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"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
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Aug
3
Can we talk about anti-abortion protesters?
Filed Under abortion, activism, anti-choice extremism, assholes, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | Posted by Cara |
Of course, we don’t like to talk about anti-abortion protesters. We avoid the issue, I think, out of a combination of exhaustion, frustration and desire to not give them anymore publicity.
Sometimes, though, I think that we have to respond. This week, Defend Life is completing a week long protest tour in Maryland.
Diners at Ruby Tuesday were greeted this week by a grisly sight: the enormous image of the mangled half-formed skull of an aborted fetus. Blown up large, bigger than an adult, the graphic “photo” was one of more than a dozen signs held up on the sidewalk along U.S. 40.
The scene — repeated across the region from Towson to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington — is part of Defend Life’s weeklong “Face the Truth Tour,” a multistop, anti-abortion rally that aims to shock Maryland voters into changing their views on the procedure. The tour, which stopped in downtown Baltimore yesterday, ends today in Bel Air. [. . .]
“You have to show people what abortion is in order to make any headway whatsoever,” said Tricia Dougherty, a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
In politically conservative Frederick, a city that is represented in the state legislature by Republicans, the Defend Life activists said that photographs have historically provided the impetus for social change. They likened themselves to those who fought against slavery. They wore red T-shirts that read “Abortion Kills Babies.” One held a sign that said, “America’s Holocaust, 50 million killed since 1973.”
Firstly, I would like to thank the Baltimore Sun for putting the word “photo” in quotations. The term “photo” implies an honest, realistic depiction. And I think that a photograph of a fetus, at any stage of growth, blown up to be larger than a full grown person can no longer be considered an honest and realistic depiction.
As for what these people are doing, I’m not sure whether this type of protest is more or less offensive than standing with the same signs outside of clinics. On the one hand, women being bombarded with this imagery when they are trying to seek medical care– very often, not even an abortion– is wrong, grotesque and purposely frightening and intimidating. On the other hand, women being bombarded with this imagery when they’re simply trying to go out to dinner, to see people judging them on the side of the road as they drive to the grocery store, is also wrong, grotesque and purposely shame-inducing.
I’m sure that most of you have dealt with, or at least seen, anti-abortion protesters. I get to see them every Thursday, since the office where I intern at Planned Parenthood is attached to a clinic where abortions are performed (not all PP clinics perform abortions; most provide general gynecological/reproductive health care and abortion referrals). Yellow lines are painted on the sidewalk, denoting where the protesters are allowed to legally stand. The clinic has a parking lot inside of its gates, so patients with vehicles do not have to go directly by the protesters. Those using public transportation are not so lucky. They stand there with humongous signs and a megaphone through which they shout at me as I drive out of the parking lot. I am not allowed to speak to them; I simply turn my radio up to a very loud volume. The first time I saw them, they both infuriated and frightened me. After all, it is not so long ago that Dr. Slepian, a doctor who provided abortions, was murdered, and Buffalo isn’t all that far away. Now, they mostly just infuriate me.
What is up with the photographs? They are considered a “shock tactic.” But what, exactly, is the shock supposed to be? The blood? The lumps of tissue? As I often say, I bet that my gall bladder didn’t look too pretty once the surgeons finished removing it, but no one holds up that sign on a street corner. What we are supposed to react to are the features that vaguely resemble our own. Fingers, limbs, sometimes forming faces. The photographs are blown up large specifically to emphasize these features, which might otherwise go unnoticed. And, of course, photographs of late-term aborted fetuses, which are far more rare, are a much more prized possession to these activists. [A side note: where the hell do they get these photographs, anyway?]
I think that these tactics often backfire. As Ann Martin, the President of Maryland Right to Life (an organization which I certainly do not support) said “I think there are a lot of pro-life people who would not want to stand there holding those signs.” And then, of course, there are those of us who are rational enough to realize that the fact that a fetus has fingers is not nearly enough to make abortion immoral.
Last week, upon leaving PP, I saw the first photograph held by an anti-abortion activist that really did creep me out. It was a photograph of an 8 week old embryo, looking very much like this one. With apologies and absolutely no judgment to those who have been happily and willfully pregnant, it looked absolutely nothing like a human. In fact, I was terribly frightened by the fact that that could potentially grow inside of me. I have absolutely no desire to ever be pregnant, so I’m definitely biased. And obviously huge numbers of women have been extremely happy to be carrying an embryo at that stage. But the point of the photograph is clearly to show that, even very young, the embryo is “still a person” or “a baby” and therefore does not deserve to be aborted. And though I’m pregnancy-phobic, I highly doubt that I’m the only person who could look at that photograph and fail to see a “person,” let alone a “baby.”
Then, of course, there is the question of ethics. These protesters clearly don’t care about the ethical issues surrounding purposely intimidating, frightening and lying to women who are seeking medical care and may be potentially vulnerable. But what about the ethical issues surrounding the precious “babies” they’re trying to save?
Because the thing is that we could easily employ their tactics. We could stand outside of the Right to Life headquarters holding up signs with photographs of perforated uteruses and women who have tragically died from botched illegal and unsafe abortions. But if we did, I would be horrified. I think that just about any other sane pro-choice advocate would agree that holding up photographs of dead women is certainly not ethical. It is highly exploitative. To use another example, I strongly advocate for ending the genocide in Darfur. But I would not stand on the street holding up photographs of slaughtered and charred bodies. I also advocate ending “honor” killings. But I could not even watch the recent video of a woman being murdered by stoning in an Iraqi street while police watched. Because I actually care about and respect these people.
