Severian
10th August 2007, 02:06
These fuckers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Save_America#Operation_Rescue.2FOperatio n_Save_America) were in Birmingham, AL recently (July.) They target different cities periodically - especially places where there are few abortion providers serving an area. They've done Birmingham before, more than once.
They're a lot weaker from the days of the clinic blockades in the 90s. They haven't tried to block clinic doors in years. In large part, I'd guess, because they couldn't successfully shut down clinics that way once people started mobilizing to defend the doors.
It's now more of a guerilla-theatre type circus, going around town putting people off their lunches will pictures, allegedly of aborted fetuses. (Some of it looks more like it came from a pathology lab.)
And they're taking up issues other than abortion; e.g. harassing non-Christian religions, gays, etc.
One experience we had here: the liberal feminists (NOW) put a lot of emphasis on trying to get the police to stop them from using their most annoying protest tactics. For one thing, the pro-choice groups got a permit for in front of the main abortion clinic here in the afternoon - both sides of the street. Well, that didn't do any good - the cops let OSA/OR be directly across the street all day regardless.
On the plus side, people were organized to come out and counter OSA in front of the clinics, plus a number of other pro-choice rallies and whatnot were organized to counter their message - under the name "Alabama Reproductive Freedom Summer". (http://www.alabamanow.org/) It really had the effect of sparking more public, visible pro-choice activity than there usually is around here. Numbers were often comparable to OSA's. The pro-choice groups also raised a bunch of money for clinic defense. The counter-mobilization is a fairly effective approach for countering them, I think.
OSA's biggest success was probably their surprise attack on a clinic in Tuscaloosa, about an hour's drive away. There was little or no preparation for that, and they actually got a couple people into the clinic lobby to annoy patients. The lesson's pretty apparent there.
Otherwise, they mostly seemed to just piss people off with their gruesome posters, including even some local churches - e.g. they were protesting at a busy, visible intersection in front of a Methodist church and the pastor ordered 'em off church property.
It did bring up the worrisome decline in the number of abortion providers, and in access to abortion services in many areas. Abortion may remain technically legal, but that doesn't do anyone much good if all providers are harassed and threatened out of providing medically safe abortion services.
The Birmingham News, even, ran a number of articles about the history of abortion services in Alabama. Apparently they were available even before 1973 (Roe v Wade), due to a loophole in Alabama law. And at one point there were over 20 different abortion providers in Alabama (probably more like 5 now).
But then, is some of that due to declining demand? Teenage preganancy is down, for example, is there a trend towards increasing availability of birth control information, and cultural openness to discussing birth control openly?
They're a lot weaker from the days of the clinic blockades in the 90s. They haven't tried to block clinic doors in years. In large part, I'd guess, because they couldn't successfully shut down clinics that way once people started mobilizing to defend the doors.
It's now more of a guerilla-theatre type circus, going around town putting people off their lunches will pictures, allegedly of aborted fetuses. (Some of it looks more like it came from a pathology lab.)
And they're taking up issues other than abortion; e.g. harassing non-Christian religions, gays, etc.
One experience we had here: the liberal feminists (NOW) put a lot of emphasis on trying to get the police to stop them from using their most annoying protest tactics. For one thing, the pro-choice groups got a permit for in front of the main abortion clinic here in the afternoon - both sides of the street. Well, that didn't do any good - the cops let OSA/OR be directly across the street all day regardless.
On the plus side, people were organized to come out and counter OSA in front of the clinics, plus a number of other pro-choice rallies and whatnot were organized to counter their message - under the name "Alabama Reproductive Freedom Summer". (http://www.alabamanow.org/) It really had the effect of sparking more public, visible pro-choice activity than there usually is around here. Numbers were often comparable to OSA's. The pro-choice groups also raised a bunch of money for clinic defense. The counter-mobilization is a fairly effective approach for countering them, I think.
OSA's biggest success was probably their surprise attack on a clinic in Tuscaloosa, about an hour's drive away. There was little or no preparation for that, and they actually got a couple people into the clinic lobby to annoy patients. The lesson's pretty apparent there.
Otherwise, they mostly seemed to just piss people off with their gruesome posters, including even some local churches - e.g. they were protesting at a busy, visible intersection in front of a Methodist church and the pastor ordered 'em off church property.
It did bring up the worrisome decline in the number of abortion providers, and in access to abortion services in many areas. Abortion may remain technically legal, but that doesn't do anyone much good if all providers are harassed and threatened out of providing medically safe abortion services.
The Birmingham News, even, ran a number of articles about the history of abortion services in Alabama. Apparently they were available even before 1973 (Roe v Wade), due to a loophole in Alabama law. And at one point there were over 20 different abortion providers in Alabama (probably more like 5 now).
But then, is some of that due to declining demand? Teenage preganancy is down, for example, is there a trend towards increasing availability of birth control information, and cultural openness to discussing birth control openly?