The Genocide Project, smeared across the center of the Pedestrian Walkway at the University of Tennessee, home to the footsteps of thousands of students daily, used very strong and meaningful rhetoric in its employment. This Genocide Awareness Project has been posted over the campuses of many schools nationwide, and uses stronger images than words. These images show multiple photos of unborn babies ripped from their mothers’ wombs. Many people disagree with the label of “genocide” but “Webster’s New World Encyclopedia, Prentice Hall General Reference, 1992, defines "genocide" as "The deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or other group defined by the exterminators as undesirable.” (abortionno.org). This campaign aims to bring awareness about abortion to college students, and hopes to not only stop people from getting abortions, but to make it illegal. Appeals to Pathos are the most prominent in this campaign because the very graphic photos make people feel bad about what has happened to the unborn fetus. Though we call it an unborn fetus, these images show us that it can be identified as a human baby, even at 7 weeks old. Photos show a 7-week abortion where the pieces of the baby are resting on an adult male’s finger, and the entire baby could be imagined to fit on the surface of his fingernail. These images draw strong emotion from people. Aside from the words that are used to show how abortion is genocide, comparing it to the Nazi genocide, etc. the pictures are the main component in this project. A picture is worth a thousand words, and there are multiple thousands that could be said about this campaign.
If you do not want to see anything more graphic than the photo below,
DO NOT click this link.
I also thought that the genocide project was very alarming and perhaps a little too extreme to display in a crowded area of a college campus. Though I agree with the central message of the anti-abortionists, I do believe that they could have presented their case in a more civil and less graphic way. I think that in doing their protest to abortion, they may have actually turned more people away from their ideals than gained "followers," as they were giving no redemption for the case. The display made it appear to me as though they were crazed extremists. I believe that a better way for them to get their point across would have been to have people available to talk if you had questions or concerns, or a boundary blocking the graphic pictures from public viewers so that people had the choice of looking at them or not.
ReplyDeleteGrace, I like the statement about a picture being worth 1,000 words. These pictures definitely prove this to be true. Yes, the group does play on pathos. However, I believe that they play on it in the wrong way. This shows their lack of logos. In my opinion I believe these grotesque pictures show their bad ethics. I don't believe the pedestrian walkway is the best place for this.
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