Clinic Escorts Protect Women From Protesters Singing ‘Happy Birthday Dead Baby'

[Luka_the_Pooka]

As the 40th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision approaches, anti-abortion fervor is reaching a fever pitch in some conservative areas. At Alabama’s Women Center for Reproductive Alternatives — one of just a few reproductive health resources in the entire state — anti-abortion protests have been intensifying for the past several months, culminating in at least one arrest and increased numbers of volunteer clinic escorts working to safeguard the women walking to and from the health center.

Since state law requires the Alabama Women’s Center to list the days when abortion procedures might be performed, anti-abortion protesters are able to plan their harassment for days when the women visiting the clinic are likely to be seeking an abortion.

Pro-choice marchers recalled a particularly painful event last month when a woman whose baby had died en utero was coming to the clinic to have it removed. In an awful coincidence, that was the day, Watters said, when the pro-life demonstrators collected a children’s choir on the sidewalk to sing “Happy Birthday Dead Baby” to anyone driving in.

“Will had to physically restrain the father,” Watters said, nodding to one of the men marching in a pro-choice jacket. “And by the time she walked through them, she was an emotional wreck.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013...linic-escorts/

[crocoduck_hunter]

Rachael Maddow has been doing a special on abortion clinics in the US for the last few nights on her show.

And I just want to know how the NFBSK these protesters aren't arrested. Seriously, they're engaging in a campaign to harass and threaten the people who work or attempt to engage the services of one of these clinics. Every time I see a crowd I want to drive an industrial combine through it.

[Mrosie]

I have escorted someone to a follow-up appointment at PP Clinic, and since it was a beautiful day, the protesters were there in droves. They were fairly mellow, and not nearly as verbal as I thought they'd be... But it was disconcerting all the same and I can't imagine how it felt for the person I was with.

[Chloe]

They run the gamut. Some just pray, some shout to small children going in with their mothers that they kill children in there.

[Sue]

The one's I see most often in front of the hospital near me that does abortions are older men (as in been collecting a pension for a long long time) and all they do is march in front of the hospital holding signs. It must kill them that there's no real way for them to know who is going to the hospital for an abortion and who's just getting an x-ray or going to the eye clinic. Sucks to be them as they can't really get away with targeting anyone. It's too bad that a PP clinic seems to specialized that it allows them to assume that everyone's there for the same nefarious purpose .

[cehrriins]

Snarl.

I'm fairly libertarian and I'll support someone's right to their opinion even if it makes them an idiot. I'll support someone's right to voice their opinion, even if it makes them look like an idiot.

But how in the bloody hell am I supposed to square my conscience with anti-choice protesters who actively and willfully cause emotional damage to people (most of whom, I think, are women)? Ugh. They are "protesting" the wrong places...they should be marching on sessions of state legislatures, not wounding women's spirits. Since they do choose to do the wrong thing, I assume that they're more interested in attempting to cause guilt for individuals rather than actually trying to change the law.

I just. . .I can't even. . .It's only that. . .snarl.

[diddy]

I don't think they are interested in actually changing the law since for most people it's something seen as really difficult without having someone in power on your side doing it for you. I imagine overturning Roe vs Wade to be almost impossible to do which is why politicians try to water it down like they are.

Protesting at hospitals and imparting emotional grief is many many times easier and I think gets their jollies off more.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Because there's nothing libertarian about a group that wants to take someone else's freedom away via intimidation and fiat?

[Mickey Blue]

I dunno.. I would think that while they may disapprove on principle (trying to limit others from exercising their rights through intimidation) the only real solution would be increased government powers and/or decreased legal freedoms (since in most cases this would fall under freedom of speech).

I agree (I think) with diddy that this is less about actually facilitating any real change and more about a power trip by loudly and aggressively presenting their holier-then-thou attitudes towards (comparatively) powerless people.

[crocoduck_hunter]

By themselves, the protests probably wouldn't amount to much.

But they're not the only thing that's being done. There's also the campaign of violence against the people who work at such clinics as well as a variety of legal obstructions that have been passed in different states- mandatory waiting periods (especially if there's a cutoff limit in the pregnancy after which point a woman isn't allowed to get a non emergency abortion), mandatory ultrasounds, the compliance law in Mississippi that is by design impossible for the state's one remaining clinic to actually get, there's a lot of different tactics that are being employed simultaneously and in an organized manner in order to erode away at the availability of legal abortion.

[Ramblin' Dave]

Originally Posted by Sue

It must kill them that there's no real way for them to know who is going to the hospital for an abortion and who's just getting an x-ray or going to the eye clinic.

IME (I used to escort at a clinic in DC), they don't let that bother them at all. Even in the case of patients who aren't going for an abortion, they're still supporting an institution that provides them.

