Abortion

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September 16, 2012

The Second Doctor that performed Abortion is Killed – And His Bodyguard

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Clinic, Abortion Information, Abortion Pill | Tags: , , |
[105] Comments 
Abortion

Abortion

Abortion Doctors.

Few weeks ago, I pledged to remind people of the anti-abortion violence that has occurred over the years by giving personal insights into the crime and the people involved.  I talked about Doctor David Gunn, the first victim who was killed on March 10, 1993.

Just a few months later, on August 19, an anti-abortion activist named Shelley Shannon leaped onto the car of Doctor George Tiller as he was leaving his clinic and started firing her semiautomatic pistol. She hit both of his arms but Tiller still was “so pissed off,” as he later told me, that he jumped out of the car and chased Shannon down the block until his damaged body caught up with him.  Shannon was captured immediately and remains in jail today.  The day after the incident, I called George and he jokingly said “I hope this incident gives the pro-choice movement a shot in the arm.”

After these two incidents, the office of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers was flooded with calls from doctors looking to protect themselves.  I really thought that some of them figured the first murder was just an isolated incident.  After George became a target, they knew it was serious.  Indeed, we actually had meetings with security companies where we investigated the possibility of a group purchasing deal on bullet-proof vests.

Abortion

Abortion

One doctor who bought a vest was Doctor Bayard Britton.  He travelled from clinic to clinic in the South and actually filled in for David Gunn until they found a replacement.  I had heard of Doctor Britton but had never met or talked to him.  At the same time, an anti-abortion protestor named Paul Hill was making a national name for himself because he publicly declared that it was “justifiable homicide” to kill an abortion doctor.   These two were on a collision course.

In February, 1994, we were shocked to see an article in GQ entitled “The Abortionist” which painted a not very pretty portrait of Doctor Britton.  It also talked about Paul Hill, who had been a constant figure outside The Ladies Center where Britton worked, just a short distance from the clinic where David Gunn had been killed.  The article was horrifying in that it practically predicted what would happen just a few months later.

On the morning of July 29, I was in my dentist’s chair when a dental assistant came in and said I had an emergency call from the office.  That morning, Hill was at his perch in front of the clinic as usual when Doctor Britton drove into the parking lot in a pick-up truck.  He was accompanied in the passenger seat by his volunteer bodyguard, James Barrett and Barrett’s wife, June, was in the back jumper seat.   Before they could get out of the car, Hill walked up wielding a 12 gauge shotgun and started shooting.  Hill later admitted that he aimed for the doctor’s head because he knew he wore a vest.  Doctor Britton and James Barrett died immediately in the hail of gunfire.  Mrs. Barrett was injured but survived.

Hill, probably relieved that he had finally put his own words into action, calmly laid the shotgun down and started walking away but he was immediately apprehended.  Years later, he was put to death by lethal injection in Florida.

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September 5, 2012

Abortion Stories Hollywood Never Tells

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion Advocates
[32] Comments 

Films like The Waitress and Knocked Up make unplanned pregnancies seem like a walk in the park. Any stressors or misgivings the female character may have about the pregnancy are easily resolved in two hours with the joyous birth of a child she happily chooses to parent. Unlike Hollywood films, parenting in real life isn’t always a possibility for some women. Some cannot afford a child, don’t want a child now or ever, are too ill to carry a child to term or have been victimized by sexual assault. Sadly, Hollywood fails to show the complexities of women’s lives. A real women is not a persona with a role to play, a one-dimensional character who supports a fictional story. A real woman is a multi-faceted, thinking, caring human being who deserves support from friends and family and from the community as she makes a super tough decision about an unplanned pregnancy.

In the Hollywood film Juno, adoption is the option the young pregnant teenage character single-handedly orchestrates. In the end, Juno, the character, happily relinquishes her child. The adoptive mother beams with joy. However, in real life, adoption does not always have a happy ending, is not easily handled in the course of a few hours. Hollywood’s faux realities and society’s falsehoods about maternal instinct, about a man’s instinct to protect his “woman” and other popular myths, don’t help women. They only serve to infantilize, marginalize and subjugate women. In real life, adoption is an extremely difficult decision, one that is seldom represented accurately in the media or in claims from the pro-life community. In Juno, after the adoption, we see the young teenager go on her merry way in school and with friends. In the real world, adoptees can experience a lifetime of feeling abandoned or resentful. Birth mothers can have a lifetime of regret especially if forced to adopt. Birth fathers can experience feelings of disenfranchisement from the entire process. While adoption is clearly one very loving option, it’s not always the best for mother or child. Real women with unplanned pregnancies need honest support, accurate information and freedom from judgmental detractors as they face a complex, difficult and often agonizingly emotional situation.

