People
So, I thought that this week I would talk about the patients and those who accompany them to the abortion clinic.
First we have the mothers. They come from every race, age, and socio-economic background. They come with their mothers, fathers, sisters, best friends, husband, and boyfriends. But still, they most of them walk into the clinic the same way; heads down, arms around their stomachs. Most don’t look at us, but they never yell at us. They just do their best to pretend we don’t exist.
However, there are some variations. The women who are there for counseling, but not for an abortion yet, will occasionally come and talk to us, to see what help we really are offering.
There are also women who cry the entire time they walk to the clinic and who sob their entire walk to the car. These women are inconsolable and are usually escorted by a friend or one of the nurses. (We had one of these last saturday; the nurse walked her back to her car because she was sobbing so hard that she couldn’t stand up strtaight. Her boyfriend seemed at a loss of what to do with her.)
Next there are the fathers. They’re the most likely to come talk to us. They come in four main groups. Group A drives her to the clinic, gets back in his car, and does something else for an hour or two, comes back and waits for her to walk back to the car. They seem not to respect their girlfriends much.
Guys in Group B are genuinely supportive of their girlfriends. They walk inside with her and will sit in the waiting room until they’re certain she’s alright and then they’ll walk her back to the car. Group B guys will sometimes well out negative comments to us while they walk to the clinic.
Group C guys are simillarly supportive, but disagree with abortion. They’re the ones who will talk to us and bring pamphlets back to their girlfriends. They’re typically very sad.
Group D guys are jerks. These are the guys who sit on the stairs in front of the clinic and laugh. They hang out together and make abortion jokes. They’re more common than you’d think.
We also have the Bestfriend. She’s always very supportive, tends to wait in the waiting room. She’s also the most likely to cuss us out. Our theory is that the Bestfriends who are especially angry have had abortions themselves. If the best friend is really just a friend, she’ll sometimes come over and speak to us. This is extremely rare, though.
Then there are The Parents. This is an especially weird grouping. Always consists of at least a middle-aged woman and her teen-aged daughter (usually 16/17). Sometimes her father will be there. They tend to completly ignore us, though the father occasionally will come over for information. If the Aunt is bringing the girl instead of The Parents, she’ll come over too. (A lot of aunts come talk to us, for some reason.)
We also have the Bestfriend. She's always very supportive, tends to wait in the waiting room. She's also the most likely to cuss us out.
Yeah. I'd do that.
I mean, a bunch of bullies, hanging around a clinic with literally no purpose but to make a woman feel bad about deciding to have an abortion? Bullies who empower and enable men who want to bully a wife or a girlfriend into having a baby when she doesn't want to?
You are jerks. I like Group D Guys better than I like you.
Um, we've been over this. We're there to offer alternatives to abortion in the hopes of saving the child's life and saving the mother from grief and guilt.
We're there to offer alternatives to abortion
You're there to bully women. That's the bottom line.
Your justification for bullying women may be, in your head, that you want to "offer alternatives to abortion" but the fact is, if you were interested in providing alternatives to abortion, you wouldn't be wasting your time bullying and harassing women who have already decided to have an abortion. You'd be supporting the organizations which actually do provide alternatives to abortion. Including Planned Parenthood, which provides the most basic and effective alternative to abortion of all: contraception.
But I've never yet met a pro-lifer who actually wanted to provide alternatives to abortion if they could instead have a fun fun time bullying or denigrating women who've decided to have one.
You don't want to save women who've decided to have abortions from "grief or guilt". You want to make women who have abortions think they deserve to feel guilty for having decided to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Is there nothiing you won't lie about?
CPCs are one of, if not the, largest non-profit effort in the country, and they provide counseling as well as resources, and continue their support after the child is born.
Plenty of women have turned away from abortion due to sidewalk counseling. We've even heard from one on this blog. As for Planned Parenthood, there's a post on a blog about their records.
CPCs are one of, if not the, largest non-profit effort in the country
Bullying centers that set up next to real clinics and offer no real services. Watch the video
Free pregnancy test, maybe an ultrasound to try and bully or scare a woman out of having an abortion, and a box of nappies and a teddy-bear. Centres that offer more than that are closely linked to the US adoption industry – they attempt to use low-income women as baby machines for better-off couples.
Crisis Pregnancy Centres are a largescale bullying effort. They don't provide contraception. They don't provide pre-natal care. They don't provide post-natal care. They do try to trick and bully pregnant women into not having abortions. Lying and bullying are not medical services.