[Sue]

Originally Posted by Ramblin' Dave

IME (I used to escort at a clinic in DC), they don't let that bother them at all. Even in the case of patients who aren't going for an abortion, they're still supporting an institution that provides them.

I guess they save their bad behavior for protesting in front of the planned parenthood clinics (where no abortions are performed). It's too much to expect logic from them.

[LadyLockeout]

A provider here in Dallas successfully managed to get an order requiring all protesters to stay at least 50 feet away from their building. The protesters tried to retaliate by everyone having a megaphone. Unfortunately for them, standing 50 feet away from the building put them close to a school, and the school filed noise complaints along with complaining about the well being of the children (elementary school) with all the shrieks of "BABYKILLERS!!!!" going on outside.

Now the only protester I ever see out there is a single elderly lady who sets up a chair and holds a sign.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by crocoduck_hunter

Rachael Maddow has been doing a special on abortion clinics in the US for the last few nights on her show.

And I just want to know how the NFBSK these protesters aren't arrested. Seriously, they're engaging in a campaign to harass and threaten the people who work or attempt to engage the services of one of these clinics. Every time I see a crowd I want to drive an industrial combine through it.

Originally Posted by LadyLockeout

A provider here in Dallas successfully managed to get an order requiring all protesters to stay at least 50 feet away from their building. The protesters tried to retaliate by everyone having a megaphone. Unfortunately for them, standing 50 feet away from the building put them close to a school, and the school filed noise complaints along with complaining about the well being of the children (elementary school) with all the shrieks of "BABYKILLERS!!!!" going on outside.

Now the only protester I ever see out there is a single elderly lady who sets up a chair and holds a sign.

Massachusetts law provides for a 35-foor "buffer zone" outside the buildings.

It was recently upheld by an appeals court against First Amendment concerns.

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...=all#aComments

The First Amendment answers the question of why they're not arrested (provided they limit it to speech and not threats or violence). The incident in the OP (the "Happy Birthday . . . " song) is pretty outrageous but it's not illegal, without more.

Thanks.

Bill

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by Sue

The one's I see most often in front of the hospital near me that does abortions are older men (as in been collecting a pension for a long long time) and all they do is march in front of the hospital holding signs. It must kill them that there's no real way for them to know who is going to the hospital for an abortion and who's just getting an x-ray or going to the eye clinic. Sucks to be them as they can't really get away with targeting anyone. It's too bad that a PP clinic seems to specialized that it allows them to assume that everyone's there for the same nefarious purpose .

Because they don't believe n or even try to believe that pph actually helps people plan for children. I once watched a young woman leaving pph who was trying to prevent a miscarriage get confronted by those people with signs.

[Kallah]

Originally Posted by Bill

The incident in the OP (the "Happy Birthday . . . " song) is pretty outrageous but it's not illegal, without more.l

The song Happy Birthday To You is not yet in the public domain, and will not be for quite some time. According to Wiki, the current owners have been strictly enforcing payment and as recently as 2008 making millions from it (and the snopes page seems to back most of that up). I wonder if there's any merit in reporting the protestors, if they continue to use the song, in an attempt to force them to pay for the rights for public performances?

[LadyLockeout]

Originally Posted by Gayle

Because they don't believe n or even try to believe that pph actually helps people plan for children. I once watched a young woman leaving pph who was trying to prevent a miscarriage get confronted by those people with signs.

I had to sit my MIL down one day years ago, and actually take her through everything PPH offered in the way of health care for both men and women, to finally break her out of the "abortion factory" mentality.

[TurquoiseGirl]

I had a cousin's wife unfriend me because I pointed out, in respond to one of her many diatribes about PPH being an abortion factory, that it was my only source of healthcare in Northern New York when I lived there and that the clinic I went to didn't even do abortions because the local hospitals would not provide back up if something happened.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Kallah

The song Happy Birthday To You is not yet in the public domain, and will not be for quite some time. According to Wiki, the current owners have been strictly enforcing payment and as recently as 2008 making millions from it (and the snopes page seems to back most of that up). I wonder if there's any merit in reporting the protestors, if they continue to use the song, in an attempt to force them to pay for the rights for public performances?

And, just to complicate things even more, you've got the possibility that the song in the OP may be protected under the copyright law as a parody, depending on certain factors:

http://www.ehow.com/facts_7452431_so...right-law.html

Thanks.

Bill

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Kallah

I wonder if there's any merit in reporting the protestors, if they continue to use the song, in an attempt to force them to pay for the rights for public performances?

I don't think the protesters' performance of the song in these circumstances qualifies as a "public performance" under copyright law.

According to 17 USC Section 110 (5)(B) (Limitations on exclusive rights: Exemption of certain performances and display), the following is not an infringement of copyright:

performance of a musical work otherwise than in a transmission to the public, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage and without payment of any fee or other compensation for the performance to any of its performers, promoters, or organizers, if there is no direct or indirect admission charge