Now the tactics used by the Bardot Foundation and the Sea Shepherd Society seemed to be pulled right out of the pro-life playbook. I think we could be forgiven for thinking that they borrowed from us. Consider this poster for their campaign:
It's of a dead dolphin (and its fetus!) superimposed on a woman's pregnant belly.
The blurb reads: Together, let's make Denmark stop the massacre of dolphins in the Faroe Islands. It was published in the French newspaper Le Monde.
The French feminist organization "Osez le féminisme" (loose translation: Dare to be feminist) is a tad upset with them, for using imagery that associates violence, massacre, fetuses and pregnancy. It's all too reminiscent of anti-abortion tactics that association abortion with genocide and the holocaust. They say that such an image is not worthy of being published in a daily newspaper.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation says that while Brigitte Bardot herself is not a feminist, she believes in the right to abortion.
But that's the only pro-life tactics they`ve used.
They Bardot Foundation also held a rally (their report here) in which they paraded a coffin which contained a corpse of a dead dolphin that was discovered in a "marine cemetery" (not sure if that's the English translation). It makes me think of how pro-lifers go to abortuaries and dig fetuses out of the garbage to have them buried. It's kind of amusing that they use a coffin for their parade, because animals in the wild aren't typically buried.
Now, perhaps we can just chalk up the graphic images to people wanting to expose what they consider to be an injustice.
But the poster itself seems to want to draw from controversial pro-life tactics in order to draw attention to its cause. This was a slick advertizement. You can't tell me that the marketing geniuses behind it were not cognizant of pro-life imagery when they made that.
I think in the minds of the public, we haven't been successful in convincing people of the right to life with those pictures (yet!). However, we must have been successful in drawing attention to ourselves. On an issue that's supposed to be "settled". The animal rights people must think we're on to something.
