Planned Parenthood in DC loses “No Trespassing” bluff
I reported May 28 that longtime DC pro-life activist Rev. Pat Mahoney said, “Hey, wait a minute.” when spotting a fence and “No Trespassing” sign in front of the friendly neighborhood Planned Parenthood chop shop located 4 blocks from the White House.
Because of his longevity in DC, the good reverend knew PP was attempting to claim public property as its own.
To prompt a government response that was otherwise not forthcoming, Mahoney applied for a permit to hold a prayer vigil in front of the mill but was denied.
On June 8 Mahoney held his prayer vigil anyway and was promptly arrested for “unlawful entry,” again, part of the plan.
When Mahoney showed up in court on June 29 he learned, as WashingtonCityPaper.com reported:
Mahoney won’t be prosecuted on the charge – a rep from the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia confirmed that the office has declined to prosecute the case.
Yet PP’s fence and, more importantly, the “No Trespassing” signs remained up.
So Mahoney determined to hold another prayer vigil in front of the PP, this one for 30 hours on August 13 and 14. As he reported to the group at that time, he received word August 12 that “the DC Corporation Council and Attorney General have ruled that the sidewalk in front of PP DC is PUBLIC property and not private as they claimed.” Officials also told Mahoney they would not arrest pro-lifers for trespassing at the 2nd vigil, and indeed they did not.
On August 17 Mahoney and Bound4Life posted a video outlining his future plans. Mahoney said he will now file a civil lawsuit against the District of Columbia and PP.
And although PP knows its “Private Property, No Trespassing” signs are fraudulent, it has not removed them. So Mahoney is filing a complaint with the Dept. of Transportation Open Spaces Division to force PP to take down their signs.
I so love the tenacity of pro-lifers.
[Bottom photo via WashingtonCityPaper.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Great job Rev. Mahoney. God bless you. Thank for not being bullied and not allowing prolifers rights to freedom of speech and the freedom to peacefully assemble to be taken away.
Yes, God Bless Bro. Mahoney. Isn’t that convenient first they kill babies then the same law that is suppose to give rights to law abiding citizens they circumvent as well. That’s why when they play the mercy card or the victim card, my brain says yeah like your the victim when innocents are being killed daily. Until that gets resolved in a court of law I hope the same law that they so conveniently use to promote their hellish agenda pays them a little visit in a way that is completely legal and shows them to be the bullies they truly are.
Um… the bullies are the people outside the clinic trying to intimidate people into their way of thinking. PP does not protest outside the homes or churches of prominent Anti-Choice figures in front of their neighbors and children like Anti-Choicers do.
This is yet another PASSIVE attempt by PP to get you people to mind your own business. I mean you could just respect the signs and hold your protest 15 yards down the side walk where you wouldn’t be blocking and intimidating PP’s patients… but you won’t because your whole intension is to bully people away from the PP door.
PP does not bully ANYONE!!! Not even the protesters outside their door. They leave then out there to hold all the protests they want so long as they don’t bother employees or clients, but it’s not enough for you people to just have your protest and go home is it. No you need to impose your will on others with propaganda, threats of social judgment, and even violence. PP does not try to impose their will on anyone; they simply offer services and education.
Yes I know you guys don’t agree with the education that PP offers but we went through 8 years of Bush abstinence education and it had 0 effects on abortion and STD numbers… It’s not like PP has people standing outside your child’s high school holding up pictures of afterbirth and bloody torn vagina’s…
Sidewalk Counselor is euphemism for Screaming Door Blocking Bully. If it was up to me, PP would handle protests the way the teamsters unions used to… with baseball bats, because those of us who went to public school know how to handle a bully.
You do not understand the meaning of prayer vigil, Biggz.
I will NEVER “mind my own business” as long as innocent preborn humans are being killed and women are being wounded.
I know it would be great if we just went away. Not gonna happen.
So violence is ok as long as it is against us anti lifers, Biggz? Yeah. Bullying sounds about right.