Historian Howard Zinn writes in Stories Hollywood Never Tells, that Hollywood glamorizes stories about war and that these films generally lack the complexities that are inherent in situations that lead up to and are a part of a war. They never tell the other side of our nation’s near-total extermination of its native peoples, its imperial conquests of countries like Mexico, and its more recent culpability for massacres such as No Gun Ri and My Lai as well as for torture sites like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. I would add that Hollywood never tells stories about the abortion wars either. So, it should be no surprise when Hollywood rolls out silly films about unexpected pregnancies. Even when the film includes anti abortion activists, as in Juno, their benign presence is in stark contrast to the real-world brutish louts who protest abortion and lurk outside clinics. No, abortion is one of those issues that Hollywood never confronts. While a few independent films and networks like HBO have tackled the abortion issue, mainstream programming avoids it. Abortion scares producers because they fear the risk of alienating advertisers who support their programming. Casting an actress in the role of a woman who chooses to abort risks damaging the actress’ image, risks the show’s brand and risks profit losses. I find it particularly hilarious when anti abortion activists lament that mainstream media (MSM) is left leaning. If that were true (which it is not), abortion would factor in television programming and in films. The media giants (like Disney, NBC Universal, News Corporation, Viacom, Time Warner) dominate the U.S. media landscape. They do not have a personal stake in abortion. They do have a huge stake in corporate profits. Any controversial issue (like abortion, corruption, embezzlement, murder, etc) that might negatively impact profits is either ignored or reframed in such a way to reduce offending their stakeholders and advertisers, primarily, and their audiences, secondarily.

Abortion stories are really missed opportunities for Hollywood because abortion is a reality for millions of women and those who share their lives. Media programmers are ordinary human beings like your neighbor, doctor, dentist or Chamber of Commerce member. Those within the industry, like those in the audience, are intimately familiar with abortion. They had one or paid for their girlfriend’s abortion or paid for and accompanied their daughter to her abortion. But try to find advertisers to support programming that tells real stories about abortion? Fat chance. Too controversial. It’s like Zinn said about war. Hollywood can’t tell the truth about the war against women or the war against abortion because their stories would lack the complexities that are inherent in situations that lead up to and are a part of abortion.

.

Like the Hollywood war stories that uphold the Right’s hegemony of the American empire and that celebrate war mongering, the Hollywood stories of unplanned pregnancies uphold the sanctimonious ideology of the Right, one that glorifies the fetus and fairy tales about motherhood.  It’s a practice that reduces every woman to a womb open
for public comment, that diminishes the highly complex nature of a woman’s life, and that severely thwarts public dialogue about the rights of pregnant women and about reproductive rights including abortion.

 

August 29, 2012

Reframing Women’s Rights: The GOPs ChristianTaliban

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion Information, Abortion Rights, PersonHood USA, Romney, The Future of Legal Abortion, War on Birth Control
[53] Comments 

Last week I argued that Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin’s anti rape, anti abortion stance is shared across the GOP. Akin, who opposes abortion in all cases, including rape, famously said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Despite being a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Akin uses non-scientific reasoning to perpetrate one of the most offensive and ignorant campaign season’s comments to date. When news of Akin’s spurious comments about a woman’s bodily response to rape swirled around in the blogosphere and across news desks, pundits connected the Missouri Republican senate candidate to vice president hopeful, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. Both Akin and Ryan (along with other GOP colleagues) share the desire for an absolute abortion ban. There ensued a flurry of corrections and clarifications, particularly as Ryan attempted to distance himself from House colleague Akin saying on Pittsburgh’s KDKA, “I believe rape is rape, there’s no splitting hairs.” Then there were others who distanced themselves from Akin. Romney called on Akin to step out of the race. John Cornyn, the Texas Senator who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee asked Akin to step out of the race. Other big-name Republicans asking Akin to quit were his would-be colleagues, including Missouri’s junior senator Roy Blunt, who issued a joint statement together with former Missouri U.S. senators John Ashcroft, Kit Bond, John Danforth, and Jim Talent. In advance of the Republican National Convention Tampa, the Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, instructed Akin to not attend. But no one spoke about the reality of the GOP’s platform on abortion. They diverted the media’s attention, focusing on rape, legitimate rape, forcible rape and showing signs of contrition for their blatant misogynistic comments. Among crisis communications professionals, the mantra for repairing a crisis is formulaic: 1) demonstrate you are appalled at the offense, 2) offer your apologies, and 3) offer an easily remembered meme. For Ryan, it was the simple ‘rape is rape’ meme to get the focus off of Akin and off him (momentarily).

For the GOP, Akin created a crisis for the Republican convention’s rollout of their freshly polished version of their 1976 platform. Back then they wrote “We protest the Supreme Court’s intrusion into the family structure through its denial of the parents’ obligation and right to guide their minor children. The Republican Party favors a continuance of the public dialogue on abortion and supports the efforts of those who seek enactment of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children.”

I need to stop here to give a nod to GOP’s obfuscation in the phrase “the Supreme Court’s intrusion into the family structure through its denial of the parents’ obligation and right to guide their minor children” and to ask “Can you be anymore disingenuous?” Then in 1980, the GOP’s platform stated that they affirm “support of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children.” When did the original constitution protect the unborn? It seems to me the 14th amendment quite plainly states that born persons are protected, not unborn. Fast forward to 2000 when 30-something Paul Ryan argued vociferously against any exceptions for abortion. In fact, in this video, Ryan states “Let me just say this to all of my colleagues who are about to vote on this issue, on the motion to recommit, the health exception is a loophole wide enough to drive a Mack truck through it,” Ryan said. “The health exception would render this ban virtually meaningless.” In other words, let the women die.

Forward to September 2011, when the five presidential candidates at the Palmetto Freedom Forum were asked whether they would support legislation under Section Five of the 14th Amendment, that would restore legal protection for unborn children. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich said they would support such legislation. Mitt Romney said that he feared such legislation would provoke a constitutional crisis. Instead, he would focus on appointing judges who would return abortion regulation to the states. Then there is the fact that despite a sour economy, Ryan co-sponsored eight bills to that infringe on women’s rights (H.R. 212, 217, 358, 361, 1179, 2299 , 3803 and 3805). One has to wonder how Ryan can say with a straight face that he’s working hard for middle class America. It seems to me he’s working hard for the Catholic Church and for more accolades bestowed on him by the National Right to Life.

