Self-loathing former slut Dawn Eden has decided to use the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center to smear Planned Parenthood and do a little slut-shaming on the side:
Five years ago this week, I was standing outside the upper West Side headquarters of the American Red Cross of Greater New York, helping the organization manage the streams of would-be volunteers and blood donors who swarmed the building. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking to see how people of every age and background wanted so badly to do something for the survivors, the victims’ families, the city, and the country.
Something tells me that Dawn wasn’t actually a volunteer for the Red Cross, but enjoyed playing traffic cop. And now she gets to feel important by associating herself, Zelig-like, with the organization.
Meanwhile, downtown, the powers-that-be at Planned Parenthood were thinking of what they could do to help. In their minds — and I do believe that, in their twisted logic, they sincerely thought they were just doing their part to help — the best thing they could do was offer free “services” to women who were “in need due to the World Trade Center tragedy.” Among those services was an untold number of abortions.
“Untold,” perhaps, because Dawn has no earthly idea how many were actually performed because that’s confidential medical information. But, hey, use a vague, slightly sinister term like “untold number” and you can suggest that they were abortin’ babies left and right!
Dave Andrusko reported the story in October 2001 in his essay “Beyond Words,” reprinted here in its entirety with added links to archived Planned Parenthood press releases:
Note the source of this story: some right-to-life group. Oh, yeah, there’s an objective news source!
Here’s something interesting: while looking for non-wingnut news sources for this story, I found plenty of evidence of wingnuts exploiting the Sept. 11 attacks from the get-go. Here’s the abstract from a behind-the-wall story from December 2, 2001:
Anti-abortion group Idaho Chooses Life unveils television advertisement contending that while some 4,000 people died in Sept 11 terrorist attacks on World Trade Center, at least that many deaths occur every day in United States from abortion
Now, clearly, this is a way for the godbags to tie Planned Parenthood in with the terrorists (though that didn’t work out so well for Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as even George Bush denounced their comments about feminists, pagans, queers and abortionists having caused the attacks). And since honesty is not their strong suit, they’re not going to tell you that abortion clinics and family planning centers have been the targets of domestic godbag terrorists for years:
Abortion clinics are at vanguard of anthrax threats, with four waves of mailings, all hoaxes, since 1989; most widespread threats began Oct 15, when over 250 clinics got letters claiming to contain anthrax; many clinics have mastered procedures offices nationwide are just beginning to adopt for mail handling
Anthrax tests at a dozen family planning centers that provide abortions came back negative, Lisa Bull, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I., said yesterday. The state centers received letters on Nov. 8 containing a white powder and a note saying that the powder was anthrax, state and federal officials said. The letters were sent via Federal Express to two clinics in Hartford, two in Danbury, two in New Haven and one each in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Waterbury, Meriden, New London and Avon.
Atty Gen John Ashcroft says Clayton Lee Waagner, who is on FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List since Sept, is primary suspect in mailing of anthrax threats to hundreds of abortion clinics nationwide this fall; Waagner escaped on Feb 22 from jail in Illinois, where he was awating sentencing on federal firearms and interstate theft charges; FBI considers him ‘extremely dangerous’
Here’s what Dave Andrusko had to say about PPNYC’s offer of free reproductive health services, as quoted by Dawn:
Included in the “reproductive health care” that would be provided through “state-of-the-art clinical services, education and professional training, and advocacy” is abortion.
Even as just a few miles away firemen and emergency rescue workers were digging through the rubble of the World Trade Center for victims of the terrorist attacks, PPNYC was assuring women that while they were encouraged to make appointments, PPNYC “will do our best to accommodate walk-ins.”
Three days later, Joan Malin, Planned Parenthood of New York City’s CEO, extended the “free services,” gleefully noting, “The response has been overwhelming. PPNYC health centers have been booked to capacity and have had 100% show rates for appointments.”
What to say?
You could say, “Thank you,” Dave. And you could also say, “Wow, isn’t it a sign of how poor our health-care system in this country is that low-income women will forgo basic health care because they can’t afford it, and will jump at the chance to take free, quality care when it’s offered because they know it’s likely to be their only shot.”