Plenty of women have turned away from abortion due to sidewalk counseling.
Well, you've got exactly one who posts about her current bullying activities on this blog. And even she admits she was ambivalent about having an abortion when she went to the clinic – as the counselors inside would have noted and helped her with, unlike the bullies outside, who just wanted to make her feel bad about making any decision but the one they wanted.
As for Planned Parenthood, there's a post on a blog about their records.
Yeah, but even a pro-life blog trying to skew the records as best they can, would have to admit: for every abortion Planned Parenthood carry out, they prevent at least ten times as many.
Crisis Pregnancy Centres don't do anything to prevent abortion other than lie to women who want one.
Oops. Longer comment about Crisis Pregnancy Centers and their bullying and lying presented as medical services, with link to video, has gone to spam queue.
Oh yeah, I'm an aunt, too. I'd defo come over and talk to you if you started in harassing one of my nieces because she'd decided to have an abortion.
I really hate bullies, but it's worse when they're bullying someone I care about.
http://secularprolife.org/files/fake_clinics.pdf
How exactly is sidewalk counseling "bullying"?
How exactly is sidewalk counseling "bullying"?
Let's see, you hang around outside a clinic with the intent of making women going in feel miserable and guilty about having an abortion?
How is this anything BUT bullying?
If you're interested in offering alternatives to abortion you support Planned Parenthood.
If you're interested in bullying, and want to think of yourself as a nice guy, you find vulnerable targets to whom you can feel morally superior and maybe scare the bejasus out of them if they think you might be one of the active terrorists instead of just a verbal bully.
Thanks for the PDF about fake clinics trying to claim they're not fake, Nulano.
But lying to women and bullying women are not medical services.
There are also women who cry the entire time they walk to the clinic and who sob their entire walk to the car. These women are inconsolable and are usually escorted by a friend or one of the nurses. (We had one of these last saturday; the nurse walked her back to her car because she was sobbing so hard that she couldn't stand up strtaight. Her boyfriend seemed at a loss of what to do with her.)
And does that give you the little thrill you need? The bully's secret joy that you got to really hurt someone?
1. We stand outside the clinics with the intent of providing alternatives and dissuading them from having an abortion.
2a. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion chain in the country.
2b. http://blog.secularprolife.org/2010/09/new-pp-report-shows-increased-abortion.html
3. CPCs provide from ultrasounds to baby clothes to adoption assistance free of charge.
4. They're crying because they don't want the abortion, Einstein. Most abortions are coerced.
We stand outside the clinics with the intent of providing alternatives and dissuading them from having an abortion.
You stand outside clinics to bully and harass women going in. You can't "provide an alternative" by waving a sign or shouting abuse. Planned Parenthood provides alternatives to abortion by providing contraception, sex education info and resources, and pre-natal healthcare. No pro-life organisation does anything like what Planned Parenthood does to prevent abortions.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion chain in the country.
Jealous much? The pro-life movement is so effective in driving up the abortion rate.
http://blog.secularprolife.org/2010/09/new-pp-report-shows-increased-abortion.html
Sure. A ugly tribute to the effectiveness of the pro-life movement in driving up the abortion rate, and the Bush administration in ensuring more and more women have no option but nonprofit Planned Parenthood clinics.
CPCs provide from ultrasounds
Ultrasounds to provide visual aids with which to bully women.
to baby clothes
Geeze. You do know pre-natal care – which Planned Parenthood provides, and crisis pregnancy centres don't – is actually kind of more than "baby clothes"?
to adoption assistance free of charge.
Sure, everyone knows crisis pregnancy centres are strongly linked to the adoption industry. Making use of low-income women as a resource to produce babies for better-off couples who want one. Very, very profitable. How sweet of the CPCs not to charge the low-income woman for taking her baby away from her.
In November, Baltimore passed a truth-in-advertising bill mandating that Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), which don't provide information on abortions or birth control, put up a sign in their waiting rooms saying, "CLINIC NAME Does Not Offer or Refer For Abortion or Birth Control." Seems straightforward enough, right?
Well, unless you're a pro-lifer. In which case, you want crisis pregnancy centers to have the right to lie in their advertising and you'll sue to get it.
Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), the nonprofit pregnancy-testing facilities set up by antiabortion groups to dissuade women from having abortions, have become fixtures of the antiabortion landscape, buttressed by an estimated $60 million in federal abstinence and marriage-promotion funds. The National Abortion Federation estimates that as many as 4,000 CPCs operate in the United States, often using deceptive tactics like posing as abortion providers and showing women graphic antiabortion films. While there is growing awareness of how CPCs hinder abortion access, the centers have a broader agenda that is less well known: they seek not only to induce women to "choose life" but to choose adoption, either by offering adoption services themselves, as in Bethany's case, or by referring women to Christian adoption agencies. Far more than other adoption agencies, conservative Christian agencies demonstrate a pattern and history of coercing women to relinquish their children.
And that's your "adoption assistance free of charge" – as if women who can't afford to raise their own baby wanted to have their baby taken away from them.
Here's another link to coerced adoption stories – many of which are directly linked to crisis pregnancy centres or the bullies they call "pregnancy counselors".
Your "adoption assistance free of charge", wow.
"In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant," said the lady to whose remark she had answered. "The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections, – the separating of families, for example."
"That is a bad thing, certainly," said the other lady, holding up a baby's dress she had just completed, and looking intently on its trimmings; "but then, I fancy, it don't occur often."
"O, it does," said the first lady, eagerly; "I've lived many years in Kentucky and Virginia both, and I've seen enough to make any one's heart sick. Suppose, ma'am, your two children, there, should be taken from you, and sold?"
"We can't reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons," said the other lady, sorting out some worsteds on her lap. – Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Chapter 12 "Select Incident of Lawful Trade"
The Bible verse, not that this would matter to you secular misogynists, is "In Ramah there was a voice heard, – weeping, and lamentation, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted."(Jer. 31:15).
Yonmei, I think I see the problem. You have sidewalk counselors confused with sidewalk protesters. As for the abortion rate, it has been steadily DECLINING for quite a while now. It's just that a larger percentage are being done at Planned Parenthood.
Give me ONE example of a CPC claiming to be an abortion clinic. I dare you.
As for adoption, CPCs do not profit from it as they usually have to refer out. If the mother wants to parent, she is allowed to, but if she's looking to abort odds are she doesn't feel she can.
But I guess you think it's better for a child to be killed than placed a loving home of people who want a kid.
You have sidewalk counselors confused with sidewalk protesters.
Hm. A "sidewalk protester" is presumably protesting the right of the clinic to exist, and thereby the women to have abortions there – and receive other healthcare services too, not that pro-lifers care anything for women's healthcare.
A "sidewalk counselor" is deliberately targeting the women who are going in to have abortions, wanting to bully them into feeling bad about doing so.
Presumably "sidewalk protesters" more readily turn into the kind of mobs that actually attack clinics or staff, while "sidewalk counselors" are just out to get the patients.
I don't see any moral difference between the two, except that "sidewalk counselors" are definitely cowardly bullies.
As for the abortion rate, it has been steadily DECLINING for quite a while now.
Yes, great success for the pro-choice movement against the endeavours of the pro-life movement to keep it high. Very sad for you guys. Good day for the rest of us.
It's just that a larger percentage are being done at Planned Parenthood.
Because Planned Parenthood is the low-income non-profit organisation that helps women who can't afford to have an abortion anywhere else. And the US has been going through a healthcare crisis and a recession.
Give me ONE example of a CPC claiming to be an abortion clinic. I dare you.
Don't they all try that? Setting up next to real health clinics that provide abortions. As I linked, these "crisis pregnancy centers" absolutely do not want to make clear on their advertising that they're not going to provide any woman who walks in the door contraception, abortion, or any other health services except for a free pregnancy test, a free ultrasound, some genteel or not-so-genteel bullying, and if the woman is really vulnerable, maybe a coerced adoption.
As for adoption, CPCs do not profit from it as they usually have to refer out.
And yet, as the Nation article and the coerced adoption stories make clear, they've got strong links to adoption agencies which will profit from the coerced adoption if a "crisis pregnancy centre" can bully a woman into.
If the mother wants to parent, she is allowed to, but if she's looking to abort odds are she doesn't feel she can.
If she's looking to abort, why would she walk into a crisis pregancy centre unless it was pretending to be an "abortion clinic"? You evidently know perfectly well that faking women out is what CPCs do.
But I guess you think it's better for a child to be killed than placed a loving home of people who want a kid.
