This is one of the strangest fundraising campaigns I ever saw. Pregnant Belgium women use their belly to make paintings for SOS Children’s Villages (SOS Kinderdorpen).
Infant and child mortality in Togo is very high. As early as the pregnancy, mothers have to fight for their unborn child’s chances of survival. That’s why the organization has set up mother-child clinics to help them.
The work of the Unborn Artists is used to raise funds to support the clinics in Togo.
Brussels-based artist Isabelle de Borchgrave is the godmother of the project. She exhibits the collection in her gallery.
SOS children’s villages also provides do-it-yourself-packs for mothers who want to make an artwork with their unborn baby, at home. The do-it-yourself packs are being sold online, in hospitalshops and at several gynaecology practices.
“Thousands of unborn babies do not survive their own birth. This number needs to go down. Belgian unborn babies support African unborn babies.”
Whilst I appreciate this campaign is for a good cause, I think the wording and the messaging is potentially harmful to pro-choice campaigns. Describing a foetus as a baby is particularly dangerous - that is the kind of wording and messaging that anti-choice campaigns base their arguments on. Furthermore, describing foetuses as artists, implies some kind of personality, which would also encourage anti-choice arguments.
I think a much safer position would have been to focus on the needs of the mother, maybe having ‘Belgian mothers supporting African mothers’ or something along those lines.
Posted by Beth Granter | 17-01-2012 15:56
Beth, I had the same comments when I saw this on Google+. I wonder if the language of “unborn babies” is as politicized in Europe as it is in North America.
Posted by Tom Megginson | 17-01-2012 20:00
I think their whole position is that once it gets to the point where the baby is kicking to move the paintbrushes, it is no longer a fetus, it is a baby. Understand, I am pro-choice, but I do think late term abortions should be illegal except in dire circumstances (like that birth defect where the baby is born without a brain). And I see nothing wrong with them calling it “Unborn Artists”. If the pregnancy is advanced enough that the baby is kicking to move the paintbrushes, then it is painting a picture, therefore it is the artist!
Posted by Meece | 17-01-2012 21:57
This was a great info. Thanks for sharing it with us and thank you for putting up such a helpful and useful information on your blog.
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