Daddy Harper

There are some wonderfully creative election videos zipping around the Toobz. Like this one, answering (sorta) the series of 'It's Over, Steve' made by women all over the country.



The anti-Harper forces are smart, funny, and creative. And we totally get this whole democracy thing.

Vote strategically.

Lying Liars' Latest Stunt: Fake Clinic Escorts

No shit. From Feministing:

The blogger at Everysaturdaymorning, a pro-choice clinic escort in Louisville, KY, has posted pictures and video of the latest disgusting tactic from the antis outside their clinic: wearing fake escort vests.

Escorts wear bright orange vests that say things like "Pro-Choice Clinic Escort" in an attempt to clearly identify ourselves to patients. Even so, the space outside a clinic where anti-choicers have gathered can be incredibly confusing for patients, those accompanying them, and even passers by on the street. Some protesters simply stand off to the side and pray. I don't like the atmosphere of shame they create, but it's the antis we call chasers or sidewalk stalkers who cause the biggest problems. They will do almost anything to harass people going in and out of a reproductive health clinic, which is why pro-choice escorts are necessary - we're not protesters, we're just trying to make it possible for women to access abortion and other medical care. Interactions happen so quickly, and the milieu outside a clinic can be so confusing for someone who didn't expect to be harassed by ideologues on her way to the doctor, that we already have to work hard to make it clear who works with the clinic and who is trying to get in a patient's way.

Yes, the vests these antis are wearing say "Life Escort." Which, I am sure, is not an attempt to accurately identify themselves. They know what a baffling mess they create, and they know the word "Life" is unlikely to be read until after they've forced a patient to listen to them, if at all.

Go see the photos and video here.

I didn't watch the video but there's a transcript at Feministing. The stalker starts off with 'We don't know you but we love you'.

I've seen other vids of the circus these anti-abortion harassers create. People yelling in gooey baby voices: 'Mummy, don't kill me! Mummy, I love you.'

I remember vividly how I felt entering once a clinic and once a hospital -- jangled, worried, nervous. There were no sidewalk harassers then. No one shouting bullshit at me. No one trying to shove lying pamphlets at me. I had absolutely no fear of anyone I knew recognizing me. And I was perfectly clear in my mind that what I was doing was right.

Imagine being young, ignorant, in a conservative place, scared of being recognized, and being forced to run such a gauntlet.

Imagine further that the woman knows something of the lying liars' tactics should she be identified, like receiving red-paint smeared children's birthday cards every year for fucking years.

I so admire clinic escorts, the real ones. Calm, dedicated, kind people who put up with this crap over and over and over. Truly loving people who only care about the woman they're shielding.

I could not do it. I would lose my temper and paste one of harassers. And the lying liars would go batshit over 'pro-abortion violence'.

Love. *ptui* These assholes know nothing about it.

WANTED posters. Again.

They don't learn. From Ms.Magazine, 'Wanted' posters appear in Charlotte, NC.

The posters have the word “WANTED” in large black letters at the top and contain the following language: “We would like to introduce you to Drs. X and Y [names withheld here]. Their specialties are Obstetrics, Gynecology and Murder. Not only do these two men assist women and deliver babies, but they also harm women and kill babies…. You may contact them at their office or the clinic in which they perform the abortions.”

Using the real names of the doctors, and the addresses of their private practices, these posters have recently shown up in Charlotte, N.C. They are terrifying, and that is precisely their intention, as they invoke comparison to the notorious Old West-style wanted posters of abortion doctors that were circulated by two militant anti-abortion groups in the early 1990s. Three abortion-providing doctors—whose faces appeared on WANTED or unWANTED posters were, in fact, murdered by anti-abortion zealots.

In a celebrated case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that these posters constituted a “threat of force” designed to intimidate abortion providers (in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act), and were thus not protected by the First Amendment on free speech grounds. The Court also noted that extremists had listed the doctors’ information, including home addresses, on a “Nuremberg Files” website. The names of doctors who were killed were lined through in black, and wounded doctors’ names were lined through in grey.

So one can imagine the fears engendered by this latest round of postering. But they’re just the latest straw in what the beleaguered staff of the Family Reproductive Health clinic in Charlotte has had to put up with. In 2002, the high-profile antiabortion extremist Philip “Flip” Benham, formerly head of Operation Rescue and now heading Operation Save America, moved to the Charlotte area and vowed to close down Family Reproductive Health.