You really haven't got anything BUT this rhetorical trick of pretending you think an embryo parasitic in a woman's uterus is a "child", have you?
Sidewalk protesters are there to protest the abortions that occur. Sidewalk counselors are there to offer abortion alternatives and steer women away from having abortions.
Sidewalk protesters are there to protest the abortions that occur. Sidewalk counselors are there to offer abortion alternatives and steer women away from having abortions.
So one set of people is there to abuse the doctors and other clinic staff and the women: one set of people is there just to bully the women. Both are nasty pieces of work, but I guess the ones just there to pick on the most vulnerable targets are the most cowardly bullies.
Not that an act is made more right by the amount of courage it takes to perform. But still, it doesn't take much courage to stand out front and pick on women, and bullies are always cowards.
I'm not sure you understand how sidewalk counseling works. After they talk for a while, if she decides against abortion the counselor can direct her to the PRC for further assistance. That's both why they're right next to each other and why some people go there who had considered an abortion.
But tell me, should Mc. Donald's have to hang up signs saying they don't serve pizza? Should Kroger have to advertise that they don't provide hit men?
Seeing as you think ultrasounds are "bullying", your definition seems to be a little odd. Can you define what you mean?
I'm not sure you understand how sidewalk counseling works.
I've read several accounts by proud pavement bullies, including those on this blog.
The bully spends time outside a clinic, yells at the women going in, tries to make them feel guilty or ashamed, possibly succeeds in some cases. Because the women going into the clinic have already decided to have abortions, most of the attention the pavement bullies get is from the people who've come with the woman as her support. Sometimes good support – the ones who try to harass the bullies back! – and sometimes poor support, like the boyfriends or husbands who accept leaflets from the bullies.
After they talk for a while, if she decides against abortion the counselor can direct her to the PRC for further assistance.
But it's clear in all accounts by pavement bullies that they hardly ever get hold of a woman going to a clinic, unless she's already ambivalent and they manage to work on her guilt to separate her from the people who can help her, whether or not she wants to have an abortion.
It may be a fantasy of pavement bullies that things work how you just fantasised, but all the real world accounts of pavement bullying say otherwise.
That's both why they're right next to each other and why some people go there who had considered an abortion.
What actually happens, according to the accounts of many women who intended to have an abortion and end up at a crisis pregnancy centre instead, is that the pavement bully lies to them – directs them to the CPC instead of to the health clinic, claiming that they'll find what they need there.
But tell me, should Mc. Donald's have to hang up signs saying they don't serve pizza?
McDonalds hangs up signs advertising exactly what they do provide, and what the price is. Crisis pregnancy centers don't. Especially not the price of having your baby adopted away from you.
I actually didn't know what Krogers was, but – retail supermarket? I bet if you walk into Krogers and you ask someone who works there "Hey, do you sell – " whatever, they'll either be able to take you to the aisle where it's available, or maybe take you to someone who can look it up in their catalogue and tell you honestly "Nope, we don't sell that." If Krogers was run like a crisis pregnancy center, you'd walk in and get made to sit through a catalogue presentation of everything they DO sell, while refusing to answer the customer's questions about what they DON'T sell.
Seeing as you think ultrasounds are "bullying", your definition seems to be a little odd. Can you define what you mean?
I didn't say an ultrasound was "bullying". I said pro-lifers use ultrasounds to provide visual aids with which to bully women. (Women who are having ultrasounds for actual medical purposes report that the technicians are basically focussed on looking for physical health problems – once the fetus is developed enough they may be able to say if it's a boy or a girl, but even that's not the point of a medical ultrasound.)
Pro-lifers think that showing a woman that the embryo inside her is more-or-less baby shaped (or even if it's not) they can harass her into deciding not to have an abortion. As you demonstrate, pro-lifers have a medieval obsession with the idea that the sperm deposits tiny babies which just "grow" in the uterus – the woman makes no contribution.
//There are also women who cry the entire time they walk to the clinic and who sob their entire walk to the car. These women are inconsolable and are usually escorted by a friend or one of the nurses. (We had one of these last saturday; the nurse walked her back to her car because she was sobbing so hard that she couldn't stand up strtaight. Her boyfriend seemed at a loss of what to do with her.)
And does that give you the little thrill you need? The bully's secret joy that you got to really hurt someone?//
Yes, that's right dear, she's obviously crying because of us, not because she had an abortion. She started crying before she could see us because she just *knew* we'd be there, telling her we'd like to help her. She's psychic, you see.
