Home protest makes Orlando Planned Parenthood CEO cry
Jenna Tosh returned home from a walk with her family Saturday morning to an unwelcome surprise: 28 pro-life activists conducting an awareness campaign in front of her home.
Jenna promptly burst into tears.
This spring 28-yr-old Jenna was promoted to the position of CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando in Florida. One of the two clinics Jenna oversees commits abortion.
Jenna lives on a busy street in Winter Park. Why did she start crying Saturday? She could have been humiliated by the exposure. She could have been upset that her young son saw graphic photos of how she makes her living. She could have been shocked at the realization her home was no longer a respite. The best hope is Jenna’s heart was pierced, and she’s on the road to a conversion. I do know a lot of people were praying for Jenna Saturday and continue to pray.
Here’s the short version of Jenna’s response to the pro-lifers…
Pro-lifers conducted their awareness campaign for 1-1/2 hours. During that time Jenna’s husband turned on the sprinkler system, and they also called the police.
Police told one of the pro-lifers they were called to the home under false pretenses. Whoever called them claimed the pro-lifers were playing loud music, yelling at cars passing by, and blocking the road and sidewalk, none of which turned out to be true, as he noted. “He observed only people in cars yelling at us,” wrote the pro-lifer.
As Michele Herzog, one of the pro-lifers, told me, the goal of pro-life protests at the homes of abortion providers is “‘to speak up for those who have no voice’ (Proverbs 31:8) and ‘to have nothing to do with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but to rather expose them’ (Ephesians 5:11).”
In the past these awareness campaigns have borne fruit, the most recent example being just a couple months ago, also in Florida, when abortionist Scott Hye saw the light and quit the trade. We pray Jenna also sees the light. Jenna, you have a PhD, for heaven sakes. You could do so much better.
Here is the long version of the Saturday protest at Jenna’s home, prepared by Jay Rogers, who also wrote a detailed post about it…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvB4E9__FAU[/youtube]
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.
Out on an enjoyable stroll with her family when her evil reality hits her in the face.
amen Amen, what great work these pro-lifers are doing. They are doing the work of the Church.
Todd
ProLifeBook.com
”Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” ~2 Corinthians 7:9-10
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. Praying and protesting at clinics is one thing, but demonizing and confronting clinic workers at their home is quite another. We wouldn’t want them to show up out our houses, would we. I’m not saying this is wrong, but it does seem to cross a line for me. I wonder what Christ would think.
There’s already been a couple of Scriptures posted as to what Christ would do.
““‘to speak up for those who have no voice’ (Proverbs 31:8) and ‘to have nothing to do with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but to rather expose them’ (Ephesians 5:11).”
When it come to those “who have no voice” Christ would have been their voice. Even if that means confronting the evil-doers at their home. Abortionist expect this kind of confrontation at the abortion clinic…when it’s brought into their “comfort zone” it becomes personal.
Laura:
My take is this: they turn the womb into a killing field. Not in the abstract — they actually do this.
In proportion to that, protests at their homes are indistinguishable from just chewing gum.
Is it right? Is it simply not wrong? Is it wise? Is it effective? I think it depends a lot on the character of the protests.
Laura says: “I’m not quite sure how I feel about this…demonizing and confronting workers at their home…”
You know Laura, I was there and I am not quite sure how I felt about it either. However, it is not how I feel, but what the Word of God commands us to do. “Have nothing to do with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).
We hear a lot from people about the graphic photos and how wrong it is for children to be exposed to them. I agree that it is wrong and horrific for anyone to have to be exposed to that sight. But that is the whole point, isn’t it? We need to expose the horror of abortion because the church has become so adept at ignoring it.
I always fall back on the Jewish Holocaust analogy. Suppose you knew people who were concentration camp workers that lived in your neighborhood. Suppose that it was in a time and place where you were still free to expose the murderers and call for justice. Would you be so concerned about when and where that exposure occurred? Would you be concerned that it is wrong to “demonize” the Jews’ killers? Would you be so concerned that neighborhood children might inadvertently learn that the Nazi government supports the killing of the Jews?
