The abortion clinic down the street from me...

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Sleazy_Spade

Jillian, he could do something phyiscal about it, He *could* beat the hell out of you or kill you as vengence for an angry god,

You could also do something physical against me. I'm not agreeing with you, so there is conflict, and the possibility that it will end up in physical violence is existent, for improbable and ludicrous it might sound.
Do you, therefore, not deserve to keep talking to me?
Fuck no, you have all the right of the world to keep voicing your own opinion even if the possibility of physical violence is a possibility, because preventing actions is bullshit. The same bullshit used in preemptive wars.

[Sleazy_Spade]

These individual protestors may not have used violence before, But the pro-life movement has. But that is not the issue here. The issue is that they *are* causing emotional and mental distress to people that wish to avail themselves of that facility. And quite possibly they are causing emotional or mental damage. And that is enough to constitue harassment and in some cases assault. If they wish to stand on the other side of the street at a reasonable distance and not approach people individually fine that would be within their rights. But congregating around the doorway to try and *bully* people into leaving is not.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by AngelikDemonik

What they are doing is illegal.

Legality has nothing to do with someone's opinion. At least it shouldn't.

After Dr. David Gunn was killed by an anti-abortion supporter, there were laws passed that state that if you are protesting infront of ANY health care clinic you: Cannot block the entrance to that clinic and you must be so many feet away from that clinic, if protesting.

And that is wrong. There's no reason for them to comply or not to comply if they're willing to risk it.

I've seen them block the entrance more than one time, and I've heard them taunt girls going into the clinic. "Burn in hell, murderer!" "God doesn't love murderers!" "Only sluts have abortions!"... That's beautiful?

No it isn't. And I didn't mention this is beautiful. I said that hey will voice their own ideals is beautiful, their direct action methods is beautiful. Their individual opinion toward others, however, can be as it is and it cannot be declared universally beautiful. Why do people confuse individual and specific events with others? That's prejudice. If you didn't want me to say what I said, then mention their threats, not their protest. How can you expect me to feel pity about direct action?

Not to mention, their pictures aren't even accurate.

Then give them accurate pro-life information as I mentioned.

What about the ones that threaten the Nurses and Doctors with physical violence? Or the patients?

Yes, this is what I mentioned. Is this a dogmatic necessity for any protest? No. So if you're going to talk about a protest, don't expect me to infer this and just mention the real specifics that make you angry unless you do want me to believe your anger is towards simple expression.

Or the ones who blow up the clinics...That's beautiful?

Unless your guys have done so, you have no reason to decry them for that any more than the examples I have mentioned.

Might I add, the vast of majority of these pro-lifers are Republican--Many of whom (not all, but a lot) are against universal healthcare and providing wellfare for the poor (i.e. young, single mothers). They don't want women to have abortions, but then they don't want to help them out at all.

Then fucking protest about this yourself rather than eliminating another protest.

[Sleazy_Spade]

Physical violence is not possible here as Neither of us knows the other's name or phyiscal location. Thus any sort of physical interaction is impossible. And yes in our hypothetical situation the little girl *could* defend herself. But considering the situation its not very likely that she will do so successfully.

Not all people are as strong willed as you seem to be. I do not know whether you are male or female, I would assume the latter. But there are people who are not so able to stand up for themselves. Especially people that have already been abused prior to some situation such at this.

Its not a matter of whether the pro-life movement has a right to protest, they do certainly. But they Don't have the right to cause distress or interfere with other individuals ability to go about their lives. This relates back to the freedom of speech and the first ammendment. Part of freedom of religion in particular means freedom from christian oppression as well. One should not have to over come a mob, or have enough courage to ignore the mob, to avail oneself of these clinics. It goes against the idea that all humans are created equally.

Furthermore the pro-lifer's are protesting because they believe that abortion is murder. According to the social contract system in use in this country abortion is not murder. Meaning they have broken no laws and society does not consider abortion morally wrong. If the pro-lifer's disagree, that is their own personal problem. They should not be trying to influence the descisions of others unless the person asks for their opinion.

And on a completely unrelated note, As per the definition of a parasite, Biologically a fetus that is unwanted by the mother fits the description. It is unable to live outside of the mother on its own, it recieves its nuitrients from her body. No one on this earth has the authority to dictate that a woman must allow another organism to plunder her body's nuitrients and energy if she does not want it to do so. If those that disagree with abortion feel so strongly, perhaps they should channel their efforts into creating a way to bring the baby to term and care for it without the mother having to sacrifice 9 months of her life or more, considering she obviously is not ready for a child.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Sleazy_Spade

The issue is that they *are* causing emotional and mental distress to people that wish to avail themselves of that facility.

Let me use the example of the baby seals. Heck, let's make it about pandas. There's a lodge for baby panda hunters in your town. A bunch of people make a picket fence around it. The lodge demands the government of your town to prohibit you from protesting anywhere closer than sixty feet from the lodge because you might just hurt their feelings and cause them emotional grief by letting them see what they're doing. Why should you comply?

