“The victims deserve to be seen” Abortion opponents debate the use of graphic photos in anti-abortion activism - Contributoria

“People shouldn’t be upset that we are showing what is happening in an abortion clinic,” says Protest ABQ’s Shaver. “People should be upset that this is actually happening in an abortion clinic. We are just the messenger.”

Read the rest at Contributoria

"Why So Many Abortion Providers Still Feel So Unsafe" - Cosmopolitan.com

In May of 2009, Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his local church. In October of 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot by a sniper while in his own kitchen. These deaths drew countless newspaper headlines, but for many Americans, the violence and harassment of abortion providers is thought of as a thing of the past.

To providers across the country, however, it's something they've never left behind.

Bulletproof vests, gun permits, and Halloween masks have become tools of the trade for a number of providers across the country, many of whom fear the harassment of anti-abortion activists who don't just target them, but their families and neighbors as well. It's an ongoing and mostly unspoken issue that spurred law professor David S. Cohen and attorney Krysten Connon to write the new book Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism, on shelves this May.

read the rest at Cosmopolitian.com

How long will you have to wait for an abortion in 2016?

Updated on April 21, 2015

At the moment, North Carolina and Oklahoma are both trying to create 72 hour in person waiting periods for an abortion - although not necessarily face to face with two trips to the doctor's office. If they pass, that would make them states four and five in the country requiring a three day wait. But they aren't the only ones lengthening waiting periods, in many cases requiring two trips to the doctor or extending how far apart those trips need to be.

Based on the information from Guttmacher and the currently pending bills, I've created a map that shows what abortion wait periods will be like in 2016 if all the bills in the legislature pass. The focus is on those that require two trips into a clinic, since that is a far greater burden on a patient. Purple states require two trips to a clinic 72 hours apart, green states require two trips 48 hours apart, and blue states require two trips 24 hours apart. Tennessee's bill, which is heading to the governor for signature, requires 48 hours but would reduce that wait to 24 if the law is challenged in court.

"These Alabama protesters became a gateway for women’s access to abortion - and more" - Contributoria

"Pregnancy prevention isn’t only an on-paper project for the group, but one they embrace in real life crisis situations as well. One ARRA member recounted a time when the group helped a mother of four obtain emergency contraception after she and her husband had unprotected sex. The woman had already had many difficult pregnancies and wasn’t sure if her health could withstand another, but when she approached her husband about her taking the morning-after pill to be completely certain, he said that if she got pregnant, obviously it was meant to be.

His complete control over the family finances made it impossible for her to purchase the medicine, which, while sold over the counter, often costs $40-$50 for a dose, without him noticing the expense. ARRA stepped in and paid for the drugs from its own fund, just as it has financially assisted dozens of women struggling to finance their own healthcare needs." - read the rest at Contributoria.

A Grisly Crime In Colorado Could Give 'Personhood' Laws Their Best Shot - TPM Cafe

"With this latest crime used as another plank in the fetal personhood argument, extreme abortion opponents may be able to gain traction where they couldn’t before. While an unborn baby lost in a car accident is a heartbreaking event, it doesn’t compare to the visceral reaction one has after hearing about a nearly full term baby literally cut from the womb of the mother who was carrying it, then left gasping for breath until it died."

read the rest at TPM Cafe

"On the sidewalks of a Chicago clinic a battle about how to end abortion" - Clinic Stories: Chicago Excerpt

The activists standing outside Albany Medical Surgical Center, the Family Planning Associates Medical Group clinic on North Elston Avenue often differ depending on the day of the week.

If it is a Thursday, Joe and Ann Scheidler, the founding couple of Chicago’s pro-life movement, may be there with signs and pleas to patients entering the doors. On Saturday, it is far more likely to be Ryan Bouse, who cut his protest teeth in Joe Scheidler’s office, but is now in the midst of writing his own script for ending abortion in the city.

Bouse and the Scheidlers represent two schools of tactics in the anti-abortion movement. While Bouse and his cohorts counter what they see as today’s culture of biblical immorality with narratives heavy on sin and redemption, the Scheidlers are focused on the immediate “save” of pregnancies about to be ended.

Both, however, have made the clinic on Elston a regular stop when it comes to their mission.

“I need to come every Thursday to remember,” said Joe Scheidler. “I need to come at least once a week to reaffirm the reality of abortion. This is a place where a woman is going in with a live child, and inside they will terminate that life.”

It’s hard to believe that Joe Scheidler, even at 87, is in danger of forgetting anything. When I visited his office at the Pro-Life Action League in August, it was a shrine to his more than 40 years of trying to stop legal abortion.

One wall was covered in pictures of popes, bishops and politicians supporting Scheidler’s crusade and letters of commendation for his efforts in the pro-life movement. Directly behind his desk chair hung a large portrait of a brightly haloed Jesus.

A curio cabinet was filled with memorabilia from his decades palling around with and organizing the most notorious anti-abortion activists in history. On one shelf rested a coffee cup declaring “The World’s Best Dad.” Next to it: a copy of the infamous “Have a Blast!” photo from a 1985 Pro-Life Action Network conference in Appleton, Wisconsin, of which the Pro-Life Action League and Scheidler was the key organizer.

That photo depicts group members holding signs demanding the jailing of “baby-killers” while standing in front of a kiosk that read “Welcome Pro-Life Activists, Have a Blast!” It was one of many pieces of evidence in the landmark suit generally known as National Organization for Women (NOW) v. Scheidler. In the case, Scheidler and other anti-abortion activists were accused of racketeering to intimidate and commit violence, including clinic bombings and arson, against abortion providers. After being decided in favor of NOW in 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2006.

“We’ve had trouble with other pro-lifers,” Scheidler said as we sat in his office and I looked through his extensive collection. “We had those who went off the deep end, and then started shooting and bombing and all that stuff. We knew these people, and we had meetings with them.  We even have met them after they get out of prison, and so on. They’re still pro-life. They just went too far.”

In the corner stood a television and VCR and DVD player at the ready. With it, Scheidler shows guests tutorials about the “Chicago Style” of “sidewalk counseling,” the term abortion opponents have given to their attempts to talk a patient out of an abortion just before she enters a clinic. Other videos on his playlist include interviews with former abortion providers who have changed their minds, left their jobs and joined the pro-life movement. But Scheidler’s favorite, “Holy Terror,” is a mid-’80s NOW documentary about him and other Pro-Life Action Network members. He finds the film so enjoyable that he urged me multiple times to sit down and watch the whole thing.

“See, I am the ‘Holy Terror,’” he joked.

Download the entire article here.  For photos outside the Elston Clinic, click here.

Meet Joe Scheidler, Patriarch of the Anti-Abortion Movement (Public Eye)

"Decades later, Scheidler’s advice for establishing direct contact with those who perform or support abortion has been mostly discarded, but some of his ideas occasionally reappear. In 2013, Dr. Cheryl Chastine, a reproductive health and abortion provider at South Wind Women’s Center in Wichita, Kansas, received two pieces of mail to her home address, both sent from Pro-Life Action League. The first was a letter from Joe’s wife Ann, Pro-Life Action League’s Vice President, asking her to meet for a cup of coffee to discuss why Dr. Chastine performs abortions. Later, she received an invitation to the League’s Christmas party.

Both mailings came just months after PLAL systematically and methodically pressured ²² Dr. Chastine’s private practice into severing ties with her. PLAL’s tactics included protests, letters to other businesses sharing the space, and threats of more public actions against the building if their professional relationships continued." - more at Public Eye.