My friend Laura led a prayer rally at a PP office in Huntington this morning. I often read about such events, and about the people who pray at the sites and attempt to dissuade women from having abortions.

Sadly, it's something I'd be very afraid to take part in, having read many horror stories about such people being harassed and arrested. I've been to the March For Life, but that's different since there's safety in numbers.

Please pray for her and the others like her who do the hard work.
R.F. | 12.09.07 - 2:14 am | #

That last one is a doozy, "Because we love children" we refer to them as "misconceptions".

Yup.
Christina | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 3:49 am | #

Those are awful posters. Talk about pushing your culture onto other people.
lar | 12.09.07 - 4:32 am | #

Being a suspicious chap, it makes me wonder if Planned Parenthood has sponsors who would like to see the West commit demographic suicide. Just thinking.
Athos | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 5:41 am | #

Um, don't we push OUR culture on other people by having things like prayer rallies and people getting all up in arms over this? All those billboards for Right to Life? I'm not saying I support abortion, but we both push our ideas on everyone. I do support ABC though, esp. in those countries. Having more kids if you're poor and ending up starving to death isn't solving anything.
Miss Em | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 9:47 am | #

I always love when elite Westerners tell The Poor "in those countries" how many children are good for them. Don't The Poor know how much happier they will be if they have a home filled with knick knacks? And so many things they have to have a weekly yard sale. People are bad! Things are good!
Radical Catholic Mom | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 10:54 am | #

Miss Em -

Your remarks are (unconsciously) racist. It is telling that pro-choice activists have not advocated for freedom of choice for Chinese women to have more than one child. Nor have population control advocates come out against reproductive technologies (in vitro fertilization, etc.) that allow American women to have their politically correct two children.

You might be interested in reading feminist and pro-choice advocate Betsy Hartman on the inherent racism of population control in third-world countries: You can find the transcript of an interview with her here: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/arch...es/25b/ 027.html
ave | 12.09.07 - 11:33 am | #

With all due respect...Ms. Em, I believe, has committed two egregious errors related to culture. First, as is suggested by "Radical Catholic Mom," Ms. Em inflicts a Western understanding of prosperity on the Third World, which is more likely to view a large family as wealthy, in part because by having multiple children, a couple actually assures that someone will take care of them in their old age. (I realize that sounds rather utilitarian, but we must realize, too, that regardless of the size of the family, no one would care for anyone without love to bind them!) Second, and, I think, worse, is her mistaken equation of a religious truth with culture. Posters, billboards, and rallies endorsing a pro-life theme, at least when originating in Christian humanism, cannot be mere cultural mechanisms, and, therefore, cannot be defined as pro-life folks "cramming" their culture down another's throat. If Christ is the savior, all human life has meaning, above and beyond culture.

May God be praised now, and forever, and forever!
Ed | 12.09.07 - 3:22 pm | #

Satire truly is obsolete. Wow.

Also, in re Miss Em, I believe the most proper response is "so what"? The distinction is that error has no rights -- no right exists to advocate or facilitate evil. Contrapositively, an imperative exists to promote good and deter evil. If someone wants to characterize advocacy for good as cultural imperialism, well so be it. The primary end of such a position is revealing one's own lack of substantive ideas, inasmuch as one retreats to the default of substituting a trite and empty catch-phrase for a real argument. If I "push [my] culture" one someone, especially in the context relevant here, exactly what evil am I committing? Try advocating an actual position, preferably one that is not substantively evil, and we can decide if there is an actual matter for debate.
Paul | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 3:39 pm | #

Planned Barrenhood's concern for the Third World is summed up well by a line I picked up at Mark Shea's;

"Just enough of me... way too much of you".

I don't know if he coined that phrase, but kudos if he did.
Tim J. | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 4:39 pm | #

I'm also fond of the phrase, from the link in Athos's comment, "demographic winter." A chilly and chilling place to be--one in which children are the burden and the enemy and the problem. By definition--no future.
Brenda from Flatbush | Homepage | 12.09.07 - 9:29 pm | #

That one that says, "Why carry more burdens?", in addition to being suspiciously classist and racist, reminds me uncomfortably of a graying ex-nun nurse friend of mine who is absolutely convinced that b.c. is the solution to the problem of the poor.

She wasn't too happy with me when I got pregnant out of wedlock, and she le me know. With that voice. The same one I imagine when I read, "Why carry more burdens?"
corita | 12.09.07 - 10:35 pm | #

My friend Laura led a prayer rally at a PP office in Huntington this morning. I often read about such events, and about the people who pray at the sites and attempt to dissuade women from having abortions.

