the visual portion looks to be at the point of several months of development. I know that the value of the baby's life does not depend on what it looks like, but I do think that it is not right to mislead people about fetal development. Could this be why the ad was rejected?
I think as pro-lifers we have to be super careful about being accurate in what we say. If we plant the idea in people's minds that the reason to protect the unborn is because a baby at 8 weeks looks like this one, all the other side need do is show that a baby at 8 weeks is not as fully developed as this one. Then they undermine our credibility on other matters as well.
Muriel is correct in pointing out that the dignity & value of a person springs from the fact that they are a person, regardless of what sort of life they will lead.
But the commercial doesn't go so far as to tie the success of that later life to the value of the person in the womb.
It is natural with any baby to wonder what they will be when they grow up. I think it's a good commercial – thought provoking.
I'd have to agree with you Patrick on the "what if?" angle part of the commercial. We can never know what type of person a child will be raise as. Those choices are made by both the parents and the soical enviroment that the parnets chose to raise the child in. However, I strongly feel that we will never fully resolve this issue during our life time. I say this as a person that has faith in my Christian belief, and I can also hear all the strong words (and questions) being used agaist my personal faith as a Christian. Yes, I am pro life and do not accept the destrucion of a child at any stage of life, but I also understand that the darkness that surrounds us all will contiune to destroy our efforts to thawrt it's plan and vise versa. I do fight in my own way by telling others about my faith which only helps me maintian my postion about not suporting abortion. Thus I stand by my belief that this dark deed will contiune to happen until the end of days where all those who toke part of this dark deed will be judged accordingly. I also think that the government of the Republic of Ireland, for some strange reason, thinks that this commercial of truth is a threat to them. This could be the influence of the darkness that all those who beleive in in pro life and the one true God are contiunely fighting every day. As I do not wish to offend anyone I'm sorry to have offened you in anyway. That was not the intenion. These are just the thoughts of a Christian that is trying to understand the many challenegs that life in this dark world present.
Thank you Patrick for a very intersing video and the stroy about it. ~R~
I'd have to disagree, Muriel. The point of who the baby would have grown up to be does indeed have relevance to the question of abortion, albeit not the most important aspect, to be sure, but it surely is relevant and is an issue that pro-abortionists seem to ignore. The fact that some aborted babies would grow up to be adults who do crimes is a given — no one I know in the Pro-Life Movement disputes that. The reason that this issue is worth referring to in a commercial like this one is precisely because of the intrinsic value of each human being, regardless of whether he is an unborn baby or a grown man. I think the commercial is effective in reminding people of that sameness, even though it focuses on the "what if?" angle. Who well or badly any given unborn child will turn out in life is in itself not the issue. But rather, the issue as I see it is to show that the adult doctor or scientist whom society would esteem and value happens to be the very same person he was when he was still an unborn baby in danger of being aborted.
Unfortunately, the commercial errs in implying that what the baby may have become has any relevance to the question of whether or not abortion is acceptable. Sadly, babies could as easily grow up to be murderers, rapists, or politicians, as they could become doctors or philanthropists; the pro-choice lobby will quickly point that out in response to the claim in this commercial. What it comes down to is whether or not people see each human life as intrinsically valuable, from conception to death, regardless of whatever disorders – psychological, spiritual, or physical – become manifest in that life. ~ Muriel Hergenroeder, Newville, PA.
"Have you any conception of what abortion is all about?"
Interesting that they used the word "conception". It's just pissing in the wind until we end contraception for that is the root cause.
-Tim-
Patrick, you are fabulous as always for posting the truth. God Bless You.
When I had a miscarriage, people told me they were sorry I lost my baby.
When I had an abortion, no one said a thing.
Both of my pregnancies included babies – it is the way in which a pregnancy comes to an end as to how people relate to it. Sad . . .
What is their problem? Ireland used to be one of the most Catholic Nations in the world. Abortion IS still illegal there, is it not?
I'm not sure what the laws around the world are for someone who kills the in-uterus child of a mother who actually wants to keep the child, but assuming most places make that killing a crime, it basically implies "person-hood" can be defined by the desire of another person, which is simply idiotic.