Now, it’s Convention week for the Republicans. And despite their denials of their War on Women, there’s ample evidence from all their legislative attacks on women’s reproductive and parenting rights. Readied as a draft for the convention, the draft of the GOP’s 2012 platform statement further demonstrates their draconian battle against women. It reads, in part, “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”  And “We must protect girls from exploitation and statutory rape through a parental notification requirement. We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life.”

So, let’s ponder the implications for each line of the above text, keeping in mind that it’s not the entire text and keeping in mind that the above text was approved by the Convention. The implications bear careful consideration.

#1- Amending the 14th Amendment to give legal status to the  unborn would unquestionably violate the rights of women.

#2- Protecting girls with parental notification from exploitation and statutory rape overlooks the grim reality that parents are often the perpetrators of sexual crimes against young girls including trafficking. And when young girls are pregnant, asking parent’s permission or notifying the parents often leads to disastrous results for the young girls including abuse and abandonment.

#3 – Assist women with unplanned pregnancies is a noble idea and is in effect for many state sponsored and faith-based charities, including Mormon and Catholic faiths. But coming from the ‘let’s reduce the government’ Republicans, it seems disingenuous to add more governmental interventions that are focused on abortion. In fact, the Republican party has been responsible for targeted regulations against abortion providers, all additional government interventions.

#4 – Abortion as an assault on human life is a value judgment that says the sanctity of innocent human life, the zygote/embryo/fetus, trumps the sanctity of woman’s human life. Abortion has saved the lives of millions of born citizens called women. Why don’t they count? When Republicans wave the flag and talk about the American dream, shouldn’t that include women’s American dreams to control their own lives, including their reproduction?

#5 – Women deserve better than abortion is, again, a value judgment coming from an informed mindset steeped in patriarchy and misogyny. Further, the judgment flies in the face of evidence-based research from respected scholars, practitioners and from women’s own stories. Can it be that the RNC wants to deny women’s realities, deny science and, more importantly, deny their war on women? The fact that a recent CNN poll found that the majority (83-88%) of Americans approve of the abortion exceptions for rape, incest and the physical health (screw her mental health) of the mother. Yet, folks like Akin and Ryan want no exceptions. Period. It’s like Ryan said when talking about rape, “ The method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.” So, now rape is a method of conception?

#6 – Enable and empower women to choose life makes me recoil in Handmaiden’s Tale-type horror. How does one enable and empower a women to choose life if it isn’t through coercion? Women who do not want to be pregnant, will find a way to end their pregnancy, legal or illegal. How can men like Romney and Ryan be so obstinate, so willfully driven to impose their religious leanings on women? What happened to the separation of church and state? Hell, what happened to women’s rights?
So, this is what the Republicans value in their recent Convention platform that they approved. Ideologues are running the show. Paul Ryan wants no exceptions for abortion. Romney has said he would not oppose abortion in instances of rape. His position, however, puts him at odds with the official GOP party platform and with his little buddy, Paul Ryan. The official GOP platform wants to give legal rights to products of conception and to define ‘person’ as beginning at fertilization with an amendment to the 14th Amendment. Simply they want to make a cluster of cells a legal person while simultaneously annihilating a woman’s legal right to an abortion. Let’s not forget that birth control is also on the firing line amongst the current incarnation of the Republican party.

Writing about the Republican Party, Root columnist, Keli Goff, wrote that they seem “determined to set the health of American women back by more than a century, with targeting abortion no longer enough. Birth control rights are increasingly in the line of fire.” Speaking about the GOP candidates, she compared their treatment of the health, safety and rights of American women to Shari law and wrote , “I’m at a loss to see any real difference between the manner in which Sharia law penalizes women who are raped and the efforts of Perry and his Personhood cohorts to penalize American rape survivors with a nonconsensual pregnancy.” Other pundits argue that the extreme ideologues in the GOP want an American Christian Taliban.

All I can say to voters, think very carefully about your vote in November.

 

August 26, 2012

The First Assassin Strikes

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Centers, Abortion Clinic, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Information | Tags: , , |
[84] Comments 
Abortion Choice

Abortion Choice

The other day I was chatting with a twenty year old neighbor that I’ve known for years and at some point we got to talking about my history in the pro-choice movement.  I talked about working for the National Abortion Rights Action League in the early 1980’s and then how I helped organize the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.  And when I related how I had seen several of our doctors murdered by pro-life terrorists, he gave me a blank stare.  “They killed the doctors?” he asked.

It’s bad enough that the younger generations have no recollection of the days of illegal abortion but now the string of murders committed over the years (and under the banner of God) may also be fading from our collective memories.  Well, if I have anything to say about it I will do all I can to make sure that the violence that has occurred will not disappear into the dustbin of history.

Anti Abortion Christian Terrorist

Anti Abortion Christian Terrorist

The first doctor to be murdered was Doctor David Gunn.

David Gunn was known as a “circuit rider.”  He spent most days on the road, working in a number of abortion clinics throughout Florida, Alabama and Georgia.  He had a Bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and an M.D. from the University of Kentucky.  At some point, anti-abortion extremists starting piecing together how he was travelling from clinic to clinic and he became a target for harassment.  Normally a laid back guy, David started expressing concern for his safety in the early 1990’s, especially after he discovered that Operation Rescue had distributed an old-fashioned “Wanted” poster with Gunn’s picture on it.  In addition to the picture, the poster included his home phone number and other identifying information.  In response, David purchased three handguns.  He kept one in his glove compartment, one under the seat and one in the trunk.

