Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, January 22, 2013
City / The Ladies Slog Poll: Choose the Abortion Graphic!
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:46 AM
In honor of legal abortion's 40th birthday, I asked our talented senior designer, Mary Traverse, to create a graphic we could use in commemoration—something a little more classy than a birthday cake sitting on a dumpster. But instead of designing one graphic, she made three, and now I can't decide which one should go in the paper. Conundrum!
Help me out, Sloggers:
- The Stranger
- Graphic 1
- The Stranger
- Graphic 3
- The Stranger
- Graphic 2
3
How callous and jaded. One can support abortion rights but still treat it as the taking of a human life, with the required respect. But go ahead - flame me as a concern troll.
4
don't we want to celebrate the freedom from unwanted pregnancy rather than the little embryonic products themselves? (yes yes, i see the "NO" circle) it's a tougher concept to graphic-itize to be sure - but perhaps something more akin to turning our backs on coat-hangers (...poverty and over-population)
5
I like them all, and judging by the evenly spread votes, so does everyone else (mostly). Unlike that design for the top of the Space Needle, where I hated most of them.
6
Once again focusing on the fetus instead of the woman. You guys just don't get it either. You're not as bad as real abortion opponents of course, but this is as feto-centric as one can get.
8
@6 That's why I like Graphic 1 - it includes the woman, and gets the concept across by "banning" the unwanted pregnancy.
10
I agree with you, Phoebe in Wallingford. I absolutely support a woman's right to choose in ANY and ALL situations, but making a flippant visual joke out of ending a potential human life and all of the agonizing emotional ramifications of making that decision, is just really bad taste. Yuck, you guys.
11
Gotta be #3. #1 is going to make people think of the woman carrying the fetus, and, as we all know, abortion is PRIMARILY a means of murdering babies - the mother only enters into the deal as the person authorized to murder the baby. #2 is only going to remind people that fetus's aren't people, that they're little naked-mole-rat lookin' things.
#3 has the appropriate focus on murdering babies, and the cartoon fetus gives people a comfortable distance from the physical reality of the situation - the cartoon can stand for an IDEA, rather than a THING with an actual physical presence.
#3 has the appropriate focus on murdering babies, and the cartoon fetus gives people a comfortable distance from the physical reality of the situation - the cartoon can stand for an IDEA, rather than a THING with an actual physical presence.
12
disclaimer: I'm 100% onboard with a woman's right to choose.
All these graphics are frankly disgusting. Why not simply a green circle around the text, "My Choice"...
All these graphics are frankly disgusting. Why not simply a green circle around the text, "My Choice"...
13
Ya, how about a coat-hanger/dumpster/fetus icon with an X through it? I celebrate the legality of safe and available abortions but these images don't quite convey that...
It's more like something a "pro-life" hipster would come up with if they were trying to be ironic?
It's more like something a "pro-life" hipster would come up with if they were trying to be ironic?
14
Party hat with the circle and slash with a party hat on it.
Fetus with Xes for eyes wearing a party hat.
A coat hanger stuck in a birthday cake.
Fetus with Xes for eyes wearing a party hat.
A coat hanger stuck in a birthday cake.
16
I don't like any of them either. Too flippant. The right to make these critical choices with your body and the lives involved is still in vital need of defense, and I don't think these graphics do anything in support of the issue or our side at all. Poor choices in communicating to an audience wider that the Stranger offices. :(
17
Why is it a fetus in the "banned" red circle strike-through, instead of a coat hanger?
We're celebrating the striking down of laws that forced women into do-it-yourself and back-alley abortions, not the elimination of pregnancy and fetuses in general.
Frankly, these all look like designs the anti-choice folks would love. They frame the issue as though Roe v. Wade was about killing helpless babies, cheered by people who hate babies, mothers, and life in general.
We're celebrating the striking down of laws that forced women into do-it-yourself and back-alley abortions, not the elimination of pregnancy and fetuses in general.
Frankly, these all look like designs the anti-choice folks would love. They frame the issue as though Roe v. Wade was about killing helpless babies, cheered by people who hate babies, mothers, and life in general.
18
I am 100% pro-choice, but this is really gross, disrespectful, and hamfisted. What a terrible way to mark a woman's right to choose.
If you must make light of abortion, at least do it in a way that is more careful, less flippant, and more incisive (i.e. funnier, or funny at all) than this. This just makes you all look like a bunch of dumb hipster assholes.
If you must make light of abortion, at least do it in a way that is more careful, less flippant, and more incisive (i.e. funnier, or funny at all) than this. This just makes you all look like a bunch of dumb hipster assholes.