Somehow, Dave (and Dawn) see the 100% attendance rate as some kind of created need for abortions, rather than a need for basic health services.
There were, after all, a lot of low-income people who lost family members on 9/11, or who lost jobs afterwards. The restaurant and hotel industry was seriously hurting. Whole swaths of Manhattan were shut down. At least one hospital had to close because one of its employees died of anthrax. Many of these people have since recieved compensation (at least those who lost family members have, not so much for those who lost income or who survived themselves), but they had nothing at the time. And when you have no income, you have even less money than you did before to obtain basic care.
You know how I can tell that Dave isn’t from New York? Try this:
The rest of America conducts car washes, donates blood, pledges money, consoles families who’ve lost members to terrorists, and prays each night that our nation remains strong and united.
Planned Parenthood of New York City underwrites the elimination of unborn babies.
Dave feels all self-righteous because he prayed and had a car wash. PPNYC provided vital health care free of charge to destitute women affected by the tragedy up close and personal. Which do you think was the more effective and more humane response?
But back to Dawn.
Real piece of work, this one is. Since she’s banned me from her site and taken down my comment, I really feel no compunction at all in pointing out that she’s a thin-skinned, narcissistic, self-important blowhard who’s unhealthily obsessed with other people’s sex lives and whose self-regard somehow never seems to develop into actual self-examination. Oh, and she lies.
Just like some of her commenters. For example, there’s this one:
This baffled and appalled me so much I don’t think I even let it stay as a thought it my mind for more than a second. I was baffled because I cannot imagine PP some how tied the World Trade Center bombing to sex and the need for “reproductive services”. How was that on anyone’s mind? I can’t figure out for the life of me why the bombing created a need for more birth control and abortions. Blood drives, I can see that. Birth control? Who the heck is having sex on Ground Zero?
The only scenario I can see is perhaps pregnant widows might want abortions? I guess in my pro-life, demented, non-logical mind, if my husband died in such a horrible tragedy, I would find the pregnancy a blessing planned by God, not tragedy.
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 09.11.06 – 6:58 am | #
And another woman, who’s just lost her only means of support, might be cursing God. That’s the thing about choice — other people make ones you might not like.
You know what got me banned? Pointing out that the only person I knew about who was having sex at Ground Zero was Bernard Kerik.
I guess Dawn doesn’t like being reminded that America’s Mayor picked as his right-hand man the kind of guy who’d use an apartment set aside for rescue workers to get some rest as his own personal love nest for assignations with not one but two mistresses.
I didn’t even mention the below-market renovations on his apartment by a mobbed-up contractor.
Word. Dawn has certainly irritated me before, but she really showed her true colors with this one. Unbelievably narcissistic and ugly.
I think this was my favorite comment:
Right. So to all you people who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center, get over it, because abortion still exists.
Really, fuck you.
Oh, for God’s sake. What about a woman who miscarried, couldn’t get to her regular gynecologist and needed a D&C? What about a birth control shot or pills for a woman who might be afraid of being raped in the chaotic wake? What about basic health care, or simply a friendly face? Is it really that hard to think of a plausible situation?
That was my favorite too Jill. Like PP staff just sit around waiting for an excuse to hand out abortions for free, preferably by capitalizing on a tragedy.
She can understand blood drives, but as it turned out, the blood drives weren’t needed because there were virtually no bleeding survivors.
What there were, were people who lost their jobs or their means of transportation (because remember how subways and PATH were closed?), or who couldn’t reach their doctor (remember that most phone lines were also down and most cell phones weren’t working), and those people needed a host of services, which might or might not have included abortion.
Oh, plus, I bet there was more sex, because when people are scared and grieving, they reach out for human warmth. Of course, the “human” thing probably eludes Dawn Eden.
The refusal to acknowledge any possible motive besides evil, the eagerness to score political points through tragedy, the absolute blindness to the genuine needs of fellow humans … wow. It’s like a trainwreck of logic and morality. And so very, very sad.
We finally have an explanation for horrible natural disasters! God causes bad things to happen because He wants us to make more babies!
Remember, every time there’s an abortion…THE TERRORISTS WIN!
