Friday, 13 August 2010

• The Closure of Fayetteville Women's Clinic.

  Entry by Coltara Cady
  

  A roommate who leaves an empty Chinese food box on your desk when you don't get paid until next week and you're starving? Grade-A Jackass. You know who else who is a total jackass? Shawn Carney, Campaign Director for 40 Days for Life. I generally try to avoid throwing around insults, but I'm a little grumpy this evening due to being tired and ravenously hungry. I don't appreciate working all day and coming home in one hundred degree heat to be taunted with empty food containers in my personal space.

  Passive aggressive complaints about my otherwise fantastic day aside, I will be honest in saying that I think Shawn Carney may deserve more colorful vocabulary flung in his direction - but I'll save you the stream of frothing vitriol. Instead I'll let you read some of the outrageous lies and exaggerations that can be found in this interview. This is a rather upsetting piece of news from my neck of the woods - Fayetteville Women's Clinic shut down a little over a week ago. It is not a surprise that the anti-abortion camp is having an absolute orgasm over the issue.

  I'm feeling a little sick to my stomach after forcing myself to read through the reporting on the pro-life side of the fence and viewing falsehood after falsehood littered practically every other sentence. That clinic workers are being converted, that Harrison aggressively mocks them and “makes a spectacle”, that he “brags about doing god's work”, that his business has being declining, etc.

  It isn't enough that their opponent has leukemia, which of course they mention only in passing as “he's had health problems recently” and going on to attribute the closing of the clinic to “declining business”, when in fact the truth is he is sick and cannot find a doctor to replace him. No, they wanted to make it sound like their vigils were successful and in fact the miraculous source of the clinic closing – I might mention that this so called decline of business has absolutely no sources I can find. Hell, even these assholes were honest about the issue.

  This method of reporting seems to be a common phenomenon, however. I'd like to point out this article on this issue, which makes mentions of statements by Juliet Cassell. Fayetteville coordinator for 40 Days for Life:

  “She is also hoping abortions will stop at the local Planned Parenthood abortion business, which may benefit from the closing of its main competition. It gives women the dangerous abortion drug that has killed anywhere from 13 to dozens of women worldwide and injured more than 1,100 women in the United States along as of 2006 FDA figures.”

  Goodness, isn't that convincing? Thanks, Mr. Ertelt! It was great of you to not offer specific information on the drug or deaths! I also loved the absurd and unimpressive range of “anywhere from 13 to dozens of women worldwide” - caffeine can do better than that if you leave the statistics and details just as vague.

  The commentary has honestly been an unpleasantly fascinating read for me – just when you think that the irrationality of radical pro-life Christianity can't get any worse or more vulgar, it does. Just for one quote out of many you can find on that page and a couple others here and here:

  “Dr. William Harrison murdered thousands of children. His leukemia is just the beginning of the horrific karma he must now endure!

  Rape and Incest are one thing, murdering because you fail to take responsibility for your actions is impossible to justify. If these women go to the back alleys then that is where they deserve to be!

  Oh, and I’m a HUGE Liberal, no bleeding heart can stand by and watch the taking of innocent lives, legal or not!”

  Heh. I don't think I even need to go into dismantling that. There are some delightful commentators who did that for me!
  

  I pass the clinic frequently and witnessed when they were being picketed by the 40 Days For Life group. A few days before I got on a plane for Columbus – meaning less than two weeks before the clinic was closed – I drove by to see a woman praying outside their doors. She was in a fetal position on their lawn with her hands clasped desperately beneath her forehead. This seemingly peaceful display filled me with an inexplicable rage; this woman and those like her are willfully ignorant of so much I have trouble not seething in disgust. There is too much that roars through my mind in a torrential flood of intellectual offense for me to not become angry.
  

  The next closest location for a woman to receive a safe surgical abortion is Tulsa, followed by Little Rock. The Woman's Clinic was one of two places in the entire state where a woman could seek surgical abortion. There are still medicinal abortions available at the local Planned Parenthood, but of course there are going to be cases where methods other than the pill are going to be required. The loss of this clinic is a tragedy.

  Dr. William F. Harrison is a brave man – through the years he has had his office firebombed, been vandalized and been a victim of invasion, received death threats against himself and his family, and remained in practice even as his colleagues were being attacked and murdered. I vaguely remember reading about him before and taking note of the fact that he considered himself a friend of the late Dr. Tiller. The fact they knew each other better than being mere colleagues in the field told me something about what kind of threat loomed over Harrison every day of his life. [1] [2] It also says much that many call him a hero.

  I wish Bill all the best in making a full recovery.

  • 11:39 PM
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