How much, I would like to ask, do these activists really care about these “babies” whose bloody, dismembered remains they proudly display to the world? That’s respecting the sanctity of life? That’s showing the “victims” of abortion how much you care? I should think that any person who truly considers him or herself to truly be looking out for the interest of “unborn children” to not only refuse to participate in such demonstrations, but to be absolutely horrified by the way they are being exploited for political gain. And yet many, if not most, are not.
So. Can we talk? What did I miss? What are your experiences? Vent. Analyze. Discuss.
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13 Comments so far
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"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body." --Margaret Sanger
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"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less." -- Susan B. Anthony
I’ve had this discussion over and over on a listserv that has not only an ab provider, but a medical doc who does pathology work. A lot of the graphic ‘photos’ are doctored OR photos of late-term miscarriages NOT abortions.
As for why they do it. Because they thrive on fear. I’ve counter protested them many a time, including when I was 8 months pregnant. They want to intimidate women AND men into thinking abortion is wrong.
As a mother and former pregnant chick, I gotta say, early fetus pics freak me out too. I dubbed my daughter Paris when she was in utero. Paris is short for parasite. Even now I look at our ultrasound pics from 6-8 weeks and YIKES! There was something growing in my body! So don’t feel bad.
HAHAHAHAH– Paris for parasite. That is totally awesome. I’m going to be laughing about that one for days!
I don’t have anything to add about abortion protesters because I agree with you completely.
But, I’ve read several comments and blogs from other women lately expressing a fear of pregnancy. I’m glad I finally found other women who feel the same as me. For a long time, I thought I was alone.
Roni beat me to it. Many of the pictures are of miscarriages or they’re fabricated. There are websites out there that debunk the claims made by anti-choicers in regards to the photographs, but… well… they are pretty gross, so I’ll leave it up to others to google serach if they’re interested.
Great points about how we could - but don’t - counter with photos of our own - out of respect.
You should try to see the film “Waitress” - in it, the I-don’t-want-to-be-pregnant heroine declares her fetus to be a “parasite” and herself to be the “anti-mother.”
To quote an Ani Difranco song, “They are like fish in the water who don’t know that they are wet.” Referring to the protesters. I had to encounter protesters outside the clinic where I obtained my abortion a few months ago. They warned me about this when I made my appointment, but I did not think that it would affect me - but it did. By the time I got past them and in the clinic I was shaking and just an all around mess and I was VERY SURE of my choice.
I can respect their right to have their opinion, but how would they feel if I stood outside of a WIC office or a OBGYN asking women if they had thought about how much it was going to cost to raise that baby they had decided to bring to term? Or, “are you sure you wanna be tied that guy for the rest of your life?”
We all have a right to have our opinions and stances on these issues, but the way that these people go about it is just cruel and should not be tolerated.
Thanks for sharing, Melissa.
I am someone who very strongly believes in the right to protest. I do, however, see a very large difference between protesting the government, a business or a public figure and protesting a health clinic and private individuals making personal choices. If not a legal issue, it is definitely an ethical issue. And it is definitely a safety issue. And for that reason, I definitely support restrictions on where these types of protests can be held.
when i saw protesters on a streetcorner holding up ginormous signs of ‘aborted fetuses’ (if that’s indeed what they were), i honestly thought at first that they were pictures of some kind of nasty cooked duck.
One of my first run-ins with pro-life protestors was my first semester of college. They were outside of the student union at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. It was around lunch time, so naturally many people were going there to eat. The signs, which were at least 12 feet high, were covered with the types of photographs you referred to. When I walked out to this scene I felt sick to my stomach.
They weren’t abnoxious protestors, but they had a sound system set up and were encouraging people to approach the microphone to “ask questions”.
One of my friends decided to call the protestors out on the disgusting display saying that most of the photographs were from the ’70s and while the enlargement raised the “shock value,” it just made them seem even less realistic. One of the guys working attempted to debate with him about whether life began at conception or birth. He also tried to extend a pseudo “olive branch” saying that they weren’t there to upset people, only to generate discussion amongst the student body. If that’s what they were trying to do, why go the way of the pro-lifers and set up displays that sicken people? Their stance on the issue was blatently obvious.
On campus there wasn’t much talk about it. There was a blurb about it in the next issue of the campus newspaper, and once in awhile people would say how gross it was. The overall feeling I gathered from it was that people found it an inconvience to have to manuver around the displays and keep down their lunches.
You said you were frightened but now are only furious. I’m still frightened. These people re dangerously unstable.
Also, I have personally known two people who participated in those protests, and they will talk about how the women are traumatized by their abortions and so forth, and that they see the women as victims too, etc. But then they have no understanding of how their own actions are traumatic for women, such as the ones you mention who take public transportation. I’m pretty sure that having people scream at me that I’m a whore and a murderer would traumatize me way more than a fairly simple medical procedure.
Protesting at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum? My god, how insulting to victims of the Holocaust.
I have had many run-ins with anti-choice folks when I worked for Planned Parenthood. Our policy was not to speak to them and just ignore them, but it was very hard to do, especially walking by them on my way to work from the bus stop. I worked as a physician’s assistant during several abortions and having seen the tissue myself, I can tell you from personal experience that the pictures that are often used by the anti-choice folks are fake. The most disheartening experience I witnessed while working at Planned Parenthood was the day after George Bush stole the election again in 2004. That Wednesday was an AB day at the clinic and we had many more protesters than usual. It was hard not to cry because me and my coworkers felt so unsure and defeated. But that day inspired me to go to nursing school so that I may be of more assistance to women in need. So I’ll eventually be back working in reproductive health and countering those evil anti-choice protesters. Wish me luck.
Good for you, Heather!!! The profession so desperately needs strong pro-choice women willing to provide all reproductive health services. I’m excited and grateful for you!