She banned you from her blog? How silly.
Come to think of it, one of the commenters, I believe, also dragged in the old Planned-Parenthood-is-only-in-it-for-the-money-blah-blah bit, which sits but ill with the fact of, er, free services. I guess they figure abortions are like potato chips.
Hey, killing babies is its own reward.
Even just in terms of Abortion, you know, I can imagine it might be hard to go through with a Pregnancy when your husband, your only means of support and insurance, has just horribly died in an astoundingly violent manner that might well leave you suffering from post-traumatic stress.
Yeah, that’s the PERFECT time to have a child.
Jesus, have some fucking compassion.
This is just absurd. I was outside that exact same Red Cross center that Dawn was at, and “managing the streams of would-be volunteers and donors” basically mean, turning people away and telling them to go home, for reasons already mentioned. There was too much blood and too many hands, and not enough survivors. Lovely that Dawn was able to claim a little bit of do-goodery by claiming to have been “managing the streams.”
It’s not surprising at all that Planned Parenthood is straight-up equated with abortion in pro-life minds, creating the bizarre assumption that the 100% attendance rate = 100% abortions, one week after September 11. Uh hello, apparently Dawn doesn’t remember how badly a WHOLE lot of medical services, doctor’s offices, all sorts of normal everyday things were disrupted. Or how people just needed to keep on living, and get things they needed to live, including contraceptives and gyn exams and other kinds of things that you know, can help the world have more healthy, wanted babies, prevent unwanted pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion. I guess it would be better if Planned Parenthood hadn’t stepped up and told women to come by for all of those things, in a time of crisis? Yeah, right.
Why do they pretend that the only service PP offers is abortion and that every woman walking into a PP must be getting one? (I mean, I know why they do it, but I feel the overwhelming urge to ask a rhetorical question, I guess.)
Eesh, that was a lame excuse to excoriate PP. You’re right, Ledasmom – they’re usually all about the abortions = money line, but somehow they find a way to accuse PP of being exploitative in the exact opposite situation.
Same deal with the way they think of women – one day it’s that we’re wanton sluts, the next we’re good girls being suckered in by eeevil docs. Which is it?
It is kinda funny, though, to see them mix and match their narratives like this.
That was my reaction too. I certainly wouldn’t want to go through with a pregnancy under those circumstances. Not to mention, how many of those hypothetical women already had kids that needed support and insurance that was no longer provided. That woman really needs to get a life and stop butting into everyone else’s.
Not that Dawn is exploiting 9/11 for her own agendas, you know.
Dawn showed who she was when she approvingly, and smirkingly, posted Ann Coulter’s calumnies against the 9/11 widows.
That was all I needed to know about her. This apparently was what Christ’s love asked of Dawn.
Jill, she bans so many people that she doesn’t have enough bandwidth for the banned ISPs and eventually the older ones will disappear. At least, that’s what she told me…the last time she banned me for saying things she didn’t like.
She’s a phony. Worse, a self-righteous phony.
And, zuzu, the author of this post. Damn you, no preview button!
I would like to inform Dawn Eden that on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in a gynecologist’s office getting my very first prescription for birth control pills. (Really.)
Hmmmpph. She hasn’t banned me yet, except by accident (including the time she accidentally banned her mother, along with many many other people). From recent experience of having my posts chopped up, though, I can say:
References to length of cartoon man’s penis: Good.
References to marital sex: Bad.
And never, never say anything good about masturbation.
I admit that I sorta gave up on her, except for amusement, when she quoted, apparently with approval, a rant by Coulter equating science with religion.
“Pointing out that the only person I knew about who was having sex at Ground Zero was Bernard Kerik.”
Ouch. Richly deserved. But ouch.
Whaddaya want a preview button for when you get the nice little thing at the bottom typing out a copy of your post?
Which, as someone once pointed out, makes you feel like Doogie Howser, M.D.
Heh. Forgot about that.
Lol, I was banned from Dawn’s site too, *sigh* … I must be doing something right ;)
I love the first comment about how after such a mass murder, it’s our obligation to “re-people” the earth. So for all 2973 people dead, we need 2973 more babies, so better get pregnant!
