Penna. State House Resolution honors terrorist

This guy was usually protesting on days that I escorted patients in and out of an abortion clinic. After handing little brown-colored plastic fetuses to young men of color who were helping their partners to the clinic, he would get into my face and actually threaten me with physical harm:

[S]tate House Resolution 82.

It honors John Patrick Stanton, of Jenkintown, as a "humanitarian, activist and founder of the prolife movement in this Commonwealth."

Stanton died in January 2014 at the age of 86.

The measure, sponsored by Montco Republican Rep. Thomas Murt, was voted out of the House Health Committee this week 18-9.

It was supported by all 16 Republican committee members and two Democrats: Philly Rep. Kevin Boyle; Luzerne County Rep. Gerald Mullery.

Stanton was known for demonstrating outside abortion clinics. His decades of doing so resulted in lawsuits, charges of harassment and trespassing, arrests and at least one incarceration.

So fuck you, Thomas Murt (R.-Montgomery County). Fuck you very much.

Clinic protestor gone

H/T to journalist acquaintance Tara Murtha -- a "frequent flyer" anti-choice protestor at the clinic where I used to escort patients passed away at the end of last month.

Protesting, "meta" protesting, and Vancouver

So the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup and the fans who congregated after the match to congratulate their team on a good run and a fun season were overwhelmed by asshole rioters who trashed an area of town.

Reminds me of the assholes who ruined the World Trade Organization protests in 1999 in Seattle.

There, we had tens of thousands of ordinary people in the streets -- union members and kids on rollerskates, enviro-weenies dressed up like turtles, university students and professors, people who build Boeing planes and Microsoft software -- peacefully marching and basically partying to drums and music. Then the assholes came in and started smashing windows, spraypainting chain restaurant buildings, and lighting fires. The result? National news favorably covered the WTO and the establishment; the progressive message did not get publicized; the assholes got their 15 minutes on national TV; and part of Seattle's downtown was temporarily drawn into a bizarre, unconstitutional "no-protest" zone (PDF by ACLU-WA).

One of the Vancouver assholes, being a nice person since he is, after all, Canadian, apologized after the Stanley Cup riots. But a nurse at a local ER won't accept the apology, and for much the same reason that I wouldn't accept an apology from the Seattle WTO assholes:

To you [...], it's a chance to congregate in the ER waiting room, pounding on the triage window demanding to be seen for teargas exposure and cuts from looting and fighting, while posturing and bragging about how you kicked the crap out of somebody and smashed shit up. To me, it's taking my time away from the little old quiet lady having chest pain or taking time away from the person you "shit-kicked" for trying to stop the looting.

At the WTO protests in Seattle, I met a little old lady who'd been nearly blinded by a rubber bullet because a bunch of assholes decided to start a riot. No question, the police overreacted -- but they wouldn't have had anything to overreact to if the assholes hadn't started smashing windows in the first place.

To bring it closer to home: A few years ago, my pal Ted lost his car to rioters after the Phils won the World Series. To the rioters, it was a fun show of strength with a lot of great crunchy shattery noises. To Ted, it was immediately financially devastating because he needed the car to get to work, but he couldn't afford to fix or replace the car without being able to get to work. Luckily for Ted, it all came out right in the end. He's a sweet, honest, likeable guy and he got publicity and generous donations. But how many people in Vancouver have been just as "lucky"?

I don't mean to be so "get offa my lawn" and "back in my day" about this stuff. But it also brings to mind an incident when I was doing clinic defense a few weeks ago. An old white guy protestor was there with a crudely constructed hand-made cross. We patient escorts were outnumbered, because the protestors were in force for a religious holiday. A young white guy, dressed like a prototypical hipster in skinny pants, a scraggly beard, and 1980s-inspired sunglasses walked up to the cross-carrying protestor. He laughed at the old man, took a photo on his smartphone, and walked away. This is not helpful. Taking a mocking photo of a protestor and posting it to a social media site is not helpful. To you, it's a harmless old man with a stupid prop for a protest. But to the clinic patients, it's an intimidating physical barrier to getting inside to see the doctor; it's a person spouting religious, woman-hating invective at young women and girls who are going in to the clinic just to get their pills or undergo a pap smear. To the patient escorts, you're another body between the patients and the front door, and we're not exactly sure of your intentions because you haven't addressed us directly. And your taking a photo, laughing, and walking away does nothing to improve the situation, and likely only makes it worse by making the women not feel supported.

Protest or protest not. "Meta" protesting (like the hipster) or taking the opportunity of a gathering to do something violent or crazy anonymously (like Seattle in 1999, Philly in 2008, or Vancouver in 2011) makes life harder for everybody else, who are left to clean up the wreckage afterward.

When Holy Week and "magic week" converge

So it's Holy Week, and the anti-sex zealots have been out in force at the clinic where I escort patients.

It's also my monthly "magic week," when PMS makes me fly into a righteous rage about things like drivers ignoring "No Turn on Red" signs even in the total absence of pedestrians at the intersection, or people arriving 2 minutes late to a meeting, or the Delaware Board of Bar Examiners requiring 2 passport photos, official college transcripts, official law school transcripts, a good standing certificate from the Pennsylvania bar, a copy of my divorce decree, a copy of the paperwork from my trespassing arrest almost a decade ago, an electronic application, a paper application with 15 tabs' worth of notarized documentation, and $800. (Maybe next year.)