You hopefully would say no, but many Germans used the same arguments pro-lifers use today about being “too extreme” in our approach. They were told to be “good Germans.” We are told to be “loving Christians” and “What would Jesus do?” I wonder if this is the same Jesus who drove the money changers out of His Father’s house with whips?
Dr. Francis Schaeffer prophesied that we cannot have both legalized killing and religious freedom for very long in the same culture. And that is the scary part. Neighborhood awareness campaigns are very effective. This are legal under the first amendment (speech, religion, press, assembly and petition). The police in our state have always respected our law abiding attitude as we respect them for keeping the peace.
But how long will we have that freedom? Will God’s people rise up before it is too late?
The whole abortion procedure has been so “sanitized” over the years. Women are encouraged to come in for a “routine” procedure. Some facilities even make into almost like a visit to a spa. When you show the reality of what’s really happening it makes everyone very uncomfortable.
Ugh home protests. It’s legal and I defend that right but… Ugh.
Too frickin’ bad.
Great job!
No justice, no peace.
These people profit from killing children. That’s lowest of the low. They shouldn’t be allowed to go home, “tag base” as if it’s a children’s game, and just forget about everything they’ve done that day. They facilitate the killing of children for money. This is not a game.
Shouldn’t this woman be proud of her position as CEO of PP?
Why would these signs make her cry? Unless……she was shedding the blood of innocent children for profit.
The truth hurts.
I agree Xalisae.
@ Carla
I dare to say that the neighbors probably weren’t even aware what Tosh did for a living.
I really, really wonder what these people’s children think they do for a living. I mean, I couldn’t ever imagine telling them the truth, and at the very least they must not learn it until they are fairly old enough to understand this stuff. (of course, how old is that anyway?)
If those who support protesting at her home also support protesting pedophilia at the homes of Jerry Sandusky’s family members, at least you are consistent.
The same would go for protesting at Catholic Bishops’ homes when they are known to cover up what happened in the church.
And, yes, this is related. The issue is neighborhood protests.
Laura, I was at this Awareness Campaign and if you want to call preaching, praying worshiping and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ demonizing, you have that right, but demonizing it was not. Confronting yes, because we are commanded to expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness. There was alot of praying going on for this woman when we were out there, please join us now in praying for her that she will leave the business that profits from the blood of innocent little baby boys and girls that die a brutal death.
She is only 28? Thats a hard 28! It reminds me of how quickly presidents age during their term. All that stress….it can wear on you. I can’t see how you can run clinics that pull children in pieces from their mother’s wombs and not feel the weight of that horror. And that can age you pretty quickly.
Not sure how I feel about home protests either but I understand why they do it.
And in answer to Laura-
I don’t give a rat’s rear if someone wants to show up to my home complaining about how Pro-Life I am. It’s something I’m proud of, so more power to them. I stick up for those who cannot defend themselves and who are being killed. It’s not a big secret when I’m standing alone outside the clinic with a homemade “SecularProLife.Org” sign in the middle of downtown Milwaukee. It’s not something I would have to awkwardly explain to my kids, because they already KNOW, and they know it’s something of which to be PROUD. Trying to protect the defenseless is admirable. If abortion is so peachy keen, then embrace those dead babies, and OWN that shiz, ‘cuz it’s YOURS, BABY! I got mine, and I’m proud of it.
Oh she has a little child I see. How can you kill other women’s children and then go home to your own child?
If you want to know what she’s thinking, ask someone like Abby Johnson. I’m sure Abby would say that this would hurt her conversion more than help it, but I can’t say that positively. I am inclined to think that this demonstration did not come off as a helping gesture, but instead as intimidating and judgmental. I go out and pray at abortion facilities, and I sure wouldn’t want to come home to an abortionist who is demonstrating against me in front of my house.
Of course it is good and right to defend life. But is such an action an actual defense? Do you really think that by standing in front of this woman’s house you’re changing her heart and mind? If anything, she probably hates pro-lifers now, and will be less inclined to listen to reason or love. She will probably be even more hardheaded and hardhearted as she goes to work each day.
I find this unsettling. While I understand and support exposing the dark deeds of the abortion industry… I also wonder, do the rest of us look at our own sin the same way?
Do protests in front of homes change the hearts of anyone? Or do they serve to bring more sympathy to the side of the person being exposed?