It’s just like after Katrina when anti-choicers slammed PP in Texas for offering a free round of pills or EC to any woman who presented a Louisiana or Mississippi license. And that same old harp – “Who would be thinking about sex at a time like that?”
Well, a lot of people, clearly . . . wasn’t there a mini-spike in birth rates about nine months post-9/11?
And why not? Why is it so twisted in these people’s minds that, following tragedy, people might want to seek a little comfort with someone they love and might not be ready to parent right after the emotional stress and material loss of a disaster – like 9/11 or Katrina.
I’m also continually dumbfounded at how these same people, over and over again, slam Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health service, for giving away their srevices for free following a disaster. How is it the responsibility of a reproductive health service to do anything but provide those services to those who desire them, and to provide them well? And the shear lack of understanding regarding the myriad of reasons women use birth control – like migraines (me), cysts, heavy periods, etc. If say, my pills were in my purse in the WTC and I fled for my life, then couldn’t get to my regular doctor, yeah, sure, I’d like a free pack if someone is giving them away, thanks . . . but people like Dawn are so freaking repressed, all they can think about when it comes to birth control pills is sexsexsex.
Whatever. Dawn Eden annoys the crap out of me.
Good points, johanna, and I would add that you have to take your birth control pill every day in order to be protected, so just because a woman needs to get pills immediately doesn’t mean that she is planning to have sex immediately (not that that should be anyone’s concern), but that she might want to have sex at some point in the future and she needs to stay current on her daily pill-taking.
I’m probably entering the land of TMI here, but I went through a nihilistic period following 9/11 where I got onto Nerve personals (back when they didn’t suck) and had a few encounters with men who were also both looking to feel alive and tossing away the usual rules. I even called up an ex, but he’d been in Scotland when it happened and so he wasn’t feeling the same sense of ennervation.
They are actually continuing with the theme over there chez Eden:
Is this a new post?
zuzu: Yep. “The Raving Atheist” guest-posted. It’s even worse than the other post, if that’s possible.
Jeez. It sounds sooooo tempting, but I’m on a deadline today.
Even just in terms of Abortion, you know, I can imagine it might be hard to go through with a Pregnancy when your husband, your only means of support and insurance, has just horribly died in an astoundingly violent manner that might well leave you suffering from post-traumatic stress.
This is sort of off-topic, but when my fiance died (in 1985) and I was grieving and all that, I went through a second round of grief when my period started. Last little possible bit of him was gone. I doubt that many women would abort under the above-described circumstances, no matter how trying and challenging they might be. But that’s just my experience.
[...] froggy style; I am reading morning blog posts as per norm. A bit on feministe about 9/11 an anti-pro-choice ex-slut. Some obligatory bash bl [...]
Dammit to hell, why does my IT dept. have to block all Haloscan posts? Having to wait till 8 p.m. to see what’s really going on here is killing me!! ;-)
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links for 2006-09-13
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I know! I worked in an abortion clinic for a few years and it was so difficult to make it work: for a once-a-week abortion clinic we had to find a doctor from out of town because no one in our southern capital city would do it, we had to arrange his flights every week, pick him up at the airport, and we had to take different routes and book him in a different hotel every week because of the nuts who would have pestered him (or worse) if we had any sort of routine, we had to arrange clinic escorts. When we made the appointments on the telephone we didn’t just say arrange for a ride home and don’t eat anything beforehand, No, we had to explain about the protesters and encourage the women to ignore them, no matter how hard it was to do. Also, there was a very high standard of prerequisites before the woman was actual on the examining table having a proceedure:
_-a very strict window of time: more than 6 weeks pregnant and less than 12 weeks
-a valid pregnancy test from an independent-of-our-clinic doctor (because people like Dawn accuse abortion clinics of faking positve pregnancy tests and putting women through uneccessary abortion proceedures simply to make money)
-thorough options counselling ( I have seen counsellors spend an entire hour with a patient and then send her home because they came to the conclusion that the patient did not really want the proceedure after all).
So yeah, Dawn: Potato Chips! Lets all get one!