# Abortion-clinic picketers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 6, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935 "2011-05-06T05:57:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/101 "2011-05-06T17:54:36Z")
Ah, now I remember! **ZPG Zealot** is the["handshake rape and vampire bastards"](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=593049) poster! > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Adoption is often a feature of ethnic cleansing. Infants from targeted minorities are given to members of the dominant group to adopt and raise as their own. Yes, but usually it has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing; in fact, getting people to adopt across ethnicities is typically a bigger problem. ---
**Author:** ![Beniamino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@Beniamino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beniamino)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/102 "2011-05-06T17:57:20Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Adoption is often a feature of ethnic cleansing. Infants from targeted minorities are given to members of the dominant group to adopt and raise as their own. …and then hugged. The trifecta of evil is completed. Regarding the question of abortion in the case of rape. There are 2 considerations: (1) Emergency contraception can be used for up to 72 hours. (2) If you believe that there are two human lives involved, instead of just one, you’re still balancing “murder” versus “inconvenience.” The choice is clear. If you do not, the choice is less clear. Regarding the “line”. “Brain activity” has never been the test for personhood. Without it, you may be adjudged incompetent and have a guardian appointed for you, but you’re still a “person”. Roe says “viability”, and that’s the law of the land for the time being. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/103 "2011-05-06T17:59:29Z")
> [@Beniamino](#): > > Now, I don’t think that anybody seriously advocates making contraception illegal, as it is an individual choice, which does not harm any other individual. That’s just not true. Florida has tried such a bill. And didn’t Randall Terry promote the idea in the 1980s? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/104 "2011-05-06T18:01:36Z")
> [@Beniamino](#): > > Regarding the “line”. “Brain activity” has never been the test for personhood. Without it, you may be adjudged incompetent and have a guardian appointed for you, but you’re still a “person”. Nonsense. That’s why it’s legal to harvest the organs of the brain dead; legally and morally, personhood is in the brain. Everything else is just meat. ---
**Author:** ![Beniamino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@Beniamino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beniamino)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/105 "2011-05-06T18:05:05Z")
> [@campp](#): > > That’s just not true. Florida has tried such a bill [i.e. making contraception illegal]. And didn’t Randall Terry promote the idea in the 1980s? Really? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But I don’t see how it would pass Constitutional muster. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/106 "2011-05-06T18:07:56Z")
> [@classyladyhp](#): > > Or maybe that baby would have been the next Martin Luther King Jr. or mother Theresa… > Calling it a parasite is simply done to make pro-abortionists feel better. Speculating that the lump is going to be MLK just makes the pro-woman haters feel better about having such huge hang ups about sex that they want to regulate everybody else’s sex life. The anti-choicer’s insistence on that tired meme----“OMG, you just killed Beethoven!”-----just ignores the fact that most people aren’t special. Most people aren’t MLK. But you never know. While you’re focusing on somebody’s internal organs that aren’t any of your goddamned business, the _MLK_ might be starving to death or suffering from child abuse or not getting the education he or she needs (Martina Lucille King?) to turn into a fantastic heroic person. Because people like you are too busy fantasizing about lumps of protein. You couldn’t give less of a shit about children if their umbiliical’s cut. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/107 "2011-05-06T18:08:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Closely followed by hugs and teddy bears? I LOLed. > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If nothing else kept me pro-choice (aside from the violence, lies and impoliteness of such people), it would be their stance that adoption is a magical la-la land where nothing goes wrong. It is not! I think we can all agree that _forced_ adoption is evil. But to say all adoption is evil is nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/108 "2011-05-06T18:10:39Z")
> [@Beniamino](#): > > Regarding the question of abortion in the case of rape. There are 2 considerations: > (1) Emergency contraception can be used for up to 72 hours. > (2) If you believe that there are two human lives involved, instead of just one, you’re still balancing “murder” versus “inconvenience.” The choice is clear. If you do not, the choice is less clear. How do you know that the couple you referred to earlier, the " gentleman averse to the prospect of child support, who was hurrying his visibly-disconcerted “friend” into the building. " Were not a couple going in to get emergency contraception after she had been raped? How did you KNOW this? The answer is, that you and your fellow moralist protesters do NOT know the circumstances of people going into Planned Parenthood, nor do they even know what sort of appointment these people are going in for. As we’ve heard in this thread, it does not even matter if you are simply parking in a lot nearby to go to work - you’ll still be called a murderer. It matters not though. Prevention of contraception information and birth control is also an important goal of the moralizers. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/109 "2011-05-06T18:11:41Z")
