Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Confronting Life

"Aaron Gouveia and his wife were already having the worst day of their lives. Then came the abortion protesters."
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1 comment:

  1. TronOctober 26, 2010 at 12:12 PM

    i barely made it through this article. i worked clinic defense at the boulevard clinic in richmond a few years back, its on a main intersection and people protest outside (at the very least) every sunday, ususually all weekend. as much as i wanted to at times, i never engaged with the protesters. partly because the clinic defense coalition i worked for had a policy of not engaging with protesters. we just wore signs around our necks and made sure women got into the clinic with as little harassment as humanly possible (we were there for them, not to engage in a political debate).
    the other reason i didn't engage with them is because there is no way to have a rational debate with someone who clings so tightly to fundamentally misinformed "moral" beliefs. i would stand there and old white men with beards(and no uterus) spouted off medically (and logically) infeasible facts about the effects abortion has on a woman. as if they had any vested interest in women at all with this issue.
    but anyway, like the guy who wrote this article, the reason i was so angry at these protesters was not because of the ignorant "moral" message they constantly try to force down the public's throat. i was angry because the women who entered the clinic had no fucking intention of debating with these people, nor were they attempting to make any sort of political statement by being at the clinic. they just wanted to make it through their day. most of the time (at my clinic, anyway) the women are there for other ob/gyn services like pap smears or other routine gyno visits. but when a woman did come for an abortion (and you could tell by their terrified reactions) these protesters were just making the "worst day of her life" even worse. obviously, abortion is not always the worst day of a woman's life, and many women find it to be liberating under certain circumstances. regardless of their political beliefs on the issue, women do not get pregnant with the intention of having an abortion. but thats the thing, every woman who decides to have an abortion does so under certain circumstances, all of which are private and incredibly specific to that woman's life. i feel like this whole protesting clinics phenomena is has the same emotional weight (in certain respects) as fred phelps and co. picketing funerals. there is a time and a place for political debate. i'm not usually one to argue for limiting free speech, but instances in which subjects are emotionally vulnerable should not be considered fair game for expressing political opinions, especially when those opinions are filled with hate.

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