Lebell

It has been mentioned in the other thread that buffer zones around abortion clinics and the Secret Service's buffer zones around the president are the same thing.

I am posting to argue that they are not.


First, let me start by stating my position. I am a Christian who, after much much much thought has decided that the decision to have an abortion is a personal moral decision that is between the individual and God. Therefore I am prochoice.

I feel so strongly about this that I spent 4 years going down to a Planned Parenthood clinic to volunteer as a patient escort.


Now, let me tell you, if you haven't been in the trenches like I have, you have NO IDEA what some of these people are like or will do.


First, there was Scott.

Scott was a fundamentalist Christian who very strongly felt that the man was the God installed head of the house and woe to those who disagreed. Scott was in and out of jail several times for child abuse (beating his children with a belt) and later divorced. He was also caught going through the clinic's trash for unknown reasons.

My memories of Scott were of a middle aged guy with dark sandy hair and a mustache, a crazy stare and a perpetually clenched jaw where you could see the muscles working from 10 feet away.

The last image I have of him was standing on a ladder in the alley behind the clinic so he could see the patients in the parking lot and hold up a sign for them (the clinic had put up dark plastic sheets to shield the lot and entrance from the side walk bye this time.)


Next there was the Abortion lady. (I knew her name at one time but I forgot.)

This was the 40ish woman who had an abortion early in life (about 20) and then regretted it and found God (and the Catholic Church). She brought her 8 year old daughter to the clinic and was training her to shout along with her at the women entering.

The standard shout was, "You're killing your baby, you'll regret it later on!!" The thing was, she had a really annoying nasal twang. Couple that with HOURS of hearing her shout on a Saturday morning, well...


But best of all was Albert Garcia (yes, that's his name, I don't feel bad about putting it here since he is in the Denver paper and plenty of police records from that time).

Albert drove around in this white van that was painted with all these anti-abortion sayings along with plastic covered pictures of fetuses in formaldehyde. We loved Albert because he wasn't that educated and constantly embarassed the other side with his antics.

He would tell women and escorts how when we die there will be a great "garnishing" of teeth. I asked if the garnish would be radishes or carrot rosettes. He also liked to dress up in a Gorilla suit (yes, you heard right) and dance around, proclaiming that animals didn't kill their young (I told you he was ignorant).

But my favorite was when he drug out this Baby Jesus the King doll (the one where Jesus is 3 or 4 and has a Crown and Orb). Albert was convinced that the Orb would glow blue if the woman entering the clinic was carrying a boy or pink if a girl and then shout the fact to the woman.

Interestingly enough, he let if be known that sometimes the orb couldn't decide and went between the two colors, that meant that the baby was gay and on those occassions, he kept silent because a dead gay was ok.


Other short incidents:

-The local Orthodox priest who condemned me to Hell one day (I've since had other priests give me a get out of Hell card).

-The man who insisted on blocking the sidewalk and shouting in my face (about 5 inches) while I was escorting a woman in. (If he had stopped backpeddling, he would have been run over...I had a pretty good head of steam going).

-The CONSTANT picture taking. These people took pictures of everyone, and more importantly, their license plate numbers. Presumably for later harassment.

-The guy that told me that in God's eyes, women were no different than the egg shells that protect a chick (no, I'm not making this up.)


I almost left out the highlight of my service, the BIG Operation Rescue Day.

For our younger members who may not be aware, Operation Rescue was a big group that Operated in the 90's and their modus du guerre was to crawl en masse to a clinic and to chain themselves to the doors.

They caused much havoc in communities where the local police were somewhat sympathec to anti-abortionists (Wichita KS being a notible one.

Well, when they announced an OP RESC for Denver, the police when on high alert. And they decided they weren't EVEN going to encourage the continued chaos like Wichita did.

So we all found out the day, but they always played it cagy, having two or three possible targets and using radios and codes, they would switch routes and double back on themselves in school buses to keep the locals guessing.

But we knew: we were the target.

So we had our normal escort meeting that morning, but it was amongst police barracades and cops with a sherriff's bus around the corner.

Then the message came that they were on the way.

Sure enough they showed up and started their crawling, but again, this wasn't Wichita and the police didn't stand off to the side and do nothing.

No.

While we escorts retreated to a designated spot, the police came in on horses and with dogs and successfully kept about 50 crawlers from reaching the entrance of the clinic. They were hauled off and not a single appointment was cancelled.

And best of all, they didn't try it again in Denver because of the police response.


So in closing, yes, I see a HUGE difference in the two issues. If the abortion protesters had chosen to use their rights peacefully, then there would have been no problem. But they didn't. They used them to intimidate and harass.

The Bush protesters who do the same should get the same treatment. But those who are peaceful should be allowed in the same space as the supporters.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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