> [@margin](#): > > Speculating that the lump is going to be MLK just makes the pro-woman haters feel better about having such huge hang ups about sex that they want to regulate everybody else’s sex life. > > The anti-choicer’s insistence on that tired meme----“OMG, you just killed Beethoven!”-----just ignores the fact that most people aren’t special. Most people aren’t MLK. But you never know. While you’re focusing on somebody’s internal organs that aren’t any of your goddamned business, the _MLK_ might be starving to death or suffering from child abuse or not getting the education he or she needs (Martina Lucille King?) to turn into a fantastic heroic person. Because people like you are too busy fantasizing about lumps of protein. You couldn’t give less of a shit about children if their umbiliical’s cut. Since he was responding to the suggestion that the aborted baby might be Bin Laden or Hitler, I think this was a fair point to raise. In reality any given baby is unlikely to be either MLK _or_ Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/110 "2011-05-06T18:13:11Z")
> [@campp](#): > > That’s just not true. Florida has tried such a bill. And didn’t Randall Terry promote the idea in the 1980s? Randall Terry or Joseph Scheidler, who used to be head of a different anti-choice group but was just as fucked up. “I think contraception is disgusting. All those people using other people for pleasure.” Don’t you just get the feeling that the only thing resembling pleasure that somebody like Scheidler feels is stifling other people’s pleasure? The Right has been promoting so-called ‘conscience clauses’ which allow any busybody asshole to deny a woman birth control or emergency contraception if they want to on stupid grounds that they have thus far apparently never used on a guy. I haven’t seen a report of any pharmacists turning down anytihng but drugs relating to birth control, EC, and that one case of a coagulation drug that was usually used after either abortion or miscarriage. Seems to me if you really are against abortion, you’d be merrily skipping along with a huge basket of condoms like the Condom Fairy and gaily giving them out by the bushel full. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/111 "2011-05-06T18:15:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I LOLed. > > I think we can all agree that _forced_ adoption is evil. Is forced pregnancy evil? > [@](#): > > But to say all adoption is evil is nonsense. I would never say that. But to say all adoption is perfect is also nonsense. I’ve heard protestors state that “Your child would rather be adopted and murdered than aborted.” I cannot begin to tell you what’s wrong with that statement. If you don’t like the abortion laws, you should work to make Roe v. Wade overturned. You should NOT harass woman who are going into a medical clinic. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/112 "2011-05-06T18:16:19Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > An abortion is dealing with the consequences responsibility. Giving birth frequently is not. It’s creating one more burden that the world does not need. As long as the “baby” is inside the mother’s body (technically guilty of cannibalism and unlawful trespass, so it’s not innocent), she has the right to have it removed like any other parasite growth. ZPG and I do not see eye to eye on almost everything in the world but we agree on this. [There are enough kids out there that can be adopted anyway.] Sometimes birth control fails even when properly used [mine did 3 times, one was a tubal ligation] and sometimes rapes occur to women and girls who are practicing chastity. sometimes the pregnancy is too dangerous to the health of the mother. Not everybody is using abortion as birth control. Now if the protesters offer to house the pregnant single woman, pay her medical bills and adopt the kid when it pops out, _THEN_ I will consider it a valid protest. Otherwise you are trying to control people who are not your brand of religion with your religious beliefs, which is against their constitutional rights to freedom of religion. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/113 "2011-05-06T18:18:02Z")
Or if they are willing to support her and her child for 18 years. ETA: One tactic used by the protestors is that they are subject to “threats of violence.” This despite the fact there has not been one case of pro-choice violence against a protestor that I have heard about, but the pro-life violence is very well documented. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/114 "2011-05-06T18:20:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > In fact, getting people to adopt across ethnicities is typically a bigger problem. I doubt the National Association of Black Social Workers would agree with you. [http://www.nabsw.org/mserver/PreservingFamilies.aspx](http://www.nabsw.org/mserver/PreservingFamilies.aspx) Harvesting babies from poor families in the developing world is an industry possible only because greedy, white infertiles want babies. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/115 "2011-05-06T18:20:49Z")
I’m okay with murdering the inconvenient. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/116 "2011-05-06T18:21:05Z")
