Pro-Life Protesting Behavior

[EnemyPartyII]

Hey hey, I'm just pulling your leg now.

yep, nothing like saying "I was only joking" to get out of admiting you were doing something wrong

 

[Steezie]

Did planned parenthood call the police? you said she was attacked ... Did they also get the police to remove the protestors from the doorway of the clinic since that is against the law? Surely this would have been on the news also because of laws barring protestors from the property of the clinics especially in california :

Vallejo, California: fixed buffer zone which requires protesters to remain across the street from a clinic enacted in 1991. [14] After the Supreme Court of California upheld the injunction, the case was taken to the federal Supreme Court in October 1994, but was remanded to the state court due to the recent Madsen v. Women's Health Center decision. The California Supreme Court again upheld the buffer zone in July 1995. On March 17, 1997 the case reached the federal Supreme Court as Williams v. Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo, and Justices voted 6-3 to uphold the buffer zone. [15] from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_p...ss_to_abortion

Im well aware of the statutes regarding protesting.

Im interested to know how these protestors were able to "attack" your friend in the "doorway" of the clinic when in the state of california - protestors have to be across the street or at a certain distance away from the clinic.

Not actually having been there personally I couldnt say. But I fail to see why Mary would make something like that up.

You mean they're tied up and dragged there?

There are abortions performed at the behest of a relative. This is most often seen in teenagers where a father threatens to kick a child out if they dont have an abortion to get rid of a pregnancy regardless if the child wants to keep the baby or not. That happens more frequently than you know, I spoke with atleast four young women as a peer counselor in high school who had abortions under the threat of punishment from family. In other families, the punishment is less overt but still there. In my family, someone who comes home pregnant as a teenager gets treated like a leper or someone incapable of handling anything and usually results in alienation from the rest of the family.

And those times would be...?

Ectopic pregnancies which occur roughly 64,000 times every year ( http://www.americanpregnancy.org/main/statistics.html ) is a good start.

Of the approximately 4400 infanticides performed in the US daily about 44 of them are proper abortions done to save the life of the mother or something like that.

Im interested to see those statistics if you can find them, considering you WAY over-shot the number of abortions that are actually performed.

4400 abortions for 365 days a year is 1,606,000 abortions a year. When according to CDC statistics, only 854,122 abortions were performed in 2003.

Falsifying statistics, this seems to be a pattern with the pro-life crowd.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

Im interested to see those statistics if you can find them, considering you WAY over-shot the number of abortions that are actually performed.

4400 abortions for 365 days a year is 1,606,000 abortions a year. When according to CDC statistics, only 854,122 abortions were performed in 2003.

Falsifying statistics, this seems to be a pattern with the pro-life crowd.

Oh, but lying is OK if it helps make abortion look bad.

 

[Steezie]

Oh, but lying is OK if it helps make abortion look bad.

**Logic circuts explode**

 

[Monica02]

One of my close friends went to a Planned Parenthood clinic yesterday and she encountered some pro-life protesters. For the purposes of this thread, we'll call her Mary.

She was going in to terminate a pregnancy after having concerns about her physical ability to bear a child. Her OBGYN told her that she would probably be ok but she couldnt make any promises. Mary is attending college for an engineering degree and has concerns about her ability to complete school as well as her physical ability to carry the baby and give birth. Rather than risk it and drop out of school, she decided it would be best to terminate.

Now normally we have pro-life protesters around the local Planned Parenthood clinic. Its a common scene and they generally havent caused much of a problem. But when Mary started walking in, the protestors began shouting at her, shoving signs in her face and pictures of aborted fetuses. One of the women there shouted that she was a harlot and should have kept her legs closed.

Normally I would guess that abortion protesters are atleast moderately civil, a few crazies, but generally contained. But whats with the intimidation? I mean seriously, yelling and screaming in front of a government building, thats one thing. Harassing and scaring a woman on her own and basically ATTACKING HER, what does that accomplish?

I demonstrate outside of abortion clinics, usually on Saturday mornings. The "harlot" comment probably would not accomplish anything - perhaps a new person showed up. We normally have signs with words as well as signs with pictures of both aborted not-aborted unborn children.

I usually try to start a conversation before I hand the lady/girl literature. Shoving it in her face would probably not coax her to read it.

We have one lady that shows up occasionally and she sometimes says things to abortion bound girls that I would consider ineffective and actually might work against our efforts, and so I always am glad when she does not show up.

There is not much you can do - people have a right to show up at the clinics. Most of the prayer warriers and sidewalk counselors are top-notch so this renegade lady is not too much of a problem.

