There’s a planned parenthood clinic which has had anti-abortion protestors demonstrating monthly for a couple of years. Recently pro-choice protestors have been showing up to counter demonstrate. Planned parenthood has requested the pro-choicers go away because they feel it “confuses the public” who just see additional protesters and may not realize they represent different viewpoints.
Here’s the article from Seattle Weekly -
(Anecdotal but maybe pertinent: A friend of a friend who volunteers time there & says the women who come in for services are pretty much uniform in appreciating the pro-choice protestors)
I think it depends on what the protestors’ goal is. Both from your anecdote and from the article, it appears that the actual clinic visitors support the protests. If the goal is to make them feel better, or ease their visits to the clinic, then it makes sense to continue. But Planned Parenthood is saying that the general public is confused by the protests and sees them as disruptive, which makes sense to me. If the goal is to effect public policy changes, or change the attitude of the public, and since these protestors want to fight “the war on women’s health and reproductive rights” it sounds like that may be the case, then protests may not be the most effective way to get their message across.
I can’t see anyone who is opposed to abortion rights being swayed in their opinion by pro-choice protestors outside an abortion clinic.
Just present the picketers as nutcases and (occasionally) homicidal maniacs and that’s how eventually the public will come to see them. I’d suggest it would be more useful to Planned Parenthood for pro-choice volunteers to offer to escort patients to the clinic door and not engage (or try to directly counter) the picketers.
Selection effect there, though… That’s the ones who did come in. It doesn’t tell you anything about those who might have gotten confused, and were intimidated to not come in by the large number of protesters.
Just present the picketers as nutcases and (occasionally) homicidal maniacs, and the general public will be scared away from the many services Planned Parenthood provides.
Oh, I dunno about that. Rather, it’ll get the general public looking upon at protesters in contempt, with the occasionally homicidal thing being useful to discourage people from joining them.
I can see where they’re coming from. Most women, if they’re entering the clinic for an abortion (which, of course, is not the only reason to enter said clinic, but they’re getting shouted at anyway), just want to go in there quietly; if there are lots of placards and shouting people they’ll most likely put their heads down and barge on through, not looking at the words on the placards. And shouted slogans are pretty hard to discern.
You could also say that the anti-abortionists are more likely to spend their free time picketing clinics with pro-choice demonstrators than other clinics.
The thing is, it would be a great experiment to see how great the effect of pro-choice vs. anti-abortion picketers was, but the only way to do it is to increase the overall number of picketers, which, in the short term, probably would dissuade people.
Picture this from the point of view of a person who is already ashamed and embarrassed to be at the clinic- it doesn’t matter who is there or what their intentions are, it’s the fact that people are watching you go in that is getting to you.
Conflict leads to publicity. Planned Parenthood does not want publicity, they have a nice business providing abortions and there is no upside to publicity.