The Ms. piece includes a link to a video of the harassment at the clinic. I'm not embedding it, because it's horrible. The appropriately named Flip Benham bellows lies and death threats including 'Satan will drink the blood of your child'.

Why do we call these anti-abortion harassers misogynists? Dig this from the Wiki link:

In a 2006 interview with Al Gross of KJSL-AM in suburban St. Louis, during the morning drive-time program "Mornings with Tim and Al", Benham stated he would let a daughter die rather than abort an ectopic pregnancy. When pressed on the question by Gross and an on-air telephone caller, Benham backed down and grudgingly admitted he would allow an abortion under such a circumstance.

Not just a fetus fetishist . . .

That's a photo of Troy Newman, of Operation Rescue, from a collection of YouTubes by JaguarJ0nes, an abortion clinic escort.

It's at about the 1:30 mark. The clinic escorts had brought out some plastic speculums to bang together to drown out the noise made by the anti-abortion harassers. Troy Newman became so utterly fascinated with the speculum that he wanted to buy one. The narrator says: 'I'm not sure what he wanted to do. I'll let you figure that out.'

What do you think? Medical-instrument fetish? Medical-instruments-associated-with-lady-parts fetish?

Or?

Ratzy vs. the Nuns

So, did you hear the one about the Catholic nun who volunteers as an escort at an abortion clinic?

No, really.

Local pro-life activists say that they recognized the escort at the ACU Health Center as Sr. Donna Quinn, a nun outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, after seeing her photo in a Chicago Tribune article.

SHRIEEEEEK!

She's in favour of legalized abortion, but why would she act as an escort?

Sr. Patricia Mulcahey, OP, Quinn's Prioress at the Sinsinawa Dominican community, said in an email response to LSN that the nun sees her volunteer activity as "accompanying women who are verbally abused by protestors. Her stance is that if the protestors were not abusive, she would not be there."

So, in the opinion of a Catholic nun, the abortion-clinic stalkers are not the peaceful, prayerful 'witnesses' they claim to be. They're abusers.

Sr. Donna Quinn is a member of the National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN), an interesting group, in favour not only of abortion, but of female ordination.

Which brings us to a recent article that Maureen Dowd is taking some crap over. It's called 'The Nuns' Story'.

In 2004, the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners, resisting any adversarial roles with men and cultivating “feminine values” like “listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting.”

Nuns need to be even more sepia-toned for the über-conservative pope, who was christened “God’s Rottweiler” for his enforcement of orthodoxy. Once a conscripted member of the Hitler Youth, Benedict pardoned a schismatic bishop who claimed that there was no Nazi gas chamber. He also argued on a trip to Africa that distributing condoms could make the AIDS crisis worse.

The Vatican is now conducting two inquisitions into the “quality of life” of American nuns, a dwindling group with an average age of about 70, hoping to herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence.

Nuns who took Vatican II as a mandate for reimagining their mission “started to look uppity to an awful lot of bishops and priests and, of course, the Vatican,” said Kenneth Briggs, the author of “Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns.”

The church enabled rampant pedophilia, but nuns who live in apartments and do social work with ailing gays? Sacrilegious! The pope can wear Serengeti sunglasses and expensive red loafers, but shorter hems for nuns? Disgraceful!

One of the two Vatican inquisitions investigations is on general 'quality of life' of American nuns and one is specifically on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a benign-looking outfit -- as opposed to those radical feminuns in NCAN -- that claims to represent 95% of American nuns.

Ah, the Mother Church and its psychosis over actual women.

Charges laid in anti-abortion violence incident

Remember the assault on the clinic defender in Akron, Ohio, by an anti-choice biker?

A man has been identified and charged.

Nathan A. Chesley, 38, is charged with one count of felonious assault in the beating of 50-year-old Charles Wright.

Chesley is being held in the Summit County Jail.

Two eyewitnesses identified Chesley as the man who assaulted Wright on July 18 at the Akron Women's Medical Group at 839 E. Market St., police said.

The report doesn't say how big Mr. Wright is, but describes the assailant as 6 foot 2, 250 pounds. Mr. Wright spent two nights in the hospital as a result of his injuries.

I wonder if he has good insurance.