I'm also underemployed this week, while I wait for a letter from a literary agent in New York and a callback to set up an appointment with another client next week. But I just got a call that the wingnuts heard the weather tomorrow -- Good Friday -- will be beautiful so there will be a big crowd harassing my clinic all day.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Anti-choicers are not fighting for the "babies"

Amanda Marcotte at AlterNet brings up a point I've danced around since I started doing clinic defense: anti-choice protesting isn't about the "babies" and preventing unwanted pregnancies and their termination; it's about an obsession with women and girls having sex.

If it were truly about the "babies," the protestors would show up during snowstorms. But at the clinic where I escort patients, they stay away in bad weather. The big crowds come out only once per month, and the really big crowds come out only in the summer. News flash: the patients still came in for their procedures when there was snow and ice on the ground.

If it were truly about the "babies," the protestors' car wouldn't have a bumpersticker that reads CHASTITY, they wouldn't hand out anti-sexuality literature to patients and staff, and they wouldn't yell, "Save yourself for marriage!" at the young women going inside. But this is what they do at the clinic where I escort patients. News flash: by the time those young women are entering the clinic, it's too late for them to save themselves for marriage.

If it were truly about the "babies," the protestors would spend their time, money, and energy in programs that help women with unwanted pregnancies. They would adopt unwanted babies and welcome foster children into their homes (some 3000 per year in Philadelphia alone come into the system). They would spend time with their own kids and grandkids instead of yelling at the young women and their support persons -- partners, parents, and friends -- seeking healthcare.

If it were truly about the "babies," as Marcotte writes, the anti-choicers would actually seek to fund Planned Parenthood and other family planning services more. This is because abortions happen when women have unwanted pregnancies. Comprehensive sex education and contraception reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that women have, which reduces the number of abortions that women seek.

I won't even link to Ross Douthat's recent NYT piece about monogamy and his thesis, at best strained and at worst just bizarre, that there is a direct, causal correlation between sexual activity among post-sexual revolution unmarried women and their unhappiness. That he gets a sounding board for his judgmental rants on the Newspaper of Record is simply sickening. At least the commenters have taken him to task for twisting the results of a few studies, cherrypicking statistics, and drawing illogical conclusions from them to fit the point he was trying to make. Because if it were truly about the "babies" for Douthat, he wouldn't argue against funding family planning, which gets more women out of the labor and delivery room and into college.

Oh, wait, I just figured out why the NYT keeps Douthat on staff. Remember that awful story from Texas yesterday about the 18 guys accused of gang-raping an 11-year-old girl? The New York Times investigated and asked "What was she wearing?"

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

. . . and then quoted a local who says,

These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.

WHAT.

(No) adventures in clinic defense

I've been out three times now to do clinic defense, and the protestors haven't shown up yet. Not once.

I'll never get any good war stories out of this gig if it keeps up this way.

Adventures in clinic defense: Introduction

Over the past 20-odd years, I've done a lot of feminist stuff. I drove a carload of pals down to D.C. for a big ol' gay rights march one spring. I organized a contingent to attend a big ol' women's rights march a decade later. I spent much of my 20s honing my socialist feminist worldview by dabbling in Radical Women, the Freedom Socialist Party, and unshaven legs. Later, when my daughter asked me how her new baby cousin got into her auntie in the first place, I explained it by reading the relevant sections in Our Bodies, Ourselves with her. I put myself through law school as a single mom. And while I was in law school, I counseled women seeking protection from abuse orders and minor women who were stuck having to seek permission from a judge to get an abortion.

It's been a little while since I've put my money where my mouth is, and with the inauguration of our new governor I'm living in a red state now; so I recently started doing clinic defense for an abortion provider in the Philadelphia area. When patients arrive at the clinic, I offer to walk with them to the front door, help them with a newspaper if the protestors are taking photographs, and remind them that they don't have to take any pamphlets that protestors may try to shove into their hands. And I keep an eye on the protestors to make sure they're staying off of clinic property and stuff. It's a two-fold thing: one, it's about enforcing the F.A.C.E. Act; but more importantly, it's about making sure that women get full access to complete healthcare. (News flash: Not all clinic patients who arrive during termination procedure hours are getting abortions. Some -- perhaps many -- are there for regular reproductive health visits like pap smears, or STI screening and counseling, or other reasons.) Abortion is healthcare and when women cannot control this part of their healthcare they do not have full control over their destiny. A million American women get an abortion every year, and I aim to help.

Clinic defense can be scary, so I'm not going to reveal any details that would give away where and when I'm volunteering: addresses, weather conditions that day, the number of protestors or what they looked like or what organization they were from, and so on. I'll aim to post my reports a little randomly, too, so that it's not clear what day of the week or what time of day I was there. But randomness and vagueness aside, I hope you'll enjoy the posts as much as I hope to enjoy my stint defending the clinic as a patient escort.