//Oh yeah, I'm an aunt, too. I'd defo come over and talk to you if you started in harassing one of my nieces because she'd decided to have an abortion.//
Don't think you got the point, really. Aunts come over to us so that they can get information for their nieces. We tell them about the services we offer in the area, give them a pamphlet with phone numbers, and tell her we hope everything works out for her niece.
It's part of our grand bullying plan, being nice to people. Kind of like when we occasionally risk a talking to by the police so that we can help people who are having car trouble. Rather insidious, isn't it?
They're crying because they don't want the abortion
Maybe they are. Isn't it sad that no pro-life organization is at all interested in providing alternatives for women who have to have the abortion because they can't afford to do anything else? Pro-life politicians routinely oppose family-friendly politics. Pro-lifers came out in favour of firing women who get pregnant unmarried. Pro-lifers aren't found demonstrating for universal healthcare, or supporting a federally-mandated right to paid maternity leave.
Most abortions are coerced.
Liar.
Any PRC will let you know they don't perform abortions if you ask. As for sidewalk counseling, A WOMAN POSTED ON THIS BLOG that was going to have an abortion but decided against it because of sidewalk counseling.
She started crying before she could see us because she just *knew* we'd be there,
She undoubtedly did, since you're there every Saturday. When I was being bullied at school, after a while the bullies didn't have to do anything to make me want to cry: just knowing I was going to have to walk past them was enough to make me miserable.
telling her we'd like to help her.
You're not telling her you'd like to help her. Assuming she's not just crying because she's got to walk the gauntlet of you bullies, that she is miserable that she had to decide to have an abortion, you're not offering any help at all with any of the many reasons a woman might decide she had to have an abortion. You're just there to make her feel bad about her decision. You're there to bully her.
Any PRC will let you know they don't perform abortions if you ask.
But they don't want to hang a sign upfront saying they're not there to perform abortions, provide contraception, and can't provide pre-natal care. They're just there to bully.
As for sidewalk counseling, A WOMAN POSTED ON THIS BLOG that was going to have an abortion but decided against it because of sidewalk counseling.
No. She posted on this blog that she was already feeling very ambivalent about having the abortion. Had she gone into the health clinic, and shared her feelings of ambivalence with a trained counselor, she would likely not have had the abortion: no women's health clinic would ever perform an abortion on a woman who was unwilling. All that happened was that a pavement bully steered her back to her abusive boyfriend.
Aunts come over to us so that they can get information for their nieces. We tell them about the services we offer in the area, give them a pamphlet with phone numbers, and tell her we hope everything works out for her niece.
Oh well, I suppose some aunts have to be evil aunts. I like being a good aunt who stands up for my nieces and nephews, but by the luck of the draw, some nieces and nephews are going to have aunts who side with the people who want to bully them.
It's part of our grand bullying plan, being nice to people. Kind of like when we occasionally risk a talking to by the police so that we can help people who are having car trouble. Rather insidious, isn't it?
No one is ever evil all of the time. Even bullies are sometimes nice.
It is kind of insiduous, since they're still bullies, but no one – not even the most extremist pro-lifer – is all evil all the time.
Isn't it sad that no pro-life organization is at all interested in providing alternatives for women who have to have the abortion because they can't afford to do anything else?
Um, that is THE POINT OF PRCs.
Pro-lifers aren't found demonstrating for universal healthcare, or supporting a federally-mandated right to paid maternity leave.
That's simply not true. The problem is you can't tell by looking what someone in a health care rally believes about abortion.
64% are forced, actually.
VM Rue et. al. "Induced abortions and traumatic stress: A preliminary comparison of American and Russian women," Medical Science Monitor 10(10):SR5-16 (2004).
no women's health clinic would ever perform an abortion on a woman who was unwilling.
That's pure BS. Aside from the informed consent violations, there are tons of stories from women who decided against the abortion and were told to shut up and tied down or drugged.
Um, that is THE POINT OF PRCs.
No, it's not. Pregnancy crisis centers don't provide paid maternity leave; they don't provide pre-natal health care or post-natal health care; they don't provide free childbirth health care; they don't provide free medical services to all children up to the age of 18. They don't provide help with food, with rent, legal help against employers who want to fire a woman for getting pregnant: they don't run free child-care centers for working women. They don't run food markets to provide low-cost healthy food for families.