I really don’t know the answers.
I don’t like the idea of home protests. I think it will lead to a “back-fire” outcome. Protesters look like thy cannot succeed in regular channels for political and civic discourse, and so are easily disregarded outright with no one receiving any insight.
What is the goal? Educate her child or children? Educate her neighbors? I don’t see these avenues as being addressed well, or being effective in the change desired.
I am sure that anyone having this type of activity in front of their home causes them to wonder how safe the home is – there have been liberal protests at the homes of bankers – led by “community organizers” where the child-age child or children were at home, waiting fo rthe parent to come home from work.
This is very scary to children. Is this the strategy? Cause the child to have nightmares, cry, and so pressure the parent to resign from their job?
Most direct example:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/news/companies/SEIU_Bank_of_America_protest.fortune/index.htm
Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.
“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”
-end quote.
Jesus had some face-to-face with people in temple, in the streets, and when they reeled him in to govt settings (jail, court). Jesus DID visit a lot of people in their homes. Review your NT and note what he was doing at people’s HOMES versus the recognized sites of public activity and discourse, and the religious meeting sites.
For some reason, my edit didn’t go through.
Basically, if an abortionist did come and stand outside of my house, I would try to use it as a moment to share the truth of life with him/her and my neighbors. However, what would disturb me would be that he or she took the time to find out where I live. While very much short of stalking, I would find this intimidating. I know that intimidation is not the way to get me to change my heart of mind about abortion. I would probably be more resolved to not step down. I would be more convinced that I am standing for the right thing. Don’t you think this might happen to this woman as well? Don’t you think that she is going to become more defensive and rationalizing about what she does? Don’t you think that this demonstration caused her heart and mind to harden more? I don’t know for sure, but I do think that she may now just be much more resolved to hate, or at least ignore, pro-lifers and what we have to say.
Virginia said:
“… ask someone like Abby Johnson …”
Yes, Abby Johnson is 100 percent against this type of thing.
So she is suddenly the gold standard for the entire pro-life movement?
Abby Johnson is only one of hundreds of abortion workers who has professed conversion to Christ. Everyone has their opinion about what is and is not effective. And we all know what are opinions are like and why they stink.
Here in Orlando, we’ve seen people come to Christ or simply quit their bloody trade after being confronted by some of the same people you see in this video. None of them claim credit as some like to do, but they give glory to God.
One of the lies of the enemy is that pro-life Christians are spewing venom and hate. No, that is called “projection.” The spirit of murder is on the other side. So they project that on to us. No pro-life ministry is perfect, but I would have rather have spent my Saturday morning (my day off) with these people than anywhere else. These Christians are peaceful, loving and sweet. The abortion mill workers who observe them long enough come to give a begrudging respect because the difference between the two spirits is like day and night.
Norma McCorvey used to work for Planned Parenthood in Dallas. The Operation Rescue National office was next door. She said she used to come and spend many hours there because the spirit in that office was so different. Finally, she professed Christ.
See: http://www.forerunner.com/blog/reversing-roe-the-norma-mccorvey-story-now-available-on-dvd
Now if you follow the ministry of Flip Benham and ORN/OSA you will see a demeanor that is BOTH loving and confrontational. True love is tough love.
That being said, Miss Norma and Miss Abby are both “works in progress.” They are far from perfect. They don’t speak for what is always effective despite their powerful testimonies. They don’t stand in judgment of the entire pro-life movement. They cannot peer into other people’s hearts to see how “loving” they in fact are and what motivates them.
Instead we judge a tree by its fruit.
Are abortion mill workers coming to Christ?
Are abortionists quitting?
Is the Gospel being preached without compromise?
God is doing a great work here in our region. Just a while ago getting 28 people together to do such a campaign would have been impossible, but the Holy Spirit is at work.
Where there is Revival, there is no tranquility for child killers!
One of the arguments I constantly hear on these type of pro-life forums is a humanistic understanding about how the Gospel actually works. I sometimes see the idea that if abortionists are persuaded with a kind demeanor without making them feel uncomfortable or intimidated that this is more effective.
