Visual Discourse of Abortion

Pro-Life Images and Anchorage in Medical Discourse

Synechdoche

This image was most persuasive because of its synechdochic structure. An accurate, full picture of a young fetus includes features not associated with adult human beings- the placenta and the umbilical cord and, in a six-week fetus, even a "tail." With these and its ungainly face and head, off-balance and poorly formed, a young fetus looks like a wretched creature, bloody and undernourished. Such "negatives" and "variances" weigh heavily against the A is B formulation. Fetal feet, however, are very close to baby feet in shape. The identity of the part is crucial. Our visual logic "recognizes'" such feet as "small human feet" and we synechdocally expand the unseen picture of a full "small human." Thus, the synechdoche tightened the identity between fetus and adult by eliminating all those components that reveal the differences between the two, focusing on one single, stunning similarity (Condit 89).

Medical Discourse

Day 1 - conception takes place.

7 days - tiny human implants in mother's uterus.

10 days - mother's menses stop.

18 days - heart begins to beat. 21 days - pumps own blood through separate closed circulatory system with own blood type.

28 days - eye, ear and respiratory system begin to form.

42 days - brain waves recorded, skeleton complete, reflexes present.

7 weeks - photo of thumbsucking.

8 weeks - all body systems present.

9 weeks - squints, swallows, moves tongue, makes fist.

11 weeks - spontaneous breathing movements, has fingernails, all body systems working.

12 weeks - weighs one ounce.

16 weeks - genital organs clearly differentiated, grasps with hands, swims, kicks, turns, somersaults, (still not felt by the mother.)

18 weeks - vocal cords work - can cry.

20 weeks - has hair on head, weighs one pound, 12 inches long.

23 weeks - 15% chance of viability outside of womb if birth premature.*

24 weeks - 56% of babies survive premature birth.*

25 weeks - 79% of babies survive premature birth.*

Source: M. Allen et. al., "The Limits of Viability." New England Journal of Medicine. 11/25/93: Vol. 329, No. 22, p. 1597. http://www.prolife.com/FETALDEV.html.

"Visual images seduce our attention and demand our assent in a particular and gripping fashion. Many audiences are leery of verbal constructions, which only 'represent' reality, but because we humans tend to trust our own senses, we take what we see to be true. Therefore, our trust in what we see gives visual images particular rhetorical potency" (Condit 81).

What do you think?

Punctum is unintentional and ungeneralizable; it is a sensitive point in an image which pricks, bruises, and disturbs a particular viewer out of their usual viewing habits. They shock the viewer with their "intractable reality" (Barthes 89). The use of this image by various Pro-life organizations is not unintentional, however the content of the photos is not constructed and does seem to be "intractable." These images are from various Pro-Life sites that provide multiple galleries of fetuses, babies, people, that/who have been aborted. Photos are provided from first trimester abortions, second trimester abortions and late term abortions. Many of the photos are claimed to be from "aborted babies at various stages retrieved from dumpsters".

Works Cited

Condit, Celeste. Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change . University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 1990.

Images: Priests for Life. Staten Island, New York. http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/abortionimages/index.htm. 1995.

Google Images