The WHOLE POINT of CPC is to try and bully a woman out of having an abortion, and to entice a woman into having a coerced adoption.
Actually, plenty of PRCs do quite a few of those things.
That's simply not true.
On pro-life blogs and at pro-life rallies, you find people who oppose universal healthcare. You find people who oppose universal welfare. Pro-life is a right-wing movement. It's not a movement for getting the US an NHS or universal Medicare, or for upping the minimum wage, or for providing free daycare centres.
Individual pro-lifers may claim they're for these things – but they can't and don't do anything to promote them against the general will of the movement.
Yonmei,
Are antiwar activist who protest recruiting stations bullies who want to make young men going into the military miserable, or are they just concerned about the killing in war and want to help prevent others getting involved in it?
Trying to convince someone not to dismember their own child is not bullying. Whether it offends the mother or not, it's a fact that abortion kills a human being. Planned Parenthood tries to hide this, So in order to break the Current Pro-Lifers offer alternatives. Letting someone kill another human being for fear of hurting their feelings is worse then having some mothers be offended.
Actually, plenty of PRCs do quite a few of those things.
So some pro-lifers claim. Yet they're always unable to provide actual examples.
Aside from the informed consent violations, there are tons of stories from women who decided against the abortion and were told to shut up and tied down or drugged.
Only on prolife propaganda sites. These kind of scare stories get told by prolifers without reference to any real world evidence.
You see, in the real world, if a woman went to a health clinic and changed her mind about having an abortion and said so, no clinic run by qualified professionals would do anything other than stop the abortion and let the poor woman sit down with a counselor to figure out what she really wanted. In any developed country, with legal abortion, a clinic that tied a woman down in order to perform an abortion against her will would be prosecuted.
Of course, in the US which pro-lifers want, where abortion is illegal, where a woman has to go (or be taken) to a criminal operation to have an abortion, it will likely happen as you described it, all too often – the criminals you want running abortion, will not have any professional standards or ethics to listen to what the woman wants.
Are antiwar activist who protest recruiting stations bullies who want to make young men going into the military miserable, or are they just concerned about the killing in war and want to help prevent others getting involved in it?
I think that's a bad analogy, but that's because I don't think the decision whether or not to join the army, and the decision whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy, have any similiar moral or emotional weight – and certainly don't have any similiar physical limitations. Any heterosexual person in the US under a given age of reasonable health can decide to join the military at any point.
A woman who's pregnant and doesn't want to be, has got maybe two or three weeks, max, during which an abortion will be fast, easy, and simple; another month or so during which it will be relatively fast, easy, and simple: and thereafter it will get more complicated and more risky to her as the weeks go on. This in no way corresponds to the decision to join the military, or, really, any non-medical decision.
To be honest, though, as a pacifist, I'd say that someone already heading for the recruitment centre has probably already made their mind up, and it's just confrontation-seeking behaviour to stage an anti-war rally outside the recruitment centre. It's not as bad as staging a pro-life rally outside a health clinic, but that's because the military are in general less vulnerable than patients, but it's pretty pointless – I'd go for information stalls and rallies in the middle of town where you can attract as much neutral attention as possible. Pro-lifers, I've noticed, are unwilling to do that because they know how little mainstream support they have.
Trying to convince someone not to dismember their own child is not bullying.
Trying to convince a woman who's decided to have an abortion that this means she's "dismembering her own child" is bullying. It's a nasty tactic – no wonder pavement bullies make women cry.
Whether it offends the mother or not, it's a fact that abortion kills a human being. Planned Parenthood tries to hide this, So in order to break the Current Pro-Lifers offer alternatives. Letting someone kill another human being for fear of hurting their feelings is worse then having some mothers be offended.
See how you move on to using your pro-life rhetoric to justify bullying women?
http://realchoice.0catch.com/library/weekly/aa082901a.htm
Pro-lifers DO hold information booths, displays, and such. We have displays for the purpose of provoking dialog on the issue.
It's not "rhetoric" that abortion kills a human being, or (in some methods) dismembers her child. It's a fact.
Pro-lifers DO hold information booths, displays, and such
But it's not nearly as much fun as waiting outside a health clinic on Saturday mornings to bully women, is it? If you're a pro-lifer, you're a bully. There are way more confrontational bullies who want to harass women than there are pro-lifers willing to stand up in public and defend their lies against an informed public – or worse yet, a crowd who really don't see what the hell business it is of this creep to go around telling women what to do…
It's not "rhetoric" that abortion kills a human being
Oh yes, it is.
or (in some methods) dismembers her child. It's a fact.
