Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Tough pro-choice rally

I'm briefly seen (but not heard) shouting through a megaphone in this interesting video.

What was horrible about the anti-choice protest was that 40 days for life is an aggressive extremist group who use really nasty tactics - intruding on the privacy of women seeking medical treatment, waving pictures of bloody foetuses (for the record most medical procedures look gross, not just that one), approaching women and handing out false "information" about risks and side effects that don't exist. Really sickening. But that's what crazy extremists are like right? Only this time they were being joined by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Westminster (Alan Hopes) - who is a part of the "mainstream" Catholic church in the UK. A guy who claims to speak for thousands and thousands of people across the UK, including many who would call themselves pro-choice and many who will have had an abortion in their lives. I mean if he wants to write to MPs that's one thing, but joining this extremist group? That's scary, that's a sign of how this issue is going to be in the future.

Also note fascists lined up among the anti-choicers. Well spotted stavvers, but unsurprising.

I went there thinking it would be fun but when I saw all those people praying it really made me angry. How dare they film women and intimidate women and then act as though some invisible cloud fairy was telling them to. If you're going to hate women - don't pretend it's cos your imaginary friend told you to. Bleuch!

On the upside since I had megaphone to hand when they all knelt down I was able to lead in a big chorus of "kneel down if you hate women!". Which I enjoyed.

12 comments:

Clare@ BattlementsOfRubies said...

Are you sure that 40dfl wave pictures of bloody fetuses? I have not seen any actual evidence of this.

Cruella said...

Yes - you can see this on their website. I also understand that they were moved from private property in Bloomsbury Square (and continued their campaign from the street) specifically because of the graphic images they were displaying. Now of course who is to say whether these are actual 40-day-ers or whether other groups have crashed their protest? But either way they're harassing women big time.

Clare@ BattlementsOfRubies said...

I have looked on their website there are no pictures such as you describe. Nor any pics or other witness evidence that I can find on the Internet. Where did you see this?

Cruella said...

On their website. Really look at the pictures.

Clare@ BattlementsOfRubies said...

This one?
http://www.40daysforlife.com/london/

Are you sure you aren't mixing them up with another group?

Cruella said...

Their main site, not the London subgroup page. Although that said the London subgroup page also has links on it to very graphic images.

Cruella said...

Also your own website shows footage of the anti-choicers displaying medically inaccurate models of foetuses at differing stages of development. Of course YOUR WEBSITE also links directly to very graphic images of bloody foetuses. So rather odd that you would "defend" 40dfl while committing yourself exactly the same offence you insist they would never dream of committing.

If others are looking for this on your site (not recommended) just look down the right hand side under (colour me surprised!) the prayer!!

Clare@ BattlementsOfRubies said...

A website with a warning ( which is what I have on my blog) is not at all the same thing as "waving pictures of bloody fetuses"
40 dfl do not have pictures like that to wave either. I think linking to a website hardly amounts to "waving".

Can you indicate any specific medical inaccuracy you have noted in the fetal models?

Cruella said...

What warning? I don't see a warning! And how is displaying things on a website different to displaying them on the street? And there's a video ON YOUR SITE in which a woman clearly describes a large number of inaccuracies in those models. The first and most obvious one being the colour. Foetuses are translucent at that gestation.

Now since it's question time - answer me this. I don't believe in your God. So what is the point of me not having an abortion? Will you God decide after my death that although I didn't believe in him and indeed campaigned against the bigotry of those that do, the fact that you talked me out of an abortion means I can now go to heaven? Or are you doing this for the sake of the foetus? If so - do aborted foetuses go to heaven?

If YES then I'm doing them a BIG favour by aborting them. Growing up with me as a mother is not going to give them much hope of getting in to heaven!

If NO could you explain why your loving God hates abortion but gladly scoops the little blobs out of the medical waste bin and throws them into the fiery pits of hell? That seems a bit mean to me.

PaulB said...

Kate, I don't think they hate women, I think they love embryos and fetuses.

What's strange about this is that the bible says almost nothing on the subject: Exodus 21:22 can be interpreted as treating very late terminations as murder and that's about it.

And according to Anselm "no human intellect accepts the view that an infant has the rational soul from the moment of conception" so that until 1918 Catholic canon law held that "he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body" - early abortion was taught to be a grave sin, but not murder.

Incidentally, Pope Benedict XV, who was responsible for issuing the code of canon law which ruled that Catholics had got this one wrong for the last thousand years, was devoted to Marian veneration. So there was definitely at least one woman he didn't hate.

Ridley said...

Paul I would agree with you if I hadn't seen such hatred expressed by these people toward women who 'should have kept their legs closed', 'should take responsibility', should 'go to hell for murdering their baby' etc.

fizzly said...

...and why he himself randomly decides to abort them through misscarriage.