The Reality Of Abortion Clinics Without Buffer Zones

The Reality Of Abortion Clinics Without Buffer Zones

The Huffington Post | By Melissa Jeltsen | Posted: 07/14/2014 3:59 pm EDT
Excerpts:

"It's been just over two weeks since the Supreme Court struck down Massachusetts' abortion clinic buffer zones, which required protesters to stay at least 35 feet away from clinic entrances and walkways.

On Saturday, B.D. Colen, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who's worked at Newsday and the Washington Post, visited the Planned Parenthood on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston to document the scene outside the clinic now that there is no buffer zone.

The yellow line on the pavement, which used to keep anti-abortion protesters at a distance from patients, is no longer enforceable. Protesters are free to get up close and personal with patients - whether the patients want it or not.

"Anti-choice folks were able to harass people right up to the entrance, which they couldn't do in the past," he said. Colen, who teaches documentary photography at MIT, estimated the crowd to be around 75 people, and noted there were more Planned Parenthood escorts than usual.

In a statement given to The Huffington Post, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts President Martha Walz said that after the Supreme Court decision, more than 300 people applied to become clinic escorts.

"Thanks to the Supreme Court, we are back to a world where women seeking health care face a gauntlet of harassment just to see their doctor," she wrote. "Once again, protesters aggressively pursue patients, chasing them down the sidewalk, leading some patients to step into traffic to get away from the protesters who relentlessly harass women. This is not the quiet conversation the Supreme Court seemed to think is the norm. Aggressive harassment is the norm."

After Colen posted the photos to Facebook, a former student wrote to him about her experience getting an abortion at that same clinic.

"Your recent photos break my heart a little. But they also rally me," she wrote. "I cannot believe the recent changes in the law. I am so fortunate that I didn't have to walk through that crowd of protestors... No one gives us - young and old women - enough credit about how terrifying that whole process is - with or without protestors."

Since the Supreme Court's decision, buffer zones around abortion clinics throughout the country have begun to crumble."

read:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/13/planned-parenthood-boston_n_5580957.html
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IMO: The protesters base disregard for the women they are now free to pursue right up to the door of a clinic screaming and asking personal questions is grossly violating the constitutional act of privacy and safety to walk unencumbered by fear into any place of business is discriminatory to the patient and to the place of business in which healthcare is administered.

You could never protest in front of Macy's at the local mall without being arrested, or in the parking lot of Walmart's either, so what gives the Supreme Court the right to arbitrarily decide that women who visit Family Planning Clinics as patients are not entitled to the same kind of safety and privacy when entering stores at the mall, or a family planning clinic.

It is none of a protester's business what a woman is going into a woman's clinic for. She may be there to get a refill of birth control pills, a 6 month checkup, or an abortion, but whatever it is, it should only concern herself and not a stranger that has nothing better to do than protest a person entering a woman's clinic.

 

Who cares. They need to live with the consequences of their decisions. Such as life.

 

Maybe there wouldnt be so many protestors if they werent killing babies inside of planned parenthood.

 

"Anti-choice folks"

I stopped reading right there.

We aren't anti-choice. We are pro-life.

 

The only choice the so-called Pro-Choice folks are interested in is abortion. Choice in schools? Never. Choice in healthcare? You've got to be kidding. No, the only choice that interests the leftists is abortion.

I lived in Colorado long before there was a safety-zone. I don't know if Colorado ever had one. I am not pro-abortion but I will accept abortion in the first trimester. I escorted young women, some very young women, to the clinic to insure that they were not unduly molested. No one ever was. The protesters had their say and kept their distance. I did not escort everyone who asked. An acquaintance of mine asked if I would escort his 28-year old daughter and I asked how many abortions she'd had. He said he wasn't sure but it was more than four. I declined to escort her.

People have lots of choices. Having sex is usually a choice. Not using birth control is usually a choice. Having an abortion is also a choice. But, a point is reached where there is another person involved who should have a choice, too. When that point is reached, the mother should not be the only one to have a choice.

 

.....

No you're not! You are anti-choice because you make it your life to protest and harass women going into a woman's clinic, and you chant and pray, scream and yell, deciding that you and your meddlesome beliefs are part of your particular Lord's agenda, but are really unconstitutional, obscene, and delving into a person's most private decisions.

If you are so "pro-life" why didn't you stop the 2 Bush Wars with the massive deaths and injuries to your fellow Americans? How about 9/11 with over 3,000 deaths? What about Hurricane Katrina with over 3,000 deaths while waiting for government help? You didn't seem overly concerned with those deaths...what is the difference between the loss of someone living, and someone that hasn't been born yet?

Is it because your "pro-life" agenda is fake because you pick and choose what you consider murder? I always think that the obviously irreligious folks that haunt women's clinics screaming and yelling, as malignant in nature, and have something in their past that they are trying to compensate for. And since the Supreme Court has taken away the buffer zone, women's clinics have hired 'escorts' to bring women inside the clinic to pick up their birth control pills....

As our new Pope says "Who am I to judge?"... could be a learning experience for you judgmental, constipated, fanatical, crazy-eyed old farts.

 

How about we talk about the realities of Planned Parenthood first.

Let's be honest. They are baby murdering scum bags with a twisted agenda.

[video=youtube;pE1feXDfsyc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE1feXDfsyc[/video]

S&M?