Abortion Choice

Abortion Choice

On March 10, 1993, David left his hotel room early in the morning and made his way to the Pensacola Women’s Medical Services on Bayou Boulevard, a clinic that he had helped open just a month before.  His new clinic, nestled among offices for lawyers, doctors and accountants, bore no ostensible signs and the patient load was generally rather light.  And lately, a group of protestors had started standing outside of the facility in protest.  On this day, one of them was a young man named Michael Griffin.

As always, Doctor Gunn pulled into his parking space at the back of the clinic.  When he got out of his car, David’s limp was palpable, a result of his childhood bout with polio.  He did not grab any of his guns because he did not want them in the clinic around the patients and staff.  He took a few steps towards the clinic and at 9:30 am, David Gunn’s life was snuffed out.  It came with no warning, he had no time to defend himself.  He was just gone.

It seems that when Michael Griffin saw Gunn’s car pull up, he casually left the protest, walked up behind the car then calmly shot David Gunn in the back three times.  He was heard to yell out “Don’t kill any more babies!”   After the act, he threw down his .38-caliber snub-nosed revolver and waited for the police to arrive.

Michael Griffin was immediately arrested, charged with murder and, despite alleging that he had been “brainwashed” by anti abortion activists John Burt, was quickly found guilty.  He remains in jail in Florida to this day.

The first murder of an abortion doctor made national headlines for weeks.  Prime Time specials, the Donohue Show, Nightline all covered the act.  Doctor Gunn’s son, David, Jr., became a spokesperson for abortion providers.  A number of abortion doctors left the field, concerned for their safety.  And the federal government, i.e., the Clinton Administration, did nothing.  Meanwhile, there were other assassins waiting in the wings, hatching similar plans.

This was just the first assassination of an abortion doctor.

 

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August 22, 2012

It’s Not Akin: It’s the GOP

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion Information, Abortion Stigma, Capitol Hill, GOP, Pro Life Deception, Pro Life Lies, ProLife, Republican Party, Romney, The Future of Legal Abortion, Vote, War on Birth Control
[53] Comments 

Our media-saturated culture conditions boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women in magazines, television, and film and in everyday life. The message is clear. Womanizing is about power and privilege, a sense of entitlement. And in religion and politics, we see the same culture of misogyny. The latest comes from Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin. Akin, who opposes abortion in all cases, including rape, said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Mr. Aiken, oddly enough, is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, yet he uses non-scientific reasoning to perpetrate one of the most offensive and ignorant campaign season’s comments yet. To wit a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that states, “an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year,” in the United States, meaning that about 5 percent of women who are raped do become pregnant. And of that 5 percent, 50% choose to abort the pregnancy. Imagine—Science defying the logic of the GOP.

Beyond what Akin said is the logic that informed his gaffe. If you get pregnant, it wasn’t rape. That’s it. If you are violently and sexually penetrated by a rapist’s penis, against your will, and you are impregnated, then it wasn’t rape. But even beyond that logic is his unquestionable stance against abortions for any reason; hence, he believes if you get pregnant, you should carry the pregnancy to term.

This faux science is not new. In fact, his canard has been floating around the anti abortion Republicans for some time. Let’s go back to 1998 and a statement from Fay Boozman, the late Fay Boozman of Arkansas. He was running for U.S. Senate, and he said fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive. In 1995, North Carolina State Representative Henry Aldridge said, “The facts show that people who are raped, who are truly raped, the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.” Then there’s a similar statement from 1988. Pennsylvania Republican State Representative Steven Friend said, “The odds of a woman becoming pregnant through rape are one in millions and millions and millions.” He said, “The trauma of rape causes women to secrete a certain secretion which has a tendency to kill sperm.” One has to notice the covert message that almost excuses the perpetrators and blames the victims of sexual violence.

I’m reminded of an incident at an Allentown PA abortion clinic where a mother and daughter were verbally accosted by a particularly aggressive protester. The mother told the man that her daughter was raped. And rather than back off or show some modicum of compassion, he screamed,“If the child was conceived in rape that’s the way God wanted it.” [see video]. Essentially, disregard the violence. Disregard her pain. Disregard her humanity. Fr. Frank Pavone said essentially the same thing in an interview years back. He claimed (and still does) the mother was harmed once. Abortion would harm her again and kill her unborn.  Again, no regard for the violence, no regard for the woman, no regard for what the woman wants.

The fact remains that Todd Akin will never know what it means to be a woman, to be trapped in a bed, shoved down on a parking garage staircase, or tied to pole in an abandoned basement. He’ll never know what it’s like to be violently assaulted by some aggressive, indifferent friend or stranger or relative. He’ll not know what it feels like having someone gag you, rip off your clothes and enter your most personal, sacred, private part of your body and do so violently, hatefully forcing himself into you, ripping you apart, filling you with unwanted sperm, and knowing you cannot escape the thing growing inside of you. Todd Aiken will never experience being a woman who is pregnant from a rapist and being told you have no choice. Yet, I’m betting, he’s pretty self-righteous when he says women should have no choice.