Biggz, what does this have to do with PP claiming public property as private property? Isn’t that still illegal no matter WHAT you think of sidewalk counselors?
Biggz, you’ve obviously never seen a sidewalk counselor. Handing out pamphlets and offering help is hardly “screaming door blocking bullying.”
I see sidewalk counselors two or three times a week. PP is across the street from where I work…. I have personally witnessed and taped “Sidewalk Counselors” yelling and screaming words like “Whore and Murderer” at young women just trying to get FREE birth control. It never made since to me why the “Abortion Industry” would give away free birth control if they were trying to make money but whatever….. I have personally witnessed these counselors chase girls over a block to keep talking to them while the girls steadily walk away with backs turned. That’s not counseling people its harassing people. You should hear how these “sidewalk counselors” counsel the PP staff as well… its disgusting to say the least. The term “sidewalk counselor” is a lie in itself as nobody but a judge can force counseling on someone else. The name should be changed to “Sidewalk Abortion Interventionists” Still not the truth but it’s closer. Did you guys know that a “pro-lifer” just recently planted a bomb outside a PP clinic that went off. The police said that had the “pro-life” activist been able to plant it anywhere inside the clinic it would have KILLED everyone in the building! That’s Pro-life for ya…
“I have personally witnessed and taped “Sidewalk Counselors” yelling and screaming words like “Whore and Murderer” at young women just trying to get FREE birth control.”
doubt it very much.
show us the video and btw, how did you know they were going in for “free birth control” ? Did you ask?
Well by the bag they were carrying… Like I said I have spent a bit of time in PP and I have a daughter and wife who use birth control in the same pink box. I have picked it up for them as like I said it’s across the street from where I work. I am guessing about the free part but it looked to me that these girls wouldn’t be able to afford them on their own. I could be wrong but it doesn’t take anything away from my point.
The tape I made was turned over to the PP security desk to be used as evidence in an upcoming city council meeting about buffer zone laws. If the city ordnance gets passed “and it’s looking good” I WILL 100% post it on this site for you guys as I will be over the moon proud.
Elizabeth – It is a legal matter but it’s the protesters who continue to push the boundaries of the law. They continue to try to find loopholes in legislation that will allow them to interfere with clients going into and out of PP’s. PP is simply trying to protect clients from being accosted a foot outside their front door with propaganda and insults. While it is true that these types of actions are not going to stand up in a court of law it did clear the sidewalk for a few weeks and I am sure many clients were happy to not have to deal with loud protesters.
It doesn’t matter WHY PP justified it. They put up a FENCE around PUBLIC PROPERTY. To justify that in any way is unacceptable. It’s a form of stealing, plain and simple.
It’s not “finding a loop hole in legislation” to do something to force a private company to return the public right of way to the public.
Biggz:
“Over the moon proud”? Here are a couple of videos that will make you extra proud.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6860854372894347704)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kRwcAH5UZk
Biggz, you do realize that there is a difference between sidewalk counseling and protesting, right? The former is done by any old person, the latter by trained volunteers who are supervised and sign very specific forms against harassment. There are also people who do not interact with the women at all, but rather simply stand and pray. You seem to be conflating everyone who stands outside of an abortion clinic, but that is not the reality.
I’d also like to add that even 99% of protesters are not the least bit harrassing to the women going into an abortion clinic. I’ve stood outside a lot of clinics, and I’ve never heard anyone yell anything close to “whore” or “slut.”
OH, and I can’t hear what the person in your video is saying, but it’s blatantly obvious that he is just some guy walking his dog who happened to walk past an abortion clinic and decided to mouth off. For all we know he’s a pro-choicer who is trying to make pro-lifers look bad.
Well Elisabeth is it not impeding the public right of way when a small section of the population disagrees with the majority and blocks private property? I understand that the sidewalk is public property; however that public property has to be crossed to access the private property. If the public property is blocked completely in front of private property then you are locking off property the public does not own.
