12/15/2008
Freedom to hand out bottles of water - denied!
The New York City Council thinks it's real smart. They have devised a way to protect women who are going in for their abortion from harassment, coercion and threats of free bottles of water. Really.
New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn introduced the "Clinic Access Act" back in September and held a hearing on the bill last week. The bill creates a 15 foot "buffer zone" that protects women from sidewalk counselors or "protesters" when attempting to access reproductive health care.
Supposedly they are only trying to go after those who break the law or otherwise intimidate women into not having an abortion, but the language used in the text of the bill is open enough that any attempt to talk to a woman who is entering the mill could be seen as violating the law.
Chris Slattery, the President of Expectant Mother Care, is doing a fantastic job of rallying the troops to prevent this dumb bill from becoming law. He has done this in the past when former New York Governor Elliott Spitzer tried to shut down all the CPC's in New York and failed.
Speaker Quinn's press release about the bill will make you shake your head. She gives what she calls "Real-life examples of such harassment and coercion" which include "Patients being offered bottled water by protesters in order to forestall her abortion procedure, which endangers the life and well-being of women seeking pain-relief during the abortion procedure." No kidding.
Also on the list of documented harassment and coercion are:
- Protestors using NYPD-owned barricades to hang posters and signs outside of the clinic
- Protestors offering free sonograms to patients but instead showing graphic anti-abortion propaganda
- Protestors shouting at patients that they were desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Topping it all off though is the sympathetic article written by the New York Times and the reporters notation in the last paragraph that on a visit to a local abortion mill to write the story, all the chairs in the waiting room were filled. "By 10 a.m., every one of the room’s 60 chairs had been claimed."
But wait a minute. If every chair is filled, doesn't that mean that women are waiting which could "forestall her abortion procedure, which endangers the life and well-being of women seeking pain-relief during the abortion procedure."
New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn introduced the "Clinic Access Act" back in September and held a hearing on the bill last week. The bill creates a 15 foot "buffer zone" that protects women from sidewalk counselors or "protesters" when attempting to access reproductive health care.
Supposedly they are only trying to go after those who break the law or otherwise intimidate women into not having an abortion, but the language used in the text of the bill is open enough that any attempt to talk to a woman who is entering the mill could be seen as violating the law.
Chris Slattery, the President of Expectant Mother Care, is doing a fantastic job of rallying the troops to prevent this dumb bill from becoming law. He has done this in the past when former New York Governor Elliott Spitzer tried to shut down all the CPC's in New York and failed.
Speaker Quinn's press release about the bill will make you shake your head. She gives what she calls "Real-life examples of such harassment and coercion" which include "Patients being offered bottled water by protesters in order to forestall her abortion procedure, which endangers the life and well-being of women seeking pain-relief during the abortion procedure." No kidding.
Also on the list of documented harassment and coercion are:
- Protestors using NYPD-owned barricades to hang posters and signs outside of the clinic
- Protestors offering free sonograms to patients but instead showing graphic anti-abortion propaganda
- Protestors shouting at patients that they were desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Topping it all off though is the sympathetic article written by the New York Times and the reporters notation in the last paragraph that on a visit to a local abortion mill to write the story, all the chairs in the waiting room were filled. "By 10 a.m., every one of the room’s 60 chairs had been claimed."
But wait a minute. If every chair is filled, doesn't that mean that women are waiting which could "forestall her abortion procedure, which endangers the life and well-being of women seeking pain-relief during the abortion procedure."
2 Comments:
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Oh and we'll also be sitting in the same pews as you at the same churches. Ours will be the hands outstretched to yours during the sign of peace. Will you grasp it? Or have your politics clouded your morals to a poisonous level?
I find that the pro-life movement, at its core the Catholic Church, does the most, far more than anybody else, to help women who are pregnant and in need and also to help those women raise their children.
You can call our offices at 972-267-5433 or stop by our offices and I would be happy to show you the numerous Catholic orgnizations involved in these efforts, the amounts of money that are spent in pursuing them and the kinds of people involved, who normally give their time, energy and yes money, with no compensation, day after day, month after month, year after year.
The truth about what the Catholic Church and its people do for people who are poor and in need is far more compelling than the empty rhetoric of the headlines of the local newspaper.
But the choice is yours. Do you want to know the truth about being pro-life or would you prefer to insult us?
Andrew