The governor there has expanded the clinic buffer zone to 35 feet, giving women easier access to reproductive health care without harassment. Unsurprisingly, anti-choicers are upset that the buffer zone gets in their way of “counseling” women by screaming, finger-wagging, and videotaping them.
Thanks to Kristen for the link.
Does videotaping actually accomplish anything other than intimidation? As in, if I were to put myself into the brain of someone who protests at clinics, what EXACTLY would my motivation be for videotaping people performing a legal procedure?
Or is it just straight up Occam at work?
I was at the Central MA PP the other day for an annual exam (which is apparently the part of PP that anti-choicers choose to ignore) and there was one lone protester on the median of the road with his “End All Abortion” sign mounted to a 2×4 cross. I really appreciated not being hassled by someone at the door or having to be escorted to my car by the security guard.
Why does the Secret Service get to whisk anti-Bush protestors to fenced-in “free speech zones” miles from wherever Bush is speaking? While God forbid that we should deprive some nut of the chance to scream “Whore!” into the ear of a woman entering a clinic.
This makes me so happy. I pass a PP every day on my way to Boston U and I’ll be very glad not to see the protesters standing close by on the sidewalk giving all of the patients and escorts grief.
Bitter Scribe:
Exactly. As you indicate, the government should have absolute and unlimited discretion in regulating speech, deciding which speech is “harrassment,” and dictating how far protesters must stand from the people they are trying to communicate with. The problem is merely that, at present, they have different definitions and priorities than you.
I wish someone would investigate these claims. I am inclined to believe it is a lie,– maybe what they mean is some women were so traumatised they left the clinic to come back another day? Or intimidated by the taping?
but I guess it’s a weird world out there and it’s not impossible for it to be true. I’d like to see some women interviewed who had their mind changed by clinic protestors. Or by an ultrasound, come to that.
And I suppose it’s possible the old lady’s refrigerator pictures are not of specific babies but general baby (or fetus) pictures. Somehow the image of an anti-choice activist with fetus pictures all over the fridge is much easier to believe than the image of one who has baby pictures sent to her by grateful mothers who are glad she harrassed them out of having an abortion.
“I wish someone would investigate these claims.”
I don’t. It’s inevitably even worse than you’d think. One billboard featuring a pair of “saved babies” turned out to be a rabid anti-choicer’s grandchildren. Her rationale for counting them as having been saved from abortion was that her daughter, the children’s mother, was pro-choice. Never mind that her grandchildren had been planned, wanted, and mother and child remained healthy throughout the pregnancy.
She was pro-choice, ergo it was only the grandmother’s prayers that kept her from either skipping off to abort them out of either sheer malice or getting caught up in the insidious abortion industry, what with its pushers lurking in every alley, just waiting for a pregnant woman to walk by so that they can confuse her twitterpated little lady-brain and persuade her to get an abortion she doesn’t really want and will later deeply regret.
Tell you what, R.A. I’ll come over to your house and scream at you what an idiot you are because you disagree with me. Then, when you call the cops, I’ll just tell them that because the government does not “have absolute and unlimited discretion in regulating speech,” they have to leave me alone.
One good strawman deserves another.
I can’t wait for Deval Patrick to run for POTUS.