If I lined the sidewalk outside your house with people so that you could not enter your driveway or gain access to your front door would you not be upset? When you friends couldn’t come over or your kids could not go to the dentist because my friends and I will not allow you in or out of your property while yelling awful insults at your family the whole time would you not be upset?
When the cops showed up and told you there was nothing they could do to help you because it is in our legal right to stand on public property and read our Charles Darwin books as long as we want would you not be upset?
If when your daughter came out the front door of your house, and my friends and I call her stupid, retard, or a substandard human, because we can see her math test sticking out of her note book with a D- on the front, would you not be concerned about your daughter privacy and protected right to be a little behind in math?
You see this is the difference between having morals and convictions vs. trying to force them on someone else.
The truth is that protesting outside a medical clinic is really stepping all over someone else’s liberty and constitutional right to medical privacy, while proclaiming your own constitutional right to do so….
This is a political fight that’s needs to be fought in congress or a court of law… just something to think about.
Can you honestly not see the difference between the right of way being obstructed by something temporary, such as the presence of human beings…. and something relatively permanent, A FENCE and a sign that claims that public property is private property.
Why are you so intent on PP NEVER being wrong that you cannot admit that they were wrong to do this? It is a form of stealing.
Your example is apples and oranges. PP is a corporation. I am a private citizen. And if you wanted to stand on the public right of way outside of my home I would welcome you to it… watch out for the logging trucks, though. They’re liable to smash you flat….
Littlez,
You’re actually getting to be very funny. Seriously. You are taking a small minority of sidewalk counselors to task for being…. well…. like you!
Bombastic, shrill, inaccurate, persistent in being erroneous. You come here throwing all sorts of wild imaginings against the wall, hoping to see some of it stick. You never respond appropriately when countered with facts, except to throw a whole new pile of wild imaginings against the wall and so on.
What bothers you most about those counselors of whom you speak is that you see yourself reflected in them. Now you know how you appear to us.
So now, Biggz, you’re only “guessing” that the birth control is free? Yet you seemed to sure of it up above. What else might you be guessing at? How close did you actually stand to those prolife counselors when you taped them? Across the street? Did you really hear them scream insults or were you just “guessing” that too?
I have to say that I myself have participated as part of a prayer team at an abortion mill where sidewalk counseling was going on, and I have absolutely NEVER seen any of the behavior you have described from prolifers. Rather it was the pro-abort counter-protesters who used all the obscenities and shouted anti-Christian slogans. And you know what? The same pattern has been repeated here at this site over and over in the months I’ve been here. Ill mannered words, screaming, obscenities and Christian-bashing on one side,, and generally polite and intelligent conversation from the other. Guess which side is which? The prolifers here may have lost their tempers from time to time (a great human temptation in the face of the constant assault of bilge we have to put up with), but nothing like what I see here from the other side.
Biggz
If it were your job to silence babies Biggz, what then would be your weapon of choice?
I see about three different kinds of people outside one of the big clinics in my area: protesters, sidewalk counselors, and praying people. They are not interchangeable, although some of the sidewalk counselors also spend time in prayer. The protesters in general take up the most publicly visible corner, while the counselors are less visible because they’re near the driving entrances. The protesters tend to attract the most attention, and sometimes they do have ‘offending signs.’
What pro-choice advocates don’t understand is very simple: this is a life or death issue. This is not about a women choosing to wear blue or black shoes, or a woman choosing to go to this job interview or that college. The women we are trying to reach are involved in child murder. If I were killing children in my home or business, I would hope that someone would indeed be outraged enough to protest. Any one of us who has volunteered our time at a clinic has experienced spitting, shouting, profanities and curses. It isn’t fun, there is no pay, and it has even caused tension in our friendships and relationships with pro-choice people that we know and love. But we do it anyway, because when the weak are being murdered, we can’t stand idly by and silently consent.
What Biggz said that the bullies are outside. NOPE, I disagree. The bullies are all on the inside. They don’t give them all the information that they need. Tell me something if PP was REALLY for women and their rights, why don’t they do abortions for free? all free!!! Why do they take money from the gov’t? Because its a money maker for them.