Well, it's a fact that where IDX is banned, a late-term abortion performed to save the woman's life or health will mandate cutting the fetus in pieces to remove it safely through the cervix. Pro-lifers who oppose IDX but are okay with abortions performed to save a woman's life or health, are supporting the dismembering of the fetus. Apparently they like that better.
What lies do we defend?
A human being is killed in abortion. If not, explain what species the embryo is.
Dismemberment is also used in earlier-term elective abortions.
A human being is killed in abortion. If not, explain what species the embryo is.
Oh, you can use complicated words like embryo! But you choose not to, because it's rhetorically more effective to keep roaring on about how this embryo is a "human being" or a "baby" or a "child". Whereas if you clarify things by saying you're against a woman being able to have the embryo removed from her uterus, because she's decided not to make a baby, people might ask: why do you think you have the right to control a woman's uterus?
Dismemberment is also used in earlier-term elective abortions.
When the fetus is too large to safely pass the woman's cervix whole: not the case for embryos or very early fetuses. But that's a concern for people who care about women, and that's obviously not you.
Yonmei the unborn are the young offspring of two human parents, a word we have for that is "child" or "baby". "Fetus" and "embryo" are not meant to be dehumanizing and aren't dichotomous with "child" or "baby".
"Fetus" and "embryo" are not meant to be dehumanizing and aren't dichotomous with "child" or "baby".
Exactly.
Now if only pro-lifers would just use the correct terminology at all times, and quit this stupid argument that if you insist on using the correct terminology – embryo under 8 weeks, fetus between 8 weeks and delivery, baby once it's born, you must be trying "dehumanise the child". It's really idiotic, and I'm glad to see at least one pro-lifer come out against it.
Or rather, it would be just idiotic, but of course pro-lifers hate to use the correct terminology because that makes it harder for them to slide off into the murderous rhetorical claims that justify the violent attacks on doctors and other clinic staff, that justify the worst bullying and harassment of women going into have abortions, that justify the terrorist attacks on clinics.
@Amelia
Group D guys are jerks. These are the guys who sit on the stairs in front of the clinic and laugh. They hang out together and make abortion jokes. They're more common than you'd think.
Sounds like they didn't really support their girlfriends or relatives, aren't they?
Since I read your blog, it seems not said how many you save unborn ones and women. So I ask you, have you save anyone? I hope so!
I feel sad for those women and girls who were cried. But it don't surprise me cos I know a few people who regret their choices….. =(
Sounds like they didn't really support their girlfriends or relatives, aren't they?
Maybe they know the best way for them to support their girlfriends or relatives is to make the pro-life bullies out front feel uncomfortable?
Since I read your blog, it seems not said how many you save unborn ones and women. So I ask you, have you save anyone? I hope so!
Why would you suppose the pro-life bullies outside a clinic ever could save anyone?
The people inside the clinic, providing counseling, pre-natal care, and contraception – as well as abortions on request – are those doing the work of saving people. The bullies outside are just cowards getting their kicks.
I feel sad for those women and girls who were cried. But it don't surprise me cos I know a few people who regret their choices….. =(
And do you do the pro-life bullying and harassment of your friends, too?
Well, as I expected. I'm not going to take Yonmei's comments personally. She is free to reply my comments whatever she want… So Amelia, you can just ignore her 'cause my comment is not for her. You can focus on my comment for the reply instead of hers. =)
I'm not going to take Yonmei's comments personally.
To be fair, you have made clear in other lengthier comments that you are in fact pro-choice, and disagree as much as I do with the front-page posters on this blog who want women to die in illegal abortions and believe that women should be forced through pregnancy against their will. You even disagree with Matthew about how wonderful it is to take a newborn baby away from the mother to give to a better-off couple to raise.
It's just that for some reason, you're unwilling to argue with these people, even when they say things you've made clear you disagree with: you prefer to hide behind the false identity of "pro-life".
In sense, DarkCougar, your posing as pro-life and being unwilling to argue with real prolifers, proves the problem with the polls that extremists like Nulono claim show that their views are majority views in the US.
What other polls show – the ones that ask whether people support making abortion illegal or unavailable, etc – is that most people who identify publicly as pro-life are in fact pro-choice like you or me.