[Sleazy_Spade]

I wouldn't have to comply. Because Hunting baby seals OR pandas is illegal as most of those species are endangered or protected and all I would have to do is call the EPA or even PETA and a band of police would be around promptly to arrest them.

[AngelikDemonik]

Jillian, expressing their opinion is not illegal, nor should it be. But huddling infront of that doorway is. Detroit police wouldn't even respond to a call to have protestors move five yards down that street.

This clinic does not only perform abortions--They provide women with yearly gyno check-ups, HIV tests, STD treatmen, birth control, and neo-nate care. Not only are they harassing people having abortions, they are also interfering with people having general medical visits. They don't know who has a yeast infection and who is pregnant. To them, all of these girls are the same.

If someone wants to voice their opinion, they should at least have enough accurate information about the topic, including photographs. I never have thought about rolling up there with one of my OB Nursing books and showing them photographs of first termers, but now that you suggest it, I think it is a wonderful idea.

They don't have to stop protesting, and they shouldn't if that's what they truly believe in. I do, however, want them to stop taunting the people going into these types of clinics and I want them to respect the law and stay away from the entrance of that door.

As for creating a protest for universal healthcare, I would aboslutely LOVE to, but my life right now is dedicated to becoming a Nurse, so I'll be able to provide quailty healthcare services to ALL humans. I've been doing what I can by researching potential presidental candidates, and deciding who I think would be the most likely to enforce universal healthcare. It's all I can do for the time-being.

[thedarkmaydream]

education is more important than scare tactics. debate is fine. forcing someone to do what you want is not. and yes those people who stand in front of the doorway are FORCING the intimidated ones to not proceed. harassment is not acceptable and IS a means of force.

i am suprised that someone would think that is perfectly acceptable - standing in front of the doors that is.
know what you are talking about before you speak. education is key. please use it.


using a brain would be nice too.......but thats the sarcastic bastard in me speaking.

[Cyberbat]

The thing that gets me is these people think they know what god wants, or that god thinks its wrong and they are all holy for this shit. but, according to their religion, god gave us free will. Thus, if I want to go and have an abortion, then its my damn choice and right. By god and country.

I will never understand how these people's brains work.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

What is not logic is this, and I shall prove it.
You have been saying all along:
If Q then P. (If abortionists are evil (or whatever) it is because they have used physical violence to prove their point.)
Then you declare P, and infer Q by this. Make a truth table and you'll see that you cannot infer Q from P. You can infer P from Q, as that would be "IF they have used physical violence, then they're evil" but is your premise right in this occasion? Can you say that these pro-lifers have committed violence? No! So where do you get your conclusion?

Meanwhile, my argument cannot be logical because it wasn't a procedure, so calling it illogical means nothing. I just provided you with other examples for you to apply your logic to. If you think the outcomes of those are ridiculous, then what does that tell you about your own logic?

No, I said that it's because they used physical violence or intimidation and harrassment, and considering that it's only a diminutive number that don't, I choose to work by majority.

And also, making up a bullshit algebraic formula doesn't make you any more or less right, it means that you're a pretentious show-off who wants to avoid actually justifying his points as opposed to throwing confusing theories out there and hoping people won't land on their feet.

[Godslayer Jillian]

It's not a bullshit algebraic formula. It's as simple as a truth table can get. It has nothing to do with algebra except that it has letters.
And it's most definitely not a majority that use physical violence. If almost half of America is pro-life, then how can you say that the majority of them use physical violence when we're not seeing hundreds of lynchings per city every day?

[JCC]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

It's not a bullshit algebraic formula. It's as simple as a truth table can get. It has nothing to do with algebra except that it has letters.
And it's most definitely not a majority that use physical violence. If almost half of America is pro-life, then how can you say that the majority of them use physical violence when we're not seeing hundreds of lynchings per city every day?

Violence OR harrassment, and you can't honestly tell me that pro-lifers don't harrass people because I'll just laugh at you.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Not the majority, and if you laugh at that piece of fact, you are just proving you can't be unbiased if your life depended on it.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

To begin with: Godwin's Law!

Ah, yes, Godwin's Law... the stupid "law" which states that anyone who mentions the Nazis automatically loses the argument. It goes on to say that if someone invokes Godwin's Law, the losership is transfered to that person.

Good job.

[Green.Lady]

Is there really no law that makes it illegal to display disturbing images in public? I find that surprising, somehow.

[viscus]

I don't really want to be an apologist for this kind of behavior, but think of it this way: you don't just stand by peacefully protesting outside of a man's house if you think he's going to go inside and murder his wife, do you? They think abortion is murder, and that's how they justify their actions.

Now, if everyone could just realize that fetuses are not people and therefore cannot be murdered, we wouldn't have a problem.