Patti,
Agreed!! PP sells abortion. They use lies to do it. Stating it is just a bunch of cells or just tissue.
Only offering ONE choice(abortion)isn’t choice.
Planned Parenthood has every right to defend itself against abortion protesters who harass women and interfere with them when they go there.And please stop using the ridiculous label”abortion mill” for a multifaceted organization like PP,which provides much more than abortion services for women.
PP has every right to exist and function as it chooses,and no one,but no one,has any right to interfere with it.
What will it take,a pro=choice fanatic who takes a machine gun and guns down a whole group of violent anti-abortion protesters,to show how wrong these foolish and misguided people are? They are nothing but a bunch of self-rightwous hypocrites who think they have the right to interfere with other women’s right to choose an abortion.
And they couldn’t care less about the uinborn once they’re born.Yes,I know,you anti-choicers are always citing questionable statistics about conservatives contributing more money to charities than liberal pro-choicers,but that’s a red herring and a total cop out,because private charities cannot even come remotely close to providing enough care for poor pregnant women.
Why dpn’t these pathetic losers who are always protesting at abortion facilities just get a life and do something constructive for achange?
What pro-choice advocates don’t understand is very simple: this is a life or death issue. This is not about a women choosing to wear blue or black shoes, or a woman choosing to go to this job interview or that college. The women we are trying to reach are involved in child murder. If I were killing children in my home or business, I would hope that someone would indeed be outraged enough to protest. Any one of us who has volunteered our time at a clinic has experienced spitting, shouting, profanities and curses. It isn’t fun, there is no pay, and it has even caused tension in our friendships and relationships with pro-choice people that we know and love. But we do it anyway, because when the weak are being murdered, we can’t stand idly by and silently consent.
Ninek,
Excellent! Thank you for that!
Bergs, all human beings start out as a tiny zygote that develops into an embryo that further develops until it is a newborn, a toddler, a teenager, and finally a full grown adult. Even pro-choice advocates started their life in this way. We are mammals; we do not emerge from spores or hatch from eggs. Unborn children have no political voice or opinion. Whether the children grow up to embrace this belief or that, we want all children to get a chance. PP’s monetary gain is based on murder-for-hire. The chintzy brittle condoms and low-dose birth control pills are just a come-on for the real money maker. Anyone who defends them shares in their blood guilt.
Someday, when women no longer ask to kill their babies, when women’s mothers, boyfriends, husbands, and bosses no longer coerce or bully them into killing their babies, then and only then will we find something more fun and constructive to do. I plan to take up golf in the post-abortive universe.
Mr. Berger, perhaps you will address what Biggz refuses to:
PP put a fence around public property and claimed (falsely) that it was private property. This is a form of stealing. Will you address the fact that PP attempted to take over public property as its own?
First of all, Robert, read the article. The issue is that Planned Parenthood is claiming that the area in front of it’s building is private property. It is not. I can’t just go fence off part of my street and say it’s my property. Sorry, doesn’t work like that.
Next as to this quote “Why dpn’t these pathetic losers who are always protesting at abortion facilities just get a life and do something constructive for achange?”
Ask the hundreds of women who are helped by side walk counselors each year if they think that volunteers were doing something constructive? I’m willing to bet that they would say yes. Not everyone going into the clinic actually wants an abortion. Many simply can’t see any other way out of the siutation. We give them options. Real options, not the kind that kill your baby and your soul.
