An ad campaign in the nation of Chile is taking despicable to a new level. Attempting to use satire to criticize that abortion is illegal in the nation, the ad campaign uses a series of “how-to tutorials” to show a woman how to have an “accidental abortion.” The videos, which are poorly done— looking like bad selfie videos— come from a pro-abortion group that is attempting to show the Chilean government that it is hurting women by not allowing abortion.
The videos come with the tagline: “In Chile an accidental abortion is the only kind of abortion that is not considered a crime.” Thus, each video satirizes ways to have an abortion. One shows a woman who tells the audience how to throw themselves in front of a car, stomach first. Another dramatizes a woman giving step-by-step instructions for how to throw yourself down a flight of stairs. These videos make sure to pan across the woman’s pregnant belly, making the already poor taste worse.
Satire is an effective tool for changing minds on problematic social issues; however, these videos do not achieve intellectual satire such as one can find in Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” They are more like bad audition videos for Saturday Night Live. Worse yet, they are tutorials for murder. In fact, it’s a wonder YouTube has not removed them since they actually are promoting an illegal act in that nation.
The “satire” the unprofessional videos use doesn’t actually come off as satirical because these tactics have, to some extent, been used to actually induce abortion. More common reports of induced illegal abortion these days come from men who have tried to slip abortion drugs into women’s drinks. But there are violent stories like these, too, where men have done such horrendous things as tried to punch a partner in the stomach to induce abortion. The Internet is laden with herbs and drugs a woman can obtain to induce abortion, as well. Satire generally uses hyperbole to make social commentary, but these videos, while exaggerated, are neither intellectual nor completely exaggerated, which causes them, instead, to be crass and cruel.
And the ineffective satire leads to one of the most troubling aspect of the videos, apart from the obvious encouragement to murder. It is wholly offensive, and even painful, to many women. First, women who have longed to be pregnant or who have lost babies unwillingly probably see these horrific displays of mocking life and feel anger and grief, triggering their trauma all over again.
Additionally, a post-abortive woman who has regretted her decision (which many do, despite what abortion advocates claim), may suffer deeply from these tasteless videos. Can you imagine, after the pain of killing your baby has taken root, what you feel when you see a pregnant woman making a joke of killing a baby in an effort to legalize it? The insensitivity by these abortion-happy individuals truly takes despicable to a new level.
A staff psychologist, Leslie Nicholls, at the Miles Organization, the company responsible for the videos, says in The Daily Beast:
“For me, it’s a great way to show how a girl could be in such desperation and will have these crazy ideas like throwing herself from the stairs or in front of the highway. We’ve seen that. That’s very common in those cases.”
It’s further troubling that a person charged with caring for people’s mental health would also admit that this type of tactic is common, so it’s a “great way” to promote their cause.
The abortion rate in Chile is estimated by pro-abortion groups to be at 35 percent, despite it being a crime punishable by jail time. Clearly, the last thing Chile needs is more abortion. But that hasn’t stopped those obsessed with murdering children at any cost from promoting it.