And by the way, is there really a good reason why Christians shouldn't be for socialized medicine and welfare, or environmentalism and abolishing the death penalty for that matter? The GOP has this insidious tendency to hook people in on single, emotionally-charged issues.

[Drake Dun]

For the most part my sympathies here are with Jillian, but I'm going to puss out and stop short of forming an opinion on these particular protesters. HOWEVER I do want to take one moment to point out that the "woman's choice" and "woman's body" lines on the abortion question itself leave something to be desired.

"If you don't like it, don't do it" is fine for marijuana, gay sex, etc. These acts are manifestly victimless. Abortion is a genuinely stickier issue.

If we assume that the unborn fetus is a person, then in accordance with received notions of morality, to kill it is murder, period. It doesn't get us anywhere to say, "If you don't like murder, don't do it, but don't try to stop me from doing it". Murder is a crime with a victim, and therefore falls outside the scope of the "live and let live" intuition.

To move on to a favorite personal rant, the ugly complication is the fact that, even taking the choice of the "personhood" line as our criterion for granted, the bulk of the people who argue that a fetus is a person do so on the basis of religious sentiment and are unable to offer even a single cogent argument in support of their case. Judging from the previous posts in this thread, I'm obviously not the first person to notice this.

To add comedy to insult, there does not appear actually to be anything in their canon to support them. The only directly relevant opinions on the question originating from within original Christianity are due to the men who kicked off what would eventually become the very Catholic Church that your garden variety American Christianity has long since turned its back on.

As near as I can tell, the pro-life movement is basically thinking with its gut instead of its brain, and then backing itself up with revelation instead of reason. Score on thinking scale: 0/10. But their way has been unintentionally paved ahead of them by "reasonable" and "moderate" Christians.

The West has long since quietly recognized how idiotic and bloody-minded the Bible is, but has lacked the honesty and guts to simply throw it out and start thinking. Instead we have adopted the principle that the Bible somehow does not mean what it says, but means something else, which you have to interpret, but you have to interpret right, even though there are no standards for which interpretation is right, but after you get done interpreting it right, its truth is infallible.

Think about that for a moment. It's a blank check written to the name of totalitarianism. With that much unthought combined with that much certitude, naturally you get a formula favorable to the kind of brain dead assholes who can convince themselves that their particular political opinions are sanctioned by the creator of the universe.

Drake

[Underwater Ophelia]

I'd just like to point out that it's entirely possible that the pictures on the man's van are from legal abortions. Even at 7 weeks, a fetus is recognizable as a baby; it's not just a clump of cells. Also, even legal abortion is extremely gruesome and could definitely have results like the ones you saw on the van.

That said, no, I'm not pro-life, I'm just pointing that out because it's true and relevant.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by viscus

I don't really want to be an apologist for this kind of behavior, but think of it this way: you don't just stand by peacefully protesting outside of a man's house if you think he's going to go inside and murder his wife, do you? They think abortion is murder, and that's how they justify their actions.

The thing is, when anti-abortion protesters actually go and shoot abortion doctors, it's not because they think that the abortion doctor is about to go do another abortion. No, they wait until the doctor comes outside to go home for the night. While they claim to do it for to preserve the sanctity of life, they're actually doing it for revenge. They're doing it for the abortions already carried out.

[viscus]

Revenge killing is unacceptable by anyone's standards, I wasn't trying to explain their rationale for that.

[ForgetThisLostLenore]

I would just like to know when these people want to say a fetus is human. If it's from fertilization, then several birth control methods would also be abortion, and they aren't protesting those, but when can these people say when someone is a human being? Yes, they should be able to protest. I'm not disagreeing there. But there is a point where protest becomes harassment.

It is in everyone's nature to be intimidated, and there are just certain things that strike people as intimidating. It's even more intimidating when you place a person already upset in a position that is seemingly dangerous. The woman in question does not know if that man stepping on her heels as she walks in to a clinic is one of the ones that would feel it's better to take two lives than "one".

[Tam Li Hua]

The picture on his van looks like something from a bad horror movie, to be honest..

As for protesting, the people in front of the building seem friendly enough, but I have to agree that being right in front may not be the best thing..

[korinna5555]

Originally Posted by Underwater Ophelia

I'd just like to point out that it's entirely possible that the pictures on the man's van are from legal abortions. Even at 7 weeks, a fetus is recognizable as a baby; it's not just a clump of cells. Also, even legal abortion is extremely gruesome and could definitely have results like the ones you saw on the van.

The "God Bless America?" baby looks to have been about 9 weeks..

I have my views on abortion.. I'm not going to bring them up on here again, for personal reasons.
The people protesting are (technically) doing nothing wrong, but I still disagree with how they are getting their message across. Those people give pro-lifers a bad name.

[Godslayer Jillian]

By a picket line?

[korinna5555]

Jilli.. ever see the website Godhatesfags?