Hanging Out In Large Groups To Scream At Women Near Planned Parenthoods, For 'Life'

Oh my god do they ever love life.

Under normal circumstances, forced birth enthusiasts calling themselves "pro-life" is a pretty galling thing. Not simply because it suggests that everyone else is "pro-death," but also because most of them are only "pro-life" in incredibly specific circumstances. They care if a fetus is aborted, but they, often, could not give a crap less if that baby has health care or food (things one needs to live) after it is born, or if the mother has access to pre-natal care or family leave. They are often pro-war and pro-death penalty and anti-subsidized health care. While they often care deeply about braindead people being kept alive by machines not being taken off of those machines by those who love them and don't want them to "live" that way, they likely would not be bothered in the least if the reason the person were unplugged was because the family could no longer pay their medical bills.

And once again, some anti-choicers are proving that they are only pro-one-very-specific-kind-of-life, as the 40 Days for Life campaign has vowed to continue daily protests of abortion clinics around the country, despite the coronavirus outbreak and the fact that we have all been urged to stay home in order to ensure that as few people die from this as possible.

Yes. While bars and restaurants are closed, while we're all sitting at home trying to figure out how to not go totally stir crazy, going nowhere but to the grocery store or convenience store (or out to get tested), they are convening in large crowds outside of abortion clinics and Planned Parenthoods, because godforbid a few people are allowed to go into one in peace, without being screamed at by a bunch of assholes.

In a video posted to their site on Wednesday, 40 Days For Life president Sean Carney stood outside of a Planned Parenthood in Houston and encouraged people to continue showing up to their "vigils," but to do so "safely," by which he meant "bring hand sanitizer.

Coronavirus and Abortion    youtu.be 

The 40 Days for Life group isn't the only group doing this, either. Over on Rewire, Kelsea McLain of the Triangle Abortion Access Coalition in Raleigh, North Carolina, reported that an anti-choice protester actually coughed on a volunteer in their 60s or 70s who was trying to show people the correct place to park and then said, "Would be a shame if I was sick." The protester was trying to pretend she worked for the clinic in order to direct patients to park outside of their private parking lot so that the other members of her group could foist pamphlets on the patients and otherwise try to harass them out of having an abortion, and was apparently very upset that the volunteer was thwarting her efforts.

McLain also reported that another protest group, which literally calls itself "Love Life," has similarly been organizing "prayer marches" to abortion clinics during the pandemic. And they're not being too sanitary about it!

Apparently they dissuade people from getting abortions by doing the "Thriller" dance? Posted to Love Life Facebook page on March 17 

Via Rewire:  

Angela Anders, director of Charlotte for Choice Clinic Escorts, told Rewire.News she counted the anti-abortion group at well more than 100 people at its peak, and that the group was in no way practicing physical distancing: She said they were holding hands, forming prayer circles, and engaging in other forms of bodily contact (Love Life did not respond to Rewire.News' request for comment.)

Anders said the clinic escorts in Charlotte regularly witnessed people with symptoms of illness (sniffling, running noses, coughs) handing out pamphlets and sticking their hands and heads into stopped cars in an effort to "counsel" patients about their options and to share stigma and shame around abortion.

So it's OK if the fetus dies because the person carrying it dies because they got coronavirus from some idiot anti-choice protester ... so long as it's not from an abortion? I guess that's one way to "Love Life."

It would be one thing if they were only putting their own lives in danger, but they're not. If they catch it from one of their fellow protestors — or even if they catch it from one of the patients they harass — they're putting all of the other patients in danger, they're putting everyone who goes to the same grocery store they go to in danger.

I'd say "can you believe they'd be willing to accidentally kill people in order to try to save a fetus?" but, as we all know, the forced birth crowd's already got a history of doing that on purpose .

[ Vice | Rewire ]

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