19
Yeah, I don't any of these either. The circle with a slash means "do not" (as in the law says you may not), which doesn't make sense. That's not what Roe v. Wade did.
21
They are all in bad taste. Abortion is not something to make jokes about. It's hard enough for women to make the decision. Joking about it does not help.
22
Again, pro-choice woman here, and I find them all tacky. It makes light of what is, for many women, a really difficult decision.
24
Abortion is sometimes taken very lightly by those who get one. I have at least two friends who took a pill, never thought about it again and joke about it all the time.
Not all abortions are a traumatic experience, and I'm not sure why you'd assume a magazine as generally ridiculous as the Stranger would depict the serious side.
Not all abortions are a traumatic experience, and I'm not sure why you'd assume a magazine as generally ridiculous as the Stranger would depict the serious side.
28
Those are all kinda freaky. I hope none of them end up in the paper. Really unfunny and gross, as others have stated.
29
I agree with everyone saying these are just gross and totally disrespectful, and I'm pro-choice. The celebration is giving women the choice over their reproductive decisions and keeping women safe and healthy--not the abortion itself.
30
Your "talented senior designer, Mary Traverse" must be very young since these graphics are silly and unrepresentative of what the occasion merits.
31
Disgraceful and disrespectful. Are these supposed to be from the anti-choice viewpoint? These are terribly callous and insensitive, and this is coming from someone who marched on Washington through the 1970s, 80s and 90s for a woman's right to choose. You should be ashamed.
32
None of those help the cause. They display a paucity of thought. They do more damage than good, and feed the argument of anti-choice advocates; that pro-choice people are baby killers.
I suggest you abort all of them, and apply greater critical thinking.
I suggest you abort all of them, and apply greater critical thinking.
33
Graphic number 1 highlights the woman and her right to choose, not a dead fetus. So go with Graphic number 1
36
This is disgraceful and hurtful in the most insensitive way. Undoubtedly somewhere on this planet a woman will die today getting an illegal abortion (maybe in the US even, where many rural women do not have access to legal and safe abortions). Meanwhile, other women will die today getting their clitoris cut off.
You might think you are hip and funny but you are not helping the movement you claim to represent.
You might think you are hip and funny but you are not helping the movement you claim to represent.
37
You need a graphic to celebrate abortion? Really?
How about encouraging readers to support an organization (like Planned Parenthood) which promotes access to contraception and legal abortions? Or encouraging readers to support pro-choice candidates?
Sigh.
How about encouraging readers to support an organization (like Planned Parenthood) which promotes access to contraception and legal abortions? Or encouraging readers to support pro-choice candidates?
Sigh.
38
All of them are ugly and a disgrace.
Put the red no sign on a coat-hanger, or tumbs of young women, that will be less horrible. Legal abotion means no to illegal abortion, no to unnecessary suffering of mothers, not no to babies.
Put the red no sign on a coat-hanger, or tumbs of young women, that will be less horrible. Legal abotion means no to illegal abortion, no to unnecessary suffering of mothers, not no to babies.
40
I agree with 37, and with the myriad comments about the focal point of these images. The focus should be on healthy womens' rights and reproductive choices, not about crossing out fetuses, because that's what the issue itself is about. By portraying Roe v. Wade this way, it could be read as confirming the rhetoric of anti-choice forces as it does have a certain "abortions are about killing babies" message.
41
Graphics 2 and 3 are too similar to those used by the anti-abortion crowd: They show the fetus and ignore the fact that there is a woman involved. The picture of the pregnant woman makes much more sense because it shows both the woman and the fetus.
After all, abortion isn't about ending fetuses. It's about ending pregnancy. A fetus with no woman around it doesn't need to be aborted.
After all, abortion isn't about ending fetuses. It's about ending pregnancy. A fetus with no woman around it doesn't need to be aborted.
42
Way too late to the party but in a perfect world it'd be modified graphic three--the hat would go on the fetus, which is celebrating not being born where it's not wanted.
Also It'd be visually more coherent with the hat on the fetus rather than the the red circle.
Also It'd be visually more coherent with the hat on the fetus rather than the the red circle.
43
I like the first one because it focuses on the "getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy" aspect, but something about that hot pink fetus that also has the most fabulous of the three party hats, makes it really hard to choose.
44
I am pro-choice, have had an abortion in the past and also had a ectopic pregnancy. As I am now 8 months pregnant with my first child these graphics disgust me and IMO they cheapen the experience that we (women who chose to abort or otherwise lose a fetus) go through. Poor choice of imagery for sure.
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