Like the majority of the GOP, including the Vice President hopeful Paul Ryan, Todd Akin’s message is clear: No abortion for you! Your body is to support the rapist’s fetus against your will. And when you see the face of the rapist in that child, you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.

My sense is that this debacle is further evidence of what is known as the GOP’s war on women. But right-wing media figures have downplayed and dismissed Republican Congressman Todd Akin’s controversial remarks on rape and abortion, calling them “dumb” and a distraction. The public response to Akin’s comments more or less drove him to offer a feigned apology. I say feigned because it now it appears that, all the while, the people really in charge of the GOP—fundamentalist anti-choicers among them—have been writing a party platform that not only makes all of that a lie, but is in effect a promise to make the personhood of fertilized eggs the law of the land.

The draft official platform strongly supports a “a human life amendment” to the Constitution:

Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed, the draft platform declares. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

Let’s be very, very clear that such an amendment—which Mitt Romney has said unequivocally he would sign—would not only criminalize abortions of any kind for any reason, but also would outlaw many forms of contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and treatment of pregnant women with life-threatening conditions such as cancer. Moreover, it would also criminalize miscarriage.

So, there you have some of the facts. The problem isn’t Akin.

It’s the central position of the GOP controlled by fundamentalists who believe women have no rights. Which side of history will you be on?

 

August 19, 2012

Oh, The Horror! (Wink, Wink)

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Information, Abortion Pill | Tags: , , |
[13] Comments 
Abortion

Abortion

I am so sick and tired of feigned outrage.

We see it every day.  Some movie producer does a movie depicting some Italians in a bad light and the Italian Defamation League gets “outraged” at the (probably accurate) portrayal of the Italians in the Mafia or Cosa Nostra.  They issue a press release condemning the movie, which only increases ticket sales, and they might even hold a protest or two which, again, brings attention to the film that they don’t want people to see.

And now even the pro-life movement has joined the crowd.

As we all know, since 1993 a number of doctors, clinic staff and security guards associated with abortion clinics have been killed by acknowledged pro-life activists.  And, for very good reasons, the pro-choice movement expressed its outrage at these horrific crimes because these were bona fide acts of violence conducted by protectors of the fetus against those who stood ready to abort that same fetus.  And, yes, the cynics (myself included) will note that the pro-choice groups raised money on the murders.

Now, just a few days ago, it seems that a security guard at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the pro-life Family Research Council was shot and the assailant was apprehended immediately.    According to some reports, the assailant posed as an intern and shot the guard in the arm.  The first response by FRC President Tony Perkins was that “The police are investigating this incident. Our first concern is with our colleague who was shot today. Our concern is for him and his family.”

Abortion

Abortion

So far, so good.  A terrible, uncalled for incident and a well-intended statement of concern.

But, then, of course, it was time to make some political hay.  I mean, after all, those “pro aborts” got so much attention years ago, didn’t they?  Why shouldn’t we?  So, shortly after the incident my buddies at LifeNews.com announced that “the White House is coming under criticism from pro-life advocates for not issuing a condemnation of the shooting of a security guard at the offices of the Family Research Council, a pro-life group.”  They went on to say, however, that “it took them (the White House) almost five hours to issue a statement,” which of course contradicts the previous statement.  Indeed, the headline of the release saying pro-life groups were condemning the White House for their silence was entitled “White House Takes Five Hours to Comment on FRC Shooting.”   Get your act together folks.

Then, later, Mr. Perkins tried to link the shooter to the pro-choice movement (of course).  He stated that the assailant “…was given a license to do that by a group such as the Southern Poverty Law Center who labeled us a hate group because we defend the family and stand for traditional orthodox Christianity.”  How’s that for some hard evidence of a conspiracy?

Then, a pro-life blogger suggested that the media outlets were either ignoring or downplaying the shooting because, of course, the entire media (I guess including Fox News) is pro-choice.  I guess they felt the media was over blowing things when an actual abortion doctor was murdered in front of an abortion clinic.

The funniest thing I read was how the pro-life groups were pooh poohing Obama’s statement condemning this act of violence.  On the other side of the coin, pro-life Presidential candidate Mitt Romney had this to say:  “I am appalled by the shooting today at the offices of the Family Research Council in our nation’s capital. There is no place for such violence in our society. My prayers go out to the wounded security guard and his family, as well as all the people at the Family Research Council whose sense of security has been shattered by today’s horrific events.”

So Romney used three sentences to say what Obama said in one.  Big deal.  And yes, he did issue it a little before Obama.  What a guy.  He must really care more.

This shooting is terrible.  The hope the security officer has a speedy recovery.  But gimme a break, folks.   This is absolutely nothing like the actions of Paul Hill, Michael Griffin and John Salvi.

But nice try.

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August 11, 2012

LifeNews: My New Friend!

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Information | Tags: , |
[104] Comments 
Abortion

Abortion

I gotta be honest with you – I enjoy reading pro-life newsletters more than pro-choice newsletters.  The main reason is that the pro-lifers love to focus on what’s (supposedly) going on right there at the abortion clinics, so I get a chance to read about what some of my old friends are up to these days.  In fact, I recently subscribed to LifeNews.com and so far it’s been very interesting reading!

