Confronting abortion protesters

[Smoke]

What Happened When I Yelled Back at the "Christians" Calling My Wife a Murderer | Reproductive Justice | AlterNet

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“You’re killing your unborn baby!”

That’s what they yelled at me and my wife on the worst day of our lives. As we entered the women’s health center on an otherwise perfect summer morning in Brookline, two women we had never met decided to pile onto the nightmare we had been living for three weeks. These “Christians” verbally accosted us—judged us—as we steeled ourselves for the horror of making the unimaginable, but necessary, decision to end our pregnancy at 16 weeks.

After extensive testing at a renowned Boston hospital three weeks earlier, we were told our baby had Sirenomelia. Otherwise known as Mermaid Syndrome, it’s a rare (one in every 100,000 pregnancies) congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together. Worse than that, our baby had no bladder or kidneys. Our doctors told us there was zero chance for survival.

♦♦♦

I’m not a religious person and I’ve never believed in heaven or hell. But there is a hell on Earth. Hell is sitting next to the person you love most and listening to her wail hysterically because her heart just broke into a million pieces. Hell is watching her entire body convulse with sobs because she’s being tortured with grief. For as long as I live and no matter how many children we have, I will never forget that sound. And I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure she’d never make it again.

Across a crowded street, two people with “God Is Pro-Life!” signs and pictures of torn-up fetuses managed to drive the blade in even deeper. Again, I was left trying to console the inconsolable, feeling even more helpless this time, because I wasn’t allowed into surgery with her.

Running on pure adrenaline, and without even a hint of a plan, I grabbed my cell phone and crossed the street. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, I just knew I wanted to make public the cowardice of these protesters.​

 

[beenie]

honestly, i admire him for doing this.
i hate judgmental people. i've never miscarried, nor have i had an abortion. i'm one of the lucky ones who got pregnant exactly six times and delivered six healthy, full-term daughters. i cannot fathom the process women who have done one or both go through to reach that decision. yes, there are women who abuse the freedom of getting an abortion...but i highly doubt that's the majority, and clumping all women who decide to terminate their pregnancies together in one self-proclaimed group is disgusting and unfair.

those women have the right to stand there with their signs, but they have to accept that they also have the right to be confronted. good for him, and i'm very sorry about their loss. that must be devastating.

 

[dust1n]

The only people I flip off are the ones who sit outside the local abortion clinic, and it is usually accompanied with a '**** you'.

 

[Father Heathen]

Why don't anti-abortion protestors ever offer to have the fetuses transplanted into their uteri?

 

[Renji]

Abortion wouldn't be a religious issue, only if the majority of them support the use of contraception.

 

[sandandfoam]

Abortion wouldn't be a religious issue, only if the majority of them support the use of contraception.

I realize abortion is a hot button topic but I think it is a gross oversimplification to paint it as a religious issue.

 

[Revoltingest]

I realize abortion is a hot button topic but I think it is a gross oversimplification to paint it as a religious issue.

True dat. But every horrible altercation with anti-abortion protesters I know of involved religious fundies. In my case, it was a Xtian
group which threatened me & a building full of tenants with violence & harassment because the thought I might rent to an abortion doc.
(I wasn't, but they didn't ask.) I'm the wrong guy to pull that on....we settled the matter out of court.

 

[Renji]

I realize abortion is a hot button topic but I think it is a gross oversimplification to paint it as a religious issue.

True, but as you notice, it is my fellow Xtian bro's who are anti abortionists (i'm not saying that abortion is "right" though), making the religious image into the scene.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

honestly, i admire him for doing this.

So do I. And I was impressed by the quality of his arguments. I think if I were in that position, I'd probably be so mad I wouldn't be coherent.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Thanks for sharing, Storm.

 

[beenie]

So do I. And I was impressed by the quality of his arguments. I think if I were in that position, I'd probably be so mad I wouldn't be coherent.

indeed. he kept his composure far better than i could have.

 

[Smoke]

So do I. And I was impressed by the quality of his arguments. I think if I were in that position, I'd probably be so mad I wouldn't be coherent.

I really admired his composure. In his place, I might have knocked that woman down in the street when she gave that talk to the hand gesture.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I really admired his composure. In his place, I might have knocked that woman down in the street when she gave that talk to the hand gesture.

The only time in recent memory that I actually had to restrain myself from hitting someone was at an anti-abortion picket like this one.

 

[Smoke]

The only time in recent memory that I actually had to restrain myself from hitting someone was at an anti-abortion picket like this one.

I've never hit a woman, and I haven't hit a man in fifteen years, but considering the circumstances that guy was in, I don't know what I'd have done.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

Way to stick up for your wife, dude! That was awesome! :yes:

Maybe someone, somewhere, will come to understand that nearly everything social conservatives stand for is gutless, heartless, and just plain mean. They wouldn't know what compassion was if it hit them over the head.