Berger
This is a pro-life site so I feel comfortable doing this. I tried to evoke sympathy for the unborn baby at a pro-choice site and was chided for it. Your observation was that they should find something better to do than provide a physical presence to advocate for life. Let’s pretend for a moment that it was you all snugly in your moma’s womb. Pragmatic Robert ready to be born in 6 months and ready to help the world be better for economically disadvantange moms. Alas only in this scenario,your mom was not the fighter that Robert was destined to be and was being pressured by some dead beat to abort the baby. Now let’s pretend also that God in his wisdom had sent you to a moma that did not have the fight in her that her soon to be son had from the top of his stubborn stubborn head to the bottom of his little crinkled toes. And then lets assume that God in his wisdom was sending Robert to a moma who would be so able to see her sons goodness. And yet all deadbeat or jealous antagonists could see in his moma was something that they thought they would never be capable of achieving, whatever it was in Roberts moma that they were envious of or resented. On that day when her heart was heavy and her own spirit dying where do you suggest the sidewalk counselors be? What would be really nice is if you took some of that misguided zeal and brought yourself to one of those sidewalks and started handing out roses to the soon to be moms. Now of course those who would not want the roses you wouldn’t insist that they take them but to the mom whose heart was breaking and whose spirit was crying maybe a rose would make the difference.
If “fetuses” and “embryos” are really human, and they are, as even many pro-abortion people state, then what can be more constructive then trying to end the murder of thousands upon thousands of people? If a large segment of the German population had protested, had prayer vigils, etc outside Nazi concentration camps, we would all think fondly of them. Now the only real difference is that with abortion the life of the child is hidden, at least to those who wish not to see it. So while the malevolence may not be the same, the effect is. The murder of millions of persons.
As for PP never bullying, http://www.prolifecorner.com/node/333 . Now of course just like the pro-abortion poster above claiming he has videos, this is anecdotal. One instance is just that, one instance. But to be logically consistent the post above, since he wishes to draw generalizing conclusions from his claimed experience, must admit that PP are a bunch of violent and hatefilled people.
Robert:
You act as though pro-lifers are the aggressors. Let me tell you about aggression. Do you understand what abortion is? If dismembering defenseless babies (50 million thus far) is not the ultimate form of aggression, I do not know what is. It is not the pro-lifers that are dismembering those babies.
And as for the conduct of people outside of abortion clinics you need to go back and check out the videos I posted at 9:38 yesterday. Not exactly rational intellectual discourse! Of course this is just a small sampling of the outrageous conduct we have witnessed over the years coming from pro-aborts.
What you’re saying about my mother is ridiculous.She wasn’t in those kind of circumstances when I was born. She was married to my father,an Army officer, and she wasn’t poor and desperate. I was born into good circumstances.But not all pregnant women are this lucky.
And what if she had miscarried ? So what? This happens all the time.
Apparently Robert doesn’t understand the concept of “let’s pretend” and even worse, seems to lack the ability to truly empathize with another human being by, as Buddha would say, becoming the one in pain.
Luck has nothing to do with it, Robert. Try offering a scared young pregnant woman help, support and a shoulder(instead of killing)and you would be amazed how they embrace life. I have seen it with my own eyes.
Love wins.
berger
That was a hyphothetical situation. You mustn’t assume that being economically disadvantaged is the end of the world. It isn’t. And to pretend or to use words that make a difficult situation look like one that is hopeless is intelluctually dishonest.
Come back from the grave oh little spark of life
And let me hold your little hand and spare you from the pain
the pain that ended your little life and broke my heart in two come back from the grave and I will tell you truth. Truth of the many lies, the lies they told to me of prophecies so gloomy that’s all that I could see. And while they collected money your headstone I could see and my little’s one’s life they traded for money, something I still can’t see. They have the courage to sing there song a song of lies and woe, did they even grieve when I was told to let you go. I drive a better car now and my bills are all paid but I carry within me a sight of your little grave. Your body is no longer with me their strengh was stronger than mine, but I carry your remembrance within me oh little heart of mine. Someday when they are poor and their money has abandoned them they will remember the “choice”, the choice they gave to me. Choice to kill my little heart the one I carried within me. Oh Lord will they ever feel the pain that I did feel I know the answer not. So I’m praying there monies leave them not a little but a lot.. And when there living in their poverty and words of hope they do need please remember the lies they told me the lies offered so easily. And as they struggle in their lack and a word of hope they do need please see to it they get it the same hope they gave to me.