For example, I just learned that President Obama is so intent on increasing the number of abortions in this country that, at a recent pro-choice conference, he told the attendees that he “will never back down in promoting abortion.”  I wonder if that means we will soon see him wearing t-shirts promoting www.abortion.com, the website that is a directory of abortion clinics?  Then, in the very same newsletter I learned that Obama recently met with – dare I say it – officials from Planned Parenthood!  It seems that they were two of many people on a receiving line as the President exited from Air Force One to embark on a campaign tour in Florida.  Just think about all the juicy stuff they talked about in those ten seconds that they (maybe) had his attention.  What a great opportunity for these two officials to discuss how the President of the United States could get more women into those abortion clinics!

Finally, another item from this hard news service reported that the President “makes special arrangements to meet the heads of the local abortion business so they can continue pumping profits from abortions into funding his re-election campaign.”  Yes, the President has no doubt met with PPFA officials but if anyone can cite me an example of the President meeting privately with an independent abortion provider, I’ll buy you a beer.  Meanwhile, of course, the pro-life movement is pouring millions into the Mitt Romney campaign.

So, I was getting real excited about my new source of hard-hitting objective abortion news when, on my third day, I was brought back to reality.  You see, one of the main reasons I subscribed to LifeNews.com was because it was FREE.   And I guess it still is free but, bingo, on the third day I received the inevitable fundraising letter.

The hook was that Obama had just celebrated his birthday but, as LifeNews noted, he was not concerned about those poor little unborn babies who would not be celebrating their own birthdays.  “A child’s birthday party is a joyous occasion with friends and family, but too many will never see their first because President Obama is committed to keeping abortion legal for another 40 years by stacking the Supreme Court with more pro-abortion activists in a second term. We can’t let that happen!”  So, they asked me to send a gazillion dollars which (they don’t tell us) will first pay for staff salaries, then the rent, then their travel expenses, then the high priced consultants whose job is to raise more money and, THEN with the few pennies we have left we will fight to force women to see their child on the ultrasound machine before they go ahead with the abortion.  Yeah, that’s how we will save the unborn!

No doubt people will dutifully send their money.  They will take everything they just read as gospel, they will not question any of it and they will write their check to pay for the overhead of their national organizations.

I can’t wait for my next edition of LifeNews!

 

August 8, 2012

Trust Women

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion Information
[38] Comments 

Trust Women is a message that is elegant in its simplicity. Trust women to make the right choices for themselves. But it’s a message that means much more.

Trust Women means to respect and trust all women to know—better than strangers, church leaders or legislators—what they can and should do with their own bodies. In the United States, we the majority believe women have a constitutional right to bodily integrity, to be sexually active with whomever they choose and to choose when or if they parent.

Yet . . .

  • Support for vitally important birth control is all too often out of reach for young, sexually active females because they lack health insurance and/or finances, because they lack of adequate and age-appropriate sexual education or because they are involved in abusive domestic situation.
  • One out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Rather than warnings about potential risks, as a nation we should work on changing our culture so that we truly value and respect young girls and women. And invisible to society, our incarcerated women are subjected to conditions of improper touching by persons of authority, sanctioned sexual harassment, unnecessary strip searches, sex for special privileges or money and rape. In fact, the 2010 Department of Justice report stated, “Nearly 82% of the female victims
in prison said they were pressured by staff to engage in sexual activity.” Even our own military branches have allowed a culture of rape to exist with instructors raping recruits and active duty personnel.
  • When a woman is unexpectedly pregnant and wants to end the pregnancy, her right to an abortion is can be denied because she is incarcerated, delayed because of funding or a complex of social reasons or ignored because of legal complications.
  • When a woman knows that her grossly malformed fetus at 25 weeks has no chance at life after birth, it doesn’t mean the she will find trust and respect for her decision to abort nor readily find a doctor who is willing and capable of providing services nor readily being able to afford such an abortion.
  • When a woman wants an abortion, there are legislatures, playing doctor, who want to force a transvaginal ultrasound into a woman’s vagina. There is no known law that has been put forth from any legislator that would propose inserting medical probes of any kind into a male for any reason.
  • Fetal rights have trumped women’s rights in growing numbers. In fact, fetal rights advocates have convinced police, prosecutors, and judges to treat maternal addiction as a form of abuse or neglect without regard for parenting ability. Fetal rights trumped a woman’s rights in the case of Angela Carder, a young woman who was critically ill and 25 weeks pregnant. Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, writes, “More than anything, she wanted to live. A court, however, ordered cesarean surgery based on claims of fetal rights. The surgery was performed over her objections as well as those of her physicians and family. Angela Carder died two days later – the cesarean surgery listed as a contributing factor. The fetus was born alive but died within two hours.” Even without a personhood measure on the books, Angela Carder died with the help of judges and doctors working quietly behind the closed doors. Her wishes were denied, her bodily integrity and her life stolen by the state.
  • When a woman and her husband refuse to undergo a caesarian section, she could be a victim of coercive medicine and criminal prosecution. For example, Melissa Rowland, pregnant with twins, refused a c-section. One of the twins was stillborn so Rowland was charged with first-degree murder. After spending three months in jail, she accepted a deal in which the murder charge was dismissed in return for her guilty plea to two counts of child endangerment (unrelated to her c-section refusal). She’s now free, and serving 18 months of probation.
  • Women prisoners have been subjected to degrading, gratuitous and unconstitutional cavity searches, called the labia lift, after family visits, attorney meetings and at shift changes. A violation of the fourth and eighth amendment, this practice has been stopped, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union.
  • And for women who fail to conform to the heteronormativity of our culture because they are lesbians or transgender, the danger of physical and emotional assault is ever present. For example, a 33-year old lesbian was tied up so that her homophobic male attackers could carve homophobic slurs into her abdomen and arms while law officials questioned whether the attack was faked or not.
  • For low-income women who know what is best for them and for their families, access to the full spectrum of reproductive health services is often met by local family planning services. In fact, more than six in 10 women who obtained care at a family planning center considered the center their usual source of medical care. According to the Guttmacher Institute, ‘publicly funded family planning services help women to avoid pregnancies they do not want and to plan pregnancies they do. In 2006, these services helped women avoid 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 860,000 unintended births and 810,000 abortions.” Despite the very real needs of low-income women, the Republicans, who are overwhelmingly prolife, want to cut funding for Title X and Planned Parenthood (essentially cutting funding to help low-income mothers and their children).

