WTF Chicago?

[neadods]

I got a hit on Google news today about a Chicago hospital offering to stop 2nd timester abortions mid-procedure (as in women who start an abortion elsewhere can come in during the day-long stage where the cervix is being chemically opened and the hospital will try to stop it.)

Ooooookay. Look, I know some women are ambivalent, so if they change their mind, fine.

EXCEPT! The article glosses neatly over the couple of women who didn't change their mind. The one who were harassed outside the clinic by the "sidewalk counsellors" that we call protesters or antis to the point that they were DRAGGED UNWILLINGLY to the hospital for a reversal. The article goes on and on about how the "sidewalk protesters" are a major and important part of "outreach" but only two lines to the women who got to the hospital and told the doctors "I don't want to stop this abortion, this wingnut just wouldn't leave me the fuck alone until I came here."

Shocked? I was. Moreso when the article casually mentions in passing that when one of these women tried to get loose the protester called a lawyer on her. (It's on page 2 of the linked article.)

This woman goes to get a legal abortion, gets nabbed and harassed on the way out, and when she attempts to continue with HER CHOICE of a LEGAL PROCEDURE Jane Q Random AntiChoice CALLS A LAWYER ON HER. A violation of privacy and personal rights which the article glosses right the hell over.

I repeat: WTF Chicago?

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Gods, I hope that woman lawyers up herself, and takes the anti bitch for everything she, her husband (if any), her kids (if any), and her dogs and cats own. Publicly. Loudly. As an example (not that it would teach the lesson it ought to, to other would-be imposers of their will.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

If she even knows who it is. It's my experience that "sidewalk counsellors" are really big on their own rights being respected to the tiniest footnote, while beliving that anyone *else* wanting *their* rights is an abridgement of the protester's.

[nnwest.livejournal.com]

I despair for humanity. That said, I hope Jane Q AntiChoice gets police and lawyers sicced on her. Fingers crossed for criminal charges of assault and/or kidnapping.

(Edited for my inability to type.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That assumes anyone knows who Jane Q AntiChoice is...

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

One of the antis at the clinic where I volunteer is cop happy- she's called the police to report that she has been harassed and threatened whenever one of the patients or their partners has told her to back off or they'll punch her. This has gone as far as the police having to go into the waiting room of the clinic to question the person. So I'm really not as shocked about that part of your story as I wish I were.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is a special little princess you've got there! I've noticed that protesters want every bit of their rights respected while respecting no one else's, but none of our regulars is *that* hair-triggery. (Hell, Eeyore probably thinks it's part of her martyrdom.)

This has gone as far as the police having to go into the waiting room of the clinic to question the person

That is REALLY ugly! I hope nobody's been arrested on the say-so of one protester. (Our cops are a little more even-handed. When Eeyore ran into the parking lot and the cops were called, she was all "Tell them they can't touch me! I'll put them in jail!" and the cop did so... but with a side order of "They can put you in jail too, lady, so maybe you want to calm down before I bring everybody in.")

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Also, WTF Chicago Tribune, from the writing on that article?!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Just a tad biased, ya think?

[jennetj.livejournal.com]

I heard about this on the news this morning. Even more distressing, from a personal standpoint, is that hospital is the main branch my hospital is affiliated with. I have an HMO, so I can't just change hospitals when I want, but the really upsetting thing is that every hospital conveniently located to me is religiously affiliated (they're not all Catholic like this one, but that notwithstanding....) Honestly, it's getting hard to find a non-religiously-based hospital.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

every hospital conveniently located to me is religiously affiliated

That's not necessarily an automatic evil - as my Jewish friends keep reminding me, Jewish law and tradition insists that a woman's life is more important than a fetus, so they're rather the inverse of this whole situation.

Also, right now in the next county over there's a big stink because a Catholic and and Adventist group were fighting for the rights to build the next hospital, and the Adventists came right out and said "We will respect women's right to control their own fertility as opposed to the Catholic attitudes regarding sterilization, abortion, and emergency birth control."

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

OMG I hate my city right now.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

So they think only abortion providers are "aggressive" in persuading women of what they want, and that the risks to the fetus of premature labor are worth it (because they think life, any kind of life, is a good in itself).

Since we don't trust women to know what they want, let's decide for them!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That seems to be the standard line in protesters and lawyers/judges/congresscritters blocking choice. The woman doesn't know what she really wants so whatever - WHATEVER - makes her agree with *your* point of view is necessary.

Her thoughts? Her wishes? Her needs? Fuck 'em. Bitch was going down the wrong path anyway.

life, any kind of life, is a good in itself

I once argued with an anti over abortion and pointed out that I knew someone who had told me to her face that she wished she herself had been aborted. And he was all "Isn't it glorious she was alive to have that opinion!"

I have no idea what color the sky is on that guy's planet.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

Someone once said to me, "And what if your mother had aborted YOU?"

I said, "We wouldn't be having this conversation. Next question."

And of course we can predict how they feel about suicide, assisted or otherwise, regardless of the condition of the person making the choice. "Choice"-- ooh, ugly word.

But when they want to teach creationism in public schools or have official prayers at all nonreligious occasions... suddenly it's all about THEIR choices!

