It’s evidence of a far more prevalent tendency to break the law than furt was willing to acknowledge.
[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Bricker, how would you describe the demeanor of the majority of those that protest abortion providers, to the best of your ability?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=wolfpup]
But the cohort of anti-abortionists, let’s face it, does not have a very good statistical track record
[/QUOTE]
I got into the thread by responding to Czarcasm’s request for a description of “the majority of those that protest.” Over the last 37 years, tens of millions of people have protested abortion. You responded by attributing a host of criminal activities to “the cohort of anti-abortionists,” which is ridiculous.
Put it this way: you list 4,354 crimes over a 37 year period. Last year’s March for Life brought 600,000 protesters to DC.
Even if we assume that each of those 4,354 crimes was committed by a separate distinct individual (not remotely the case), and even if we assume those 600,000 protesters are the only people that have ever protested abortion anywhere in the US (also obviously not even close to the case) over 37 years, your own figures show that the percentage of anti-abortion protestors that break the law in service of their cause is 0.7%.
Start making rational guesstimates, and you soon end up with numbers that are orders of magnitude smaller.
Yes, the kinds of people willing to join screaming mobs are very much also the kinds of people likely more willing to break the law; that’s fairly obvious, I would think. However the vast, vast majority of anti-abortion protesters do not join screaming mobs.
I’m willing to acknowledge an absolute maximum of 0.7%. You want to present evidence that it’s higher?
Cite please.
There was a rally in my town for the local women’s health center. When the supporters spoke, the anti-abortion crowd screamed over them. When the anti-abortion person spoke, the supporters were silent.
Our local 9/11 memorial is across the street from the women’s health center. The 9/11 ceremony is always held on that date, in the same timeframe as the events. The local anti-abortion crowd screams over the event, comparing the 9/11 deaths to abortion deaths.
Those people are so loud and so belligerent.
OK. I can cite this.
But why do only my anecdotes need cites?
Cite, please.
No, but I’d like to present evidence to keep that in perspective. And incidentally, I did point out that that was just a partial total as I didn’t add up all the incidents listed in the Wikipedia article on anti-abortion violence. And I don’t care whether each crime was committed by a “separate and distinct individual” – that’s not how crime statistics work.
But to put some perspective on those numbers: The FBI has stated that eco-terrorism and extreme animal rights activism is “one of the most serious domestic terrorism threats in the U.S. today”, yet the total number of incidents in about the same timeframe (since 1979) at about 2000 is far less than half of anti-abortion incidents. If you work your Math Magic on those incidents relative to the population that self-identifies as pro-environment and pro-animal-rights – which I would think would be the majority of the population, say about 2000 incidents relative to 200 million people over 35 years – now how does your 0.7% look? Yet it’s considered to be a serious problem.
And so is anti-abortion violence and property crime. But there does appear to be a political reticence in the US to formally recognize it as a form of domestic terrorism. It’s been noted that only a couple of anti-abortion incidents appear in WITS (the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking System) with no adequate official explanation, but many agencies like ADL and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service classify anti-abortion crimes as “single issue terrorism”. It’s certainly prevalent enough to have a chilling effect on abortion providers and everyone who works with them, which is of course the whole point. Tell you what – how about you let me know when Wikipedia has a corresponding article on “Pro-choice violence”. I wonder what the propensity of pro-choice types is to kill people and blow things up? 
doublepost
The 0.7% was based on those who actively, publically protested, not relative to the population that self-identifies as pro-life; that number is ~48% of the population, or approximately 150 million people, not 600,000. I didn’t use 150 million that because the original claim that I was responding to was about “the majority of those that protest,” not merely with those who identify as pro-life. If that’s the metric you want to switch to, the number is 0.00003%
If you have evidence to support Czarcasm’s claim – the one I was responding to – I’d like to hear it. I’m not really interested in getting off on a tangent about the relative fringiness of various fringes.
That article is about a March 2011 rally in support of Planned Parenthood:
There’s nothing about 9-11, the subject of your second paragraph.
As a reminder:
Just to be clear, I did not specify which claim I was asking to be cited, to your confusion is my fault.
Thank you, is now that is perfectly clear.
Sometimes me struggle say stuff.
Annie made two claims – one about protesters at a Planned Parenthood rally being disruptive – which was very plausible to me – and another about protesters disrupting a 9-11 event, which I found less plausible. It was that latter claim for which I requested a cite.
Quite a bit of statistical sleight-of-hand going on here, I’d say. There’s a vast difference between those engaged in peaceful political actions to try to change laws – a legitimate action even if I disagree with it – and those engaged in activist obstruction of legal activity. Let me be clear on this: there is a huge difference between a political rally in Washington versus physical or psychological assaults on individual women in front of a medical clinic.
Regardless of any commitment to a particular cause, I could never in all honesty suggest that the two are equivalent, or that they are in any way the same cohort.
I think I’ve provided sufficient links to support the idea that there is a disturbing segment of anti-abortion activists who are indisputably domestic terrorists. There’s lots more evidence if you’d like.
I can’t find a cite for the 9/11 claim. But I was there and I heard them screaming over the ceremony.
I assume therefore you would accept anyone else’s uncited anecdotes as evidence for their position.
Regards,
Shodan
Shame that no reporters wrote about it. Sounds more newsworthy than anti-abortion protesters protesting a Planned Parenthood rally, doesn’t it?
Only if there is a good chance they were there. The Englewood 9/11 ceremony happened in my hometown, and I go to it every year.
Is it the ceremony mentioned in this story?
http://www.northjersey.com/news/mourners-gather-in-englewood-for-9-11-ceremony-1.256885
If you have a newer cite, please present it. Because we have seen it argued that the abortion of rape pregnancies that occur 1000 times a year is not “rare” and that at one point there were 11,000 late term abortions (which you might be arguing IS rare). Has the number of late term abortions dropped more than 90% so that we can now consider tham rare? If not then whats your point?
When we were comparing the number of rape abortions as a percentage of total abortions, we were told that this didn’t make rape abortions rare because they still occurred 1000 times a year. Is the rate of late term abortions lower than the rate of rape abortions even though the total number is higher?
Or can we all agree that rape abortions are EXCEEDINGLY rare while late term abortions are very uncommon?
Put a McDonalds drive thru and a starbucks coffee in the lobby, have the abortions upstairs.