Christine Cupaiuolo, blogger for Our Bodies, Ourselves, writes, “Trust Women isn’t just a mantra of tolerance or respect. It’s a phrase that changes the playing field, in every way imaginable. It’s the right phrase to advocate for women making their own reproductive health choices, and it’s a much broader statement about our future.”

Broadly speaking, it means women are fully human and should be afforded every human right men are afforded including all rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, reproductive decision, sexual orientation or other status.

 

August 5, 2012

Internet Abortions?

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Information, Abortion Pill, Misoprostol, RU486 | Tags: , , , |
[65] Comments 

And now it seems that you can get an abortion over the Internet.

Abortion Pill

Abortion Pill

Years ago, I was in the middle of the effort to get “the abortion pill,” otherwise known as RU-486, approved for usage in the United States.  On several occasions, I was at the table with the investors who had put up a lot of money to get the product approved by the FDA, the pro-choice groups that desperately lobbied for it and the company that would ultimately distribute it.  The company was especially conscious about security, to the point where they had an office in Manhattan but no signs anywhere announcing its presence.  Ultimately, after years of struggle, we prevailed.

From the beginning, advocates of the pill championed it as another option for women who did not necessarily want to have surgery. They also, however, got a bit hyperbolic about its impact when they predicted that the pill would “revolutionize” women’s reproductive health.  Their thought was that additional physicians would come out of the woodwork and start prescribing this pill and that it would allow women to have abortions in the privacy of their own home.  The abortion providers, on the other hand, voiced concern that the product was being built up too much and warned that a doctor who had never been involved in the delivery of abortion services before would not suddenly start prescribing the abortion pill.  Today, the pill is being used by about 20% of women having abortions and we have not seen those doctors coming out of the woodwork, although some current abortion providers – particularly Planned Parenthood – have set up small offices where they only disperse the pill.

Abortion Pill

Abortion Pill

The bottom line is that the pill is a good option, but it is not for everyone.

And now, the pill is available on the Internet.  Yep, the other day I ran across a website named http://www.abortionpillonline.com  and, honestly, my first reaction was rather negative.  First of all, the website itself looks very cheesy, very amateurish.  Unlike the website of your average abortion provider, there was no hard information, like where they were located, what doctors were involved, etc.  I didn’t

Abortion Pill

Abortion Pill

see any phone numbers.   Heck, I didn’t even know what country this business was in until I emailed them and they told me that the product was made in India and distributed from India.

Now, I don’t know all the legalities here and I certainly am not accusing this group of being less than reputable.  But this just sounds too easy for me.  When it comes to any kind of medical care, everyone needs to be careful.  Let’s face it, no matter what the medical specialty, there’s always someone out there who is eager to cut corners and make the quick buck.  In the case of the abortion pill (which is actually two pills), there’s a lot more to it that just swallowing a pill.  For example, this website just distributes the pill, it does not offer any counseling which, for some women, is very important.  And it’s hard to predict how a woman will react once she starts the regimen, physically or emotionally.  What if there’s an issue in the middle of the night?  Who will she call?  There are so many potential issues that might require the advice of a real, accessible doctor or at least a nurse.

I’m glad that women have more access to abortion services via the pill.  Going to the Internet and just ordering a bunch of pills and swallowing them belies the seriousness of the abortion process.  It makes me nervous.

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August 2, 2012

A Closer Look at Anti Abortion Activists

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Information, Abortion lies, Cancer, Christian Terrorism
[31] Comments 

Anti abortion activists are against abortion. Period. But there’s more to their rhetoric than merely proclaiming that abortion is morally wrong. Yes, there is more than simply being against a legal, safe medical procedure. In fact, it is through an examination of symbolic acts and artifacts that the activists use (literature, images, performances and verbal messages), that we can more fully flesh out the personae known as anti abortion activists.

Oppositional – Their lives are bound by ancient superstitions that stand as an impediment to science and progress. Relying on faith, they view the world in oppositional and controlled ways. For example, consider the archetypal metaphor of day and night. Antis are to day what pro choicers are to night. They are the ones who wear white, while others wear black. Their worldview accommodates no shades of grey. Nuances do not factor into their tightly bound world.  So, for example, to clinic clients, they say things like:

They want your baby to die. We want your baby to live.

With them, you’ll have a lifetime of regrets with a dead baby. With us, you will no regrets, a lifetime of happiness and a beautiful baby.

Your daughter deserves better than abortion. She’s going to mourn for this child for the rest of her life.

Make the right choice and not destroy life.

And to volunteer and clinic staff, the antis are fond of oppositional comments such as:

Get a job where you don’t have to kill for a living.

Why don’t you cross over to our side?

When you laugh at me, you’re laughing at God.