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

And while we're at it, check out "Valentines for Fundamentalists" -- Christian version only so far -- at:
http://farleftside.com/index.html

Be sure to click the thumbnails for the whole set, e.g. "It's not rape if you give my father 50 shekels, Valentine!" Deuteronomy 22: 28-29 (Gotta have chapter and verse!)

The cartoon changes every few days, so if it's not there, click "older" in the top right corner.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

FYI, when I tried to look at that site, Norton popped up with a message that it's a "known malicious site". This may mean that the site has been hacked; in any event, it seems to have been flagged as a malware installer.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

That's pretty strange. It's never happened for me and didn't happen just now. (I use a Mac, if that matters.) The site barely has any ads on it, as compared with some that are loaded and give me popups. It's just a lefty cartoon that changes three times a week. Norton may be over-reacting.
Anyway, here's the text:

I‘m often quite hard on the spiritual community, so to make up for it I’ve decided to create a Valentine’s Day card just for all my religious pals. Enjoy!

*I want to stone our children to death with you, sweetheart. Deut. 21:18
* Let's have children in harlotry, darling. Hosea 1:1-3
* You're worth three hundred foreskins, Valentine. Sam. 18:27
* I hear you come with the property, baby. Ruth 4:5-10
* I'd kidnap you anytime, sweetheart. Judges 21:19-25
*It's not rape if you give my dad 50 shekels, Valentine. Deut. 22:28-29
*You've captured my heart, now shave my head and trim my nails, Valentine!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm getting a big kick out of the foreskin one.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

This really is a first: The first time a kidnapper called the law in on the kidnappee! Last time I looked, harrassment and involuntary restraint were against the law, even in Chicago.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble finding more information on this, which I'd really like to have. The only possible grounds I can think of is that the anti decided that a verbal contract had been made that the woman was now trying to get out of.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

A verbal contract with the anti, you mean?

Still does not justify forcing someone to go somewhere against her will.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

A verbal contract with the anti, you mean?

Yeah.

Still does not justify forcing someone to go somewhere against her will.

*I* know that, *you* know that, but my experience has taught me that in the eyes of the antis, *ANYTHING* is fair game if it will save a baby. I mean, this is a group that has already convinced itself that screaming at, shaming, and harassing people is "counseling."

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

when a woman arrives in the emergency room with an activist seeking to stop a second-trimester abortion, she should be treated immediately

So if a woman shows up without an activist, she's SOL?

I can't believe the Chicago Tribune printed something with such skewed language. Also, wtf is this belief that abortion providers actively pressure women to have abortions? Why would an abortion provider care if a woman changes her mind and decides to go through with the pregnancy? They're providing a service, and giving women a needed -- and legal -- choice. They're not putting notches on their bedposts for every abortion performed.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

Oh, you know those abortion providers-- they're just like the 99.5% of climatologists who accept the evidence of global climate change. They're just in it for the money and to destroy our Amurrican way of life.

If you find any rich climatologists or abortion providers, let me know (as opposed to, say, oil and coal companies).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

What RedPanda said.

I've seen women come almost immediately out of the clinic where I escort. Sometimes they go back inside, sometimes they don't. What NEVER happens is someone from the clinic coming after them to haul them back inside... which is pretty much what the protesters seem to be fantasizing happens.

So if a woman shows up without an activist, she's SOL?

Presumably?

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Again, I'm just speechless. It completely defeats me that people think they have a right to interfere in other people's lives to that extent - in a country where its so-called 'freedom' is touted all over the place. Yeah, where's my freedom not to be harassed, stalked and kidnapped if I choose to undergo a legal procedure?

Of the many things I find offensive about that story, one is the repeated use of 'counsellor' to describe the stalking harassers. They are not counsellors. Show me any certified training program they've been through. Show me the code of ethics they subscribe to - which, by the way, would have to include being non-judgemental and assisting the client to use their own agency and become independent in decision-making.

Counsellors? Yeah, right. And I'm a (medical) doctor, just because I say so.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

in a country where its so-called 'freedom' is touted all over the place

America's relationship with freedom having been founded as a slave nation is... a topic best handled by several books. To be blunt, usually "freedom" = "tyranny of the majority" dressed up in the rhetoric of "this is what the people want, so if you take anything from the majority, you are abusing their freedom."

The abortion issue is one of the ones where the covering rhetoric is so threadbare that the underlying issues shine through. Of *course* nobody wants to harass a woman getting a legal procedure, that wouldn't be right. So it's all about "saving the baby" because that sells better as an image. Sidewalk counselling is the same thing. "Screaming at women and taking their picture to prevent them from exercising a legal option" sounds SO ugly! So ugly that it can't really be defended. So instead it's counselling - as you say, done by by the untrained and IMO yes, the unethical. (Mind you, in the protester's POV, they're the ones holding to the ethics of saving the baby, while everyone else is unethical. That's how the cognitive dissonance of shooting doctors to death can be reconciled with being "pro life.")

"Sidewalk counsellor" has always been the preferred terminology of the antis, by the way. It's even what Terry Randall called the people chaining themselves to clinic doors so nobody could get in.

Icing the failcake, in my experience, the protesters are very, very aware of *their* rights... to the point of calling the police on people who *do the same thing they do* - i.e., argue with them, take their pictures, etc. That is "threatening" while they have honestly convinced themselves that anyone turned away from the clinic is a baby saved. As opposed to a patient who is going to come back tomorrow... or go to a real backstreet butcher like the guy in Philly.