 

[Texas Lynn]

No, the OP specifically said that "Mary" was "having concerns about her physical ability to bear a child" and that while "her OBGYN told her that she would probably be ok...she couldnt make any promises." Whether Mary's fears are justified or not, they are apparently very real to her. That sounds like more than just being inconvienced.

No one except the woman is qualified to determine whether a woman's reason for having an abortion is a "trivial inconvenience" as some sneeringly put it or somehow a worthwhile reason which is an exception.

When South Dakota passed their landmark abortion ban with NO exceptions not even for rape, incest, or danger to the life or health of the woman one rather arrogant State Senator who supported the ban indicated such exceptions could be made under it as he saw it, but, only for a "Christian virgin who was raped". This is somewhat typical of the thinking of the judgmental in this area.

 

[Texas Lynn]

That's disgusting and those people ought to be ashamed of themselves. This is one thing I really, really hope I don't have to deal with now that I'm living in a larger city, because I had an abortion at 15 and if I'm called "babykiller" or "harlot" on the way in for my annual exam I'd likely have a complete emotional breakdown. It's a /very/ sensitive topic for me.

These people who shout and hurl insults don't care how they make these women feel and they don't care whether or not they're accomplishing something. If they did, they'd learn how to properly persuade someone to their side. All they're doing is satisfying their animal instincts to rip on someone who's doing something they deem unacceptable. They're no better than animals fighting over scraps of meat.

Unfortunatery that is typical of these demonstrations.

 

[Texas Lynn]

...most infanticides are done as birth control.

Documentation, please.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Ok Arnold. Whatever. That's like saying that the main thrust of 'anti-choice' activists is to control men, because most murderers are men, and men should have a choice of what they do with their bodies. I like how you use 'anti-choice' to frame the debate in an Orwellian fashion, BTW. It only makes your position look more absurd because of the silliness of the idea of people sitting around fuming about how much they hate choosing things.

This is an absurd argument unless men can now get pregnant.

It's not Their choices the anti-aborts object to, it's other people's choices. The exceptions are of course those women who are in religious sects which stigmatize abortion and have one but don't tell their church families but favor abortion banns in the style of the serial offender who taunts police with with notes saying "stop me!"

 

[Brennin]

The main thrust of anti-choice activists has always been controlling women.

Pull the other leg.

 

[christalee4]

I demonstrate outside of abortion clinics, usually on Saturday mornings. The "harlot" comment probably would not accomplish anything - perhaps a new person showed up. We normally have signs with words as well as signs with pictures of both aborted not-aborted unborn children.

I usually try to start a conversation before I hand the lady/girl literature. Shoving it in her face would probably not coax her to read it.

We have one lady that shows up occasionally and she sometimes says things to abortion bound girls that I would consider ineffective and actually might work against our efforts, and so I always am glad when she does not show up.

I was struck by the fairly dispassionate tone of your attitude towards the women or girls who are faced with verbal assault when they go into a Planned Parenthood. First of all, how do you know which girls are having abortions? Do they have a big "A" pinned on their chests? Many girls might be going to get birth control and physical examinations. Is the assumption that all women and girls who go to Planned Parenthood are "harlots" anyway, so you might as well unload your propaganda on all of them?

Most girls and women who decide to abortions don't do so lightheartedly. They may feel sad, guilty, scared, emotionally upset due to possible family strife over the matter. Showing pictures of aborted fetuses, calling the clients "harlots" is not only "not effective", it's cruel. You have a right to protest, but groups like yours may be more effective by being non-judgemental, praying, and offering your love non-confrontationally.

 

[Texas Lynn]

I no longer protest at clinics, but I can say that when I did, anyone who behaved that way would have been told to leave immediately.

So you say but that sort of behavior is typical in many cases.

Generally even if "told to leave" occurs, it begs the question of who has authority for such. In the streetfighting and such that occurs in these things clinic defenders are of necessasity and practicality screened; "demonstrators" appear on public and/or other property and unless permits are involved (generally not on day-to-day stuff; that'd be unconstitutional) no one among the antis is going to ever really have any authority to order another to leave.

My brother-in-law was a clinic defender in the Siege of Houston in 1992. For the first couple of days banter between the two lines was common. On the third day clinic secuity leaders had received intelligence a confrontation was emminent. They wanted to avoid it. He said "Blah blah blah blah" (actually that--a mocking rejoinder), something a lot of people had done the previous two days, and the leaders asked him to leave. Supposedly he could have argued with them since they were on a public sidewalk but he chose not to because he valued his relationship with them and deferred his own judgment to theirs. The confrontation never came but the leaders were, if not overly antsy, appropriate.

 

[Texas Lynn]

A place where people go to kill little babies is no more a medical clinic than Dachau was a medical clinic.

