New York City is taking an unprecedented step to help women gain access to safe legal abortion services, by starting a program to recruit and train clinic escorts. Proposed by New York City Council Member Christine Quinn, the program is intended to assist women safely past the protesters and self-proclaimed sidewalk counselors attempting to block them from entering reproductive health care facilities.
One of the things I would never wish on anyone would be facing anti-choice protesters outside an abortion clinic. I’ve had some experience with folks who see nothing wrong with harrassing women as they enter a clinic. To call their behavior inappropriate and reprehensible wouldn’t begin to do justice to their cretinous disregard for anything but their narrow, intolerant beliefs.
It takes a special sort of person to be able to stand up to people so hateful and insensitive. They’ll camouflage their misbehavior and borderline criminal harrassment of women with their alleged religious beliefs, as thought Republican Jesus His Own Self had anointed them and called them to their mission of saving babies. At least that’s how they see it. They refer to abortion as “infanticide,” “genocide,” or just plain “murder,” and they’ll expound at considerable length about their devotion to “life.” Funny how a majority of anti-choice protesters favor the death penalty, isn’t it? So devotion to the sanctity of life ends when the baby exits the womb? Merely calling it hypocrisy wouldn’t begin to do justice to the reality that their position has nothing to do with religion or the “sanctity of life.” It’s about power, control, and ensuring that women are under the control of men.
That people can square that sort of epic hypocrisy and see no conflict makes it easy to suspect that some may be capable of anything to achieve their goal…up to including assault and perhaps even murder. If this seems hyperbolic, I have but one response- Scott Roeder, who murdered Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of Tiller’s Wichita church. Anti-choice protesters have proven themselves capable of murder; it’s a small minority, certainly, but why would a sane person want to get in bed with people potentially willing to kill for their beliefs?
It’s with that in mind that New York City has begun a program designed to protect women seeking to obtain a safe and legal abortion. Predictably, the anti-choice crowd is not amused.
“It doesn’t make sense. She’s supposed to be my representative,” said Monsignor Philip Reilly, a Catholic priest who led the protest. He called for her to depart City Council, saying, “If she wants to do that, she should resign.”
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[S]ome say the Council is sending the wrong message by getting involved at all. “This says it’s okay to have an abortion, and it’s not okay,” said Antoinette Wolske, a retired nurse from Queens who participated in Saturday’s protest. “We should not have this idea promoted.”
Let me see if I’m getting this straight: government is perfectly acceptable when it can be used to deny a woman their right to a safe and legal abortion as defined by Roe v. Wade. When government seeks to protect women merely trying to exercise their legal rights, THAT’S big government overreach and unacceptable governmental interference. Either that rationale involves some EPIC hypocrisy, or trying to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable involves taking a trip down the rabbit hole.
What is it about the Rabid Religious Right that leads them to believe that their “right” to ignore the law and stretch the bounds of simple human decency is more valid than the rights of women seeking to exercise a legal right guaranteed them by the Supreme Court?
Sorry, y’all…but if these folks are Christians, then I’m the Queen of England. Their intolerance and willingness to engage in any tactic- up to and some times including murder- have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
And people wonder why I don’t believe in God. With a fan club like that, no sane person would want anything to do with Christianity.
