Disturbing images force thought

I'll admit it. The blown-up images of mangled fetuses on Washington Road on Oct. 23 disturbed me. Looking at those pictures made me sick, and I resented the evangelical Repent America organization for forcing their religious views into my afternoon. Nearly everyone I talked to, including those who are antiabortion, felt the same way: the protest was a deliberately inflammatory and offensive display of propaganda.

But I shouldn't have been so quick to criticize. Reading The Daily Princetonian article the next morning, I realized something as disturbing as those pictures. I, as an animal rights activist, am as "crazy" as those people. I share their unpopular opinion that attention-grabbing demonstrations are completely justifiable. In fact, I believe that these tactics are often the best and only way to shed light on otherwise ignored activist causes.

Repent America has every right to show pictures of a legal and defended practice. Sure, the photos might have been emotionally disturbing to women who have had abortions or to innocent kids passing by. From an activist's point of view, though, desperate times do call for desperate measures. As much as Princeton Pro-Life president Tom Haine '08 may want people to, nobody is going to Google these images on their own.

In the same way, meat-eaters who contribute to the suffering of 12 billion animals each year should not have the luxury of looking away. No, it's not pleasant to see fully conscious cows shackled upside down with blood streaming from their necks, overgrown, hormone-filled pigs with so much muscle mass that their limbs can't support their weight or chickens with cancerous sores all over their bodies. But why should meat-eaters be able to avert their gaze with impunity? I hate to say it, but the Repent America leaflet puts it best: "When something is so horrifying we can't stand to look at it, perhaps we shouldn't be tolerating it."

But instead of not tolerating the horrifying factory farms, meat-eaters just don't look. Even my own mother and many of my friends refuse to watch undercover videos like "Meet Your Meat." In a society that values entertainment and consumption over the uncomfortable facts, animal rights activists must use any and every (peaceful) method to force people to think about the suffering they support without giving it a second thought.

It is far too easy to forget the connection between the sterile, nicely packaged ham at the supermarket and the living pig she was just a few days before. Living, that is, until she left the horrors of mass confinement for the horrors of the slaughterhouse: the transport itself during which one million pigs die each year (according to an industry report in Feedstuffs: "Research Looks at Transport Losses," April 17, 2006), the excessive electric prodding used to hasten them to their death, the ineffective stunning that leaves pigs fully conscious while their blood gushes from their sliced throats and while they burn alive in the scalding water tank that removes their hair. Paying attention yet?

Many animal rights protests, like the pro-life protest, are designed to be obnoxious, irreverent and thought provoking. And they work. Barely anyone noticed the respectable guy handing out pro-vegetarian leaflets near Frist a few weeks ago, but the pro-life protest generated 'Prince' articles and dining-hall dinner conversations. Yes, lectures, debates and classes can also bring activist issues to the front of people's minds, but graphic public demonstrations reach a large unsuspecting audience and leave a lasting impression.

Though I did not come to the same conclusions as Repent America, seeing the aborted fetuses did make me justify to myself why I am for abortion rights. I think that a woman should have the right to balance the emotional pain of ending a life with her own needs, health and future. The decision is incredibly personal and complex. In contrast, when we weigh the suffering of billions of intelligent, feeling animals against the taste of a cooked carcass, the ethical choice — at least to me — seems much more obvious.

Whatever our philosophical background, we shouldn't be so quick to criticize others' campaigns. The demonstrations might not change our minds, but they do force us to think about the deeper ethical questions behind such disturbing images, and activists have every right to illustrate practices our society allows.

Our initial shock to demonstrators' signs is natural and expected, but on reflection we should not be so afraid. The only thing scarier than these seeing these images is living in a society that hides them from view. Jenny Palmer '09 is the co-founder of the Princeton Animal Welfare Society. She is from Bethesda, Md., and may be reached at jspalmer@princeton.edu.