> [@margin](#): > > Seems to me if you really are against abortion, you’d be merrily skipping along with a huge basket of condoms like the Condom Fairy and gaily giving them out by the bushel full. That they don’t do this speaks to a major motivation of the moralizers; They believe that any sex outside marriage is wrong and sinful. It should never be done. If someone does it, they are immoral and sinful, wrong and dirty This is true of the man involved, but is particularly true the woman, who must bear the consequences of being immoral and sinful. Carrying to term giving birth and either giving the child up for adoption or raising it in poor circumstances are the punishment that the woman deserves for her sin. This is the only reasonable explanation for the fact that anti-abortion folks are also anti-birth control. This is why they don’t differentiate in their picketing, and just ASSUME that people are going in for abortions. They don’t care. Anyone going in for birth control is a sinner. This also explains why anti-abortion folks are rarely concerned with helping mothers after they give birth. These women are seen as immoral sinners who deserve their punishment. ---
**Author:** ![classyladyhp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@classyladyhp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/classyladyhp)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/117 "2011-05-06T18:22:44Z")
> [@margin](#): > > Speculating that the lump is going to be MLK just makes the pro-woman haters feel better about having such huge hang ups about sex that they want to regulate everybody else’s sex life. I said that because a pro-abortionist stated that the aborted baby could have been the next osama. ---
**Author:** ![Beniamino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@Beniamino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beniamino)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/118 "2011-05-06T18:23:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Nonsense. That’s why it’s legal to harvest the organs of the brain dead; legally and morally, personhood is in the brain. Everything else is just meat. That’s not what the Courts say. Courts say “viability”. What you’re positing would actually be earlier than that, as EEG’s detect brain activity before the 12th week. If that’s your position, I’ll take it, as it’s better than what we’ve got now. Eventually, I think we’ll come around, though, and realize the horrible mistake we’ve made in warping the Constitution the way we’ve done (penumbra!?), and stop treating people like commodities. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/119 "2011-05-06T18:24:47Z")
> [@Beniamino](#): > > Patience. We’re getting a bit swarmed here, as you can see. Oh, I understand. And I know it’s tempting to argue against the low-hanging fruit of tards like **ZPG Zealot** , so I appreciate your taking the time to answer a less provocative post. 🙂 > [@](#): > > I think the simplest answer is that utilitarianism fails as a moral position. That is to say, there are lots of ways to reduce murder across the board – cut government funding of education and social welfare programs, and funnel all of the money into policing and monitoring citizens; mandatory psychological testing for all citizens, and confinement of those demonstrating violent tendencies; etc. But, clearly, the ends don’t always justify the means. These would not be desirable means. > > Now, I don’t think that anybody seriously advocates making contraception illegal, as it is an individual choice, which does not harm any other individual. But those of us who do not believe contraception or pre-marital sex to be a moral good cannot advocate it, even if it might, in some utilitarian sense (though this has not been proven), reduce the rates of abortion. I get that many pro-life people are opposed to pre-marital sex, and as such would prefer not to take any action that might encourage it. However, that horse has left the barn. The number of people who wait until they’re married before having sex is miniscule, regardless of their access to contraception. (Studies have shown that abstinence-only education doesn’t in any way reduce the percentage of teens having sex, for example.) And I think it’s pretty undeniable that most (if not all) abortions involve unwanted pregnancies, pretty much by definition. So you’d have to think if you put contraception into the hands of the people who will abort a baby if they get pregnant, many of them would use it. They don’t get pregnant, they don’t have an abortion, so you’ve prevented the murder of an innocent. Doesn’t the good far outweigh the bad, in this case? Yes, you’re assisting a population engaging in an activity you don’t morally agree with, but given that not intervening doesn’t in any way reduce their activity, isn’t it better to focus on mitigating the consequences so as to prevent harm to innocents. For example, imagine if an airborne version of AIDS developed among drug addicts that only could be caught by children under five. Wouldn’t you then support a needle exchange program for heroin addicts, even if you were deeply morally opposed to heroin use? Standing by your principles may feel better, but the inevitable and predictable consequence is going to by the deaths of children that you could have prevented if you’d compromised. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935/120 "2011-05-06T18:25:36Z")
Obligatory link: [The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion](http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html). Anyone who doesn’t think some members of the anti-abortion group think it’s moral when they have an abortion is deluded. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-clinic-picketers/580935.md?page=7)