That's true. Of course, in America in 2007, there are no "place where people go to kill little babies" unless maybe you mean Iraq or el bario. Women who were deemed promiscuous or otherwise morally questionable and unworthy were sent to Dachau-the same population group which is terrorized by clinic attackers. The Nazis outlawed abortion for Aryan women. They had the same contemptous attitude toward women then as antiabort groups do today.

You mean they're tied up and dragged there?[in response to comment regarding women not wanting abortions getting them]

No one "wants" an abortion. Circumstances which result thus are tragic, but, none of the business of big mouths on a picket line.

[in response to]
Quote:
I am against abortion used as birth control - it is irresponsible on the part of both the man and the woman. However, there are times when abortion isn't used as birth control but because it is the only realistic option.
And those times would be...?

None of your, or anyone else's business.

Quote:
So it is better to risk the woman's life with limited or no prenatal care, or to continue with a life-threatening pregnancy? Not all abortions are done as a way of birth control - many have medical reasons that can not be treated as this time.
Less than 1%.

All abortions are either medical or surgical. The reasons for them are not the concerns of others except the women and their providers.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Of the approximately 4400 infanticides performed in the US daily about 44 of them are proper abortions done to save the life of the mother or something like that.

Documentation, documentation?

That makes the other 4354 women guilty of murder.

Oh, really? Were you just appointed Lord High Executioner by the Mikado. This is America where people are innoncent till proven guilty. Even if somehow laws were passed to charge these women with murder the jury nullification rate would probably exceed 75%.

Some day, as society gets over the regression we experienced with Roe v Wade the people who advocate no justice for infanticide will be viewed the same way as the people who said "The only good Injun is a dead Injun".

The oppression card does not work for the fetus because a fetus is not a person and those figting to say it is are allied with forces of classism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Incidentially, Native Americans' votes were instrumental in overturning South Dakota's unfortunate short-lived abortion ban.

 

[Texas Lynn]

The law did not used to recognize slaves as people either. Do you want to be on that side of history?

The same cohort which opposes choice supports slavery. The anti-abortion terror group Operation Rescue's leader Randall Terry even advocates "Biblical Slavery"!

We're not talking about abortion here. To abort means to quit.

It's the termination (quitting) of a pregnancy.

We're talking about infanticide.

No, infanticide is the killing of post-birth babies or "infants". A fetus is not an infant.

 

[kevin36]

The main thrust of anti-choice activists has always been controlling women.

We'll keep that your little secret.

To me, the main objective would seem to be tokeep people from killing children.

 

[Steezie]

We'll keep that your little secret.

To me, the main objective would seem to be tokeep people from killing children.

So logically you should be against EVERYTHING that does children harm, right?

Chemical additives in food that contribute to obesity, excess of sugar in food marketed to children that cause obesity and diabites, second-hand smoke that can cause lung cancer etc etc

 

[kevin36]

So logically you should be against EVERYTHING that does children harm, right?

Chemical additives in food that contribute to obesity, excess of sugar in food marketed to children that cause obesity and diabites, second-hand smoke that can cause lung cancer etc etc

I'm certainly against everything that KILLS children. That is what this is about, right? Not just harming them, but actually killing them.

It amazes me to read this thread... especially the Christians who approve of abortions. Incredibly.

For those Christians- remember inthe Bible where it says that God knew us before we were born? Where David says God knit him together in his mother's womb? How can a Christian read these verses and still say that a baby isn't a "child" or "human" until it's outside of it's mother?

And for those and anybody else who says it's nobody else's business but the mother and the abortion "provider", yes, it is somebody else's business.

I've noticed a strong trend on CF for people to say "As long as it doesn't hurt me, whatever you choose to do is okay with me." How selfish and irresponsible can you be? Should we just sit around and let people kill our children just because it doesn't concern us directly?

You can debate the semantics of the terms all day long, and the morality of the procedure as well, if you want, but there's really no need.

Some of us still believe in moral absolutes, and killing a child should never be allowed, much less promoted so agggressively

 

[Steezie]

I'm certainly against everything that KILLS children. That is what this is about, right? Not just harming them, but actually killing them.

Oh, so as long as they get lung cancer and diabeties, its all good but if someone prevents them from being born THATS the travesty?

 

[kevin36]

Oh, so as long as they get lung cancer and diabeties, its all good but if someone prevents them from being born THATS the travesty?

So is there no differance between a disease and murder?

Catching a disease is outside of moral consideration, unless you want to debate whether or not God has morals, but intentionally choosing to end the life of any person, be it an unborn child or not, is far from outside morality.

No, neither lung cancer nor diabetes are good, but then again I don't intentionally inflict them on somebody, either.

Your comparing of a disease to an intentional murder is almost laughable, if it weren't such a sad reflection of how low a price our society has put on human life.