I never had an abortion but this is dedicated to all moms who have experienced the pain of abortion. It’s more than sad and not well written but if it brings healing to one heart it will have a served it’s purpose. The only pain that I have had that would come close to a mom that has aborted as the result of a lie is when it was suggested to me that I put my son who has Downs’ in a group home. Sometimes I guess the ignorant are just that ignorant.
You anti-choicers just don’t get it. Women have abortions because they don’t have the means to take decent care of children.They don’t want to bring children into the world who are doomed to grow up without decent food,shelter,clothing,education and medical care.
You can’t just tell poor women,” just give birth even of you’re desperately poor and can’t take care of your children,born or unborn. Your kid might grow up to be President of the USA or win the lottery”.
We already have too many chiildren who don’t get these necessities. Unless we do something to make sure that children will get what they need,abortion will be common whether it’s legal or not. And I repeat-you anti-choicers don’t give a you-know-what about the unborn once they’re born,despite your disingenuous,smug and self-serving claims that you do.
In order to greatly reduce abortion rates in America,it would be necessary for the government to allocate billions of dollars to help poor families,and poor pregnant women,married or single. Is the government willing or able to do this? I have my doubts.
And remember- private charities can’t even come remotely close to providing enough help for poor pregnant women and their children.
Like all pro-choicers, I very much want to prevent as many abortions as possible.
But it’s absolutely impossible to do this the way you anti-chopicers want to have it done.
You’re simply out of touch with reality.
Robert,
When would you say abortion should not happen if you want to prevent as many abortions as possible? And you can’t say all pro-choicers want as few abortions as possible because not all pro-choicers do –many are indifferent, many are absolute advocates, yet you paint them with a virtuous broad brush and us with a broad brush of slander and all those who go into a clinic with the cloak of Les Miserable type pain and circumstance to exhonerate them from any moral consequences of their actions.
I have known two women personally, both of whom were in less than ideal situations, (both unmarried and one was a teenager), who because they got a shoulder to cry on in a moment of great pain, opted to keep their children and life got better in part because they faced their lives, they took on the responsiblity and lo, the community around them proved to be far less cruel than imagined when scared and alone.
These people who protest or counsel, often also give to pregnancy centers that provide shelter, education, access to medical care and safety to women in need and alone in the world. You throw up lots of scenarios but the people here have countered with specific stories. You argue that there aren’t enough private charities to service them all. Perhaps there would be a great deal more if the ease of procuring an abortion weren’t the preferred method of our society for dealing with the poor, the ignorant, the unwed, the scared and the unborn disabled.
Others have aruged we should do something constructive with our lives as defined by them; we believe we are saving lives, saving families. The fact that there aren’t enough existing resources to save every one of the 50 million that have been lost thus far to PP and abortion does not mean we should do nothing. Based on that logic, we should never do anything to help the poor or the suffering because no matter what we do; the solutions we can offer are not perfect and do not guarantee a pain free suffering free struggle free life for all involved.
Hi Robert,
If WE do not get it WHY do you keep coming here? You must be a glutton for punishment.
Here are some statistics for ya. Why women abort. Although, you never seem to have any stats of your own. hmmmm
******************************************************************
92% of Women Cite “Social” or “Other” as the Most Important Reason for Abortion 6
25% Not ready for another child/timing is wrong
23% Can’t afford a baby now
19% Completed my childbearing/have other people depending on me/children are grown
8% Having relationship problems/don’t want to be a single mother
7% Not mature enough to raise a child/too young to have a child
4% Child would interfere with education or career plans
4% Physical problem with my health
3% Possible health problems of the baby
0.5% Rape/husband or partner wants abortion/parents want abortion/don’t want anyone to know about pregnancy
6% Other
These were the most important reasons cited in a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) appearing in the September 2005 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
Robert,
Why do you want to prevent abortion? What could possibly be wrong with abortion?