Leave our kids alone your (*)(*)(*)(*)ing freakshows.

 

Why are the anti speech folks afraid of words?

 

Your kind aren't pro-choice. Killing unborn babies isn't a choice. It's murder.

And speaking of choice.

Are you for allowing people to "choose" what gun they can own and carry???

Are you for allowing parents to "choose" what school they can send their kids via school vouchers???

 

How does protesting legal murder amount to an unconstitutional act?

I tried. I would have prevented Obama from bombing the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of Libyan civilians as well had I the chance. Alas, I did not, and innocents died.

What about it?

Did the government cause Hurricane Katrina or was it a product of nature?

There isn't one.

Mine isn't.

You mean like murdering babies?

I'm actually 23, and you've been wrong about everything you've said so far in regards to me. Who's the judgmental one, again?

 

And they are pro-death.

 

The SCOTUS spelled out the changes needed that would allow the "buffer" zones to be constitutional. So instead of trying to complain about the "war on women" they should go to the city and/or state govt to make those changes.

I admit I feel some sympathy for the women but could not care less about inconveniences to planned parenthood. I support all constitutionally protected rights yet have a personal grievance with PP. So the more money they have to spend to keep their operation going the better. All they care about is profit and donations so they cry foul and hope the money keeps rolling in. The law could be changed to meet constitutional review but they rather play the victim card to enjoy the benefits.

 

Exactly, whether they personally disapprove of it or not.

 

One thing this thread indicates is that the SCOTUS view of informed, civil discourse is purely idiotic. What we have is glazed-eyed, drooling screaming fanatics who outright pride themselves on their abhorrance for anyone whose opinion is even nuanced, much less different.

And we notice that this particular decision was 5-4 along straight party lines, with all 5 of the majority being Catholics. Who were, of course, objectively contemplating the words of the US Constitution and jurisprudence generally. Who could doubt that?

Coming soon: A decision that it's fine for Catholic Republicans to shout FIRE! in a crowded theater, but irresponsible for anyone else.

 

The vast majority of people are "pro-death" in one way or the other. I do not want to pay the financial or social cost for the unwanted children of others. Personally the abortion of a healthy fetus from consensual sex is disgusting. If a woman can make that choice she would likely be unfit as a mother IMO. While I suppose I am "pro-death" my wife is very much "pro-life" on abortion. Most likely she would not be my wife if she wasn't. She would give all for the benefit of our children and I will do the same for her and the children.

 

I would actually support civil disobedience in order to stop abortions. It is murder. You would stop someone trying to kill their mom. Why not the other way around?

 

Because not everyone agrees with this position. Indeed, the majority of people disagree with it. Now, you are certainly within your rights to consider everyone to be a murderer who disagrees with you, just as they are within their rights to considr you a knuckle-dragging idiotic bigot. But this is a free country, with room for both opinions. Nobody will force you to abort if you do not wish to, and they expect reciprocal consideration from you as an adult.

 

Would you be in favor of installing buffer zones to protect pro lifers from people like this?

[video=youtube;g67z_xBe07Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g67z_xBe07Q[/video]

 

Amazing you could actually type that and not understand what you just said.

 

Those who proudly proclaim to be "pro choice", must be comfortable with that choice being abortion at any time for any reason.

 

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-1168_6k47.pdf
Have you read the decision? They plainly tell them how to pass a law that will be constitutional. Which is what the state of mass. is in the process of doing at this moment. The law was struck down because it only applied to a select group. The decsion did not prevent "buffer" zones.

 

Thank you for the link. Given the intransigent and irreconcilable differences in this matter, I think buffer zones of some effective sort are necessary. Although I would rather welcome a decision that says freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to spit, freedom to stalk, or freedom to (effectively) punish in multiple ways. When we have two VERY strongly held, VERY irreconcilable positions where both sides consider it a hard and fast requirement to deprive the other of success, we're really no longer considering "speech" at all. We're trying to keep the peace without unduly depriving either side of their basic rights.

No society can function well, where brutally and violently inconsiderate behavior is technically codified as "legally permitted". Yeah, the fanatical bozos outside the Planned Parent hood clinics have legal rights, and so does the Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, and any other in-your-face fringe group. And yeah, the legal system has to steer a narrow path to rectify their legal rights with those of their victims. But so long as the goal is to victimize the hated enemy, all that matters is the hate, and the actual substantive topic is pretty well lost in the noise. And we're left managing and regulating the hatred, because neither side can listen, and both sides regard the other as despicable and worthy only of well-earned suffering.

 

Your inability to understand doesn't mean others can't understand either.

Consider the three possibilities: A nation where abortion is prohibited under all circumstances, a nation where abortion is MANDATORY under some circumstances, and a nation where the people are individually free to decide what's best in their circumstances. What would you prefer? Prohibition, coercion, or freedom?

But no, I don't expect you to understand these distinctions.

 

Thanks, I was wondering when we'd hear from a glazed-eye, screaming, drooling fanatic.

 

Do you have any personal experience with any of this? Unwanted pregnancies are traumatic, and many women (and younger girls) go through agonies of indecision before deciding on one course or another. Just because a choice is available, does NOT mean the choice is easy, nor obvious. Last I read, those facing that choice were deciding about 50-50. And in the majority of the cases, neither choice was comfortable.

But hey, don't let the real world interfere with your ideology.