Sadly, it's something I'd be very afraid to take part in, having read many horror stories about such people being harassed and arrested. I've been to the March For Life, but that's different since there's safety in numbers.

Please pray for her and the others like her who do the hard work.

R.F.,

I've been to exactly one pro-life vigil, so I'm not sure that I can even qualify as an expert ;) but I think a lot of it depends on the people who are there. When I went, everyone either held signs ("Adoption: the compassionate option," or "Abortion stops one heart and breaks another,") or prayed. The people who were there frequently (we traveled an hour each way, so "frequent" isn't possible!) told us where NOT to stand, not to block the driveway, to be silent/peaceful, etc.

A lot of the support (people driving by and waving or putting a thumbs up) was pretty positive, but, if you're not in rural Virginia, your mileage may vary. Nonetheless, I've had the misfortune of walking past some very angry demonstrations, and have even been subject to some harassment (on account of being a young woman in the vicinity of such things).

This is a long way of saying - if you can find a good group, please go. It's really wonderful when "younger" (IIRC, you are 30 or 31) people are there - those who are in the demographic to abort or encourage abortion, but who stand up and say that it's not the right thing to do. It's also really encouraging to see young men who oppose abortion, even though they stand to benefit from it.

A fair amount of the pro-choice rhetoric (now, this is NOT indicative of all pro-choice people, especially Dawn Patrol readers! :) ) is that abortion is supported by middle-aged men who want to oppress women; those who already have their families and are sure that everything's worked out for them. There's also the stereotype of angry, "anti-choice" people carrying pictures of aborted fetuses. IMHO, anything that we can do to counteract that - to say that abortion is wrong, is bad for women, is bad for men, and bad for society, and is certainly NOT an unqualified positive for young, single people - is great.
theobromophile | Homepage | 12.10.07 - 4:15 am | #

I'm pretty upset right now. Abortion isn't legal in Nigeria (my country) but they've been running "family planning" ads since I can remember. Family is our lively-hood, and here's Planned Parenthood coming to take that all away. Really upsetting.
phil Onochie | 12.10.07 - 10:23 am | #

Being someone who was first on one side of the issue and now, 5 children later, is firmly on the pro-life side, I found that many of the supporters of abortion were young women who had an abortion and then felt they needed to justify their decision. They felt the guilt and knew what they did was wrong and thought that if they fought to convince more people that "it was okay" then their conscious would be clear.

I too would love to protest, especially with the children in tow, but what would happen if one of them ran into the parking lot and they carted us off?
kat | Homepage | 12.10.07 - 1:10 pm | #

I too would love to protest, especially with the children in tow, but what would happen if one of them ran into the parking lot and they carted us off?

Kat, if you are worried about the harassment from the police, you could always protest across the street. While it's not nearly as effective (especially if you are trying to dissuade young women from having abortions), it does allow you to be there with your family. You could also try a block or two down, which might help you talk to people who are walking by.
theobromophile | Homepage | 12.10.07 - 3:38 pm | #

Perhaps most telling of all regarding PP's agenda is none of these involve keeping one's pants on.
No side effects! No disease risk! No environmental hazards! Free!
Heather Price | Homepage | 12.10.07 - 7:56 pm | #

The first two ads, especially, remind of the campaign in Waugh's Black Mischief.
Boko | 12.11.07 - 2:13 pm | #

Good grief ... how horribly sad.

"Sure, birth control is a hassle...But what about the alternative?" Ouch!

And is that "Don't KID yourself?" a play on words? Clever.
June | 12.11.07 - 11:49 pm | #

Miss Em, we don't lie to people, coerce people, and call it "choice".

Read Betsy Hartmann's "Reproductive Rights and Wrongs".
Christina | Homepage | 12.12.07 - 8:47 am | #

Tim, I think it was P.J. O'Rourke who coined "Just enough of me, way too much of you." See his excellent "All the Trouble in the World".
Christina | Homepage | 12.12.07 - 8:49 am | #

The second ad reminds me: wasn't a visibly pregnant woman out in the street considered low-class in recent Anglo-American culture? There were health concerns, of course, but wealthy women had servants or husbands with lighter work schedules to go out for them.

Those attitudes against pregnant women could have mutated into present forms.
Kevin Jones | Homepage | 12.14.07 - 12:21 am | #

Here's one of a number of bus shelter signs in the Providence area that I posted back in January.
http://christusvincit.blogspot.c...s- promised.html

Keep up the great work!
BMP
Brian Michael Page | Homepage | 12.19.07 - 8:25 am | #