To make their point more visually punctuated and to signify their sacredness, they wear and carrying crosses and crucifixes, decorate the adjacent lawn with ornaments such as white crosses and white coffins, and chant prayers and spells to exorcise the evil spirits.

Another aspect of this oppositional thinking is their proclivity toward discriminating between the sacred and the profane. For example, offers of money to help women carry their pregnancy to term is sacred while offers of money to help women defray the cost of an abortion is profane. While doctors who earn money performing general surgery are sacred, doctors who earn money performing abortions are profane. While dental clinics are sacred, abortion clinics are profane. The say things like:

Their bread and butter comes from killing babies.

They’re banking on your daughter to forget to take her birth control pills so she gets pregnant and has to have an abortion.

This doctor doesn’t care about you. All he wants is your money.

In an attempt at amending what they view at evil, antis sprinkle holy water on the ground outside the abortion clinic, chant prayers and spike the lawn with white crosses and images of a white Jesus (who was, without a doubt, not white).

Authoritarian – From the strict doctrines binding them in their faith, antis are like the dragons that guard the door to progressive thinking. For them, their faith is absolutely true and completely adequate to explain everything. In their worldview, absolute conformity to the doctrine is mandatory. They learn from authoritarian teachers and preachers. Hence, they learn to be authoritarian toward others. In fiery, white-hot lightening, they lash out toward volunteer escorts:

You need to examine your motives for being so happy here at an abortion center.

You should be ashamed of yourself. You know in your heart that abortion is wrong.

Keep in mind that the antis do not know the women and their companions who enter the clinics. Nevertheless, they’ve singed total strangers, with comments like:

You don’t want your daughter to be hurting for the rest of your life

Don’t kill your baby today. Your baby deserves a birthday

Abortion is not the answer to the problem you’re facing today.

You’ve had your fun sleeping with her. Now be man and take care of her.

If your daughter conceived in rape, it’s the way God wanted it to be.

Ask God to forgive you.

In an effort to make their point, they often resort to finger-pointing, to shoving their signs in people’s faces telling them they “need to see this” and posting signs with straight forward pronouncement “Babies killed here” or “Be Gone Satan” or “Abortion is the Holocaust.”

Fear Mongering – Imagine living amongst humans where their nature has been programmed by magical thinking and heapum powerful juju. Using words created by humans and printed in man-made books, they declare their programming to be the Hocus Pocus of the Great Sky God. Lacking wisdom, they demand you too turn your life over to their GSG. They warn that if you don’t do as they say, because they know what is best, you will live in eternal flames. At abortion clinics, they spread their fear mongering words, often marinated in magical thinking, with comments like:

Abortion is associated with a 400% increase in breast cancer.

They love to talk about dead babies, stopping a beating heart.

The child you kill will haunt you at night.

Your baby has a heartbeat and brain waves and feels excruciating pain when the doctor tears his little body apart.

They’re going to turn your baby into baby road-kill.

They’re going to tear your uterus apart.

My girlfriend died in this clinic two weeks ago.

You’re going to cry for the rest of your life.

They’re going to suck your baby’s brains out.

The blood of that child is on your hands.

Mommy, please don’t let them tear my arms and legs off.

And if the words don’t scare the living hell out someone, these folks resort to gruesome images of a bloody full term fetus in pieces, Auschwitz signs with each letter of the word dripping with blood or spill red paint wherever they can.

Pro Fetus Anti Woman – Anti abortion activists call themselves prolife but that’s a misnomer. They’re really pro fetus. Taking the pro fetus position symbolically annihilates the woman carry the fetus, which is a pretty damn difficult place to be, if you ask me. In their magical thinking, the fetus is at the top of their value hierarchy while the aged humans are near the bottom. It’s no wonder that the average age of an anti abortion activist qualifies for senior citizen discounts. This older generation was socialized to believe that women were subservient to men, that people were heterosexual, that marriage meant children, that motherhood defined a woman and that young children were more valuable than old people. You can hear how this misogyny plays out when activists make comments like:

Let your baby live.

Your baby loves you and is innocent.

Your baby has the right to life.

Your baby has the right to have a birthday.

Anti woman comments are evident when the anti abortion activists say comments like:

Women use abortion as the easy way out.

Abortion is a selfish choice.

What gives you the right to kill your child?

Think about your baby’s soft, soft heart and your hard, hard heart.

You’re the mother of a dead baby now.

Even a cursory inventory of images used in the antiabortion industry reveals an obsession with the fetus and with babies. From microscopic fetal images to full color photography of children smiling, the antis are fixated. In their artifacts, the fetus figures prominently in rosaries sporting fetal dolls floating in the beads, in poster-sized baby announcements, in empty manger scenes (as if all babies are Jesus?), in baby dolls they carry in infant carriers and in the live babies they borrow from friends as props. While the fetus is foremost in their visual world, women are relegated to the occasional incubator status in the objectified form of a swollen, pregnant belly.

In Sum – A closer look at the personae of anti abortion activists provides a glimpse into their beliefs. They often claim that prochoicers have a hardened heart but the reality is that they are projecting their own ossified head and heart. Unable to moderate, unwilling to recant, and unable to see their own aggressivity, they hold fervently to the belief that what they do outside abortion clinics, on the Internet and at rallies is the right thing to do and is the right way to do things. And despite millions of people who share their faith, it is in name only. The anti abortion activists have their own special interpretations of how their faith is to be performed. And it’s quite the unbelievable performance!

 

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