What I recommend is to just open to the New Testament and read about the evangelistic ministries of John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc. One could begin with John and make the argument that if he just hadn’t pried into Herod’s family life then he probably would have been more “open” to hear the Gospel.
Lefties use Alinsky tactics like this ALL THE TIME, targeting the homes of people they disagree with.
But don’t you DARE use their own tactics against them!
That is RACIST!
Jay, I absolutely agree with you. We do have a humanistic view of the gospel.
Abby Johnson is against a lot of things that have been shown to change minds…such as graphic signs. I’m glad she converted and I wish her well but I do not agree with many things she says. And wonder when her words became gospel truth.
Former abortionists said they hated graphic signs because they KNOW they change hearts!
Sydney,
Only God can change hearts. What I look at is whether the Gospel is being preached. Are people told they need to repent and turn and trust Jesus with their whole heart? Of course, it does matter if the character of the preacher is a Godly image. It does matter if the Word is presented with kindness and love as if we really care about the souls of abortionists (which admittedly is sometimes hard to do with our natural selves). It does matter too if our ministry is anointed of God because that is the only way we can bear lasting fruit.
But God can and does use anything — even our foolishness — when we are faithful to preach the Gospel with a pure heart. The Word does not return void — never!
Yes, sometimes the preached Word serves to harden those whom God would harden. That is part of God’s plan too although many Christians have a hard time accepting the idea that the Word preached brings both blessings to those who are being saved and curses to those who are perishing.
As long as home protests stay legal and peaceful, I don’t see why any prolifer would complain. For those of us who protest at the clinics, you do realize that by prayerfully protesting at clinics, we are emotionally confronting the women seeking abortions and reaching out to help them in concrete ways. But rarely do we specifically confront the workers who profit from and actually perform the abortions. Do abortionists and their staff get a free pass while we focus on the pregnant mothers? Does that really sound fair?
I think EVERYONE involved in this violent and cruel practice should be called out, peacefully yet firmly. And that includes home protests. This isn’t a game. There should be no anonymity for providers trying to hide their barbaric form of income.
My guess would be that the tears are not of repentance, but of incredulity that the mean pro-lifers could be so unfeeling toward her privacy at home. “I can’t believe this is happening to me!”
The difference: when she invades the unborn’s dwelling, it’s not with signs and chants. It’s with deadly force.
I can’t believe you’re doing it to them.
Well, I’m going to complain. She isn’t “working” out of her home, so I think it crosses the line. I just plain don’t like it, I will never do it.
I think it will harden, rather than soften, her heart. Sure, protestors “got lucky” with a racist abortionist recently and obtained a usable sound bite, but I don’t think this is proper. I wouldn’t want anyone in front of my house for what I do at another location. I can see how many of you disagree with me and you have a right to your opinion.
Thank you, Virginia. I wholeheartedly agree with you. As a sidewalk counselor for many years and a full-time worker in the Life movement, I feel like I am most definitely answering God’s call to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, while at the same time being respectful to all, including abortion workers, who need our love and compassion just as much as women who choose to have abortions.
Abby Johnson just started a ministry called And Then There Were None. To reach out to
abortion mill workers and help them find other means of employment, help and support as they leave the biz.
Show the truth.
Offer resources.
Pray.
The biographies of prophets we have in Scripture are not just a good read, but also for our example. Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Peter, and Jesus all confronted evil where it lived. There is no sanctuary for the bloodguilt. The term “humanistic gospel” is apropos. Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man,But its end is the way of death.”
Aw, man. This was crossing a line. God bless people who peacefully work towards life chosen for all, but this was crossing a line. I’m especially bothered because she had a young son, and there were graphic photos at the protest. :(
Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”
I can see from your point of view that you believe this is some version of acting justly, but I cannot see mercy or humility in these actions.
Mercy is given to someone who doesn’t deserve it, right? That’s the point of mercy. I’m sure you would say that this woman doesn’t deserve mercy, but if that’s the case, she is the very one who should be receiving it. It is not merciful to show up at a woman’s home like this.
And there is absolutely no humility in standing with signs that send the message, “I am right about something, and you are wrong, and here are all the reasons why you are terrible.”
Yeah! Protest her home! Make sure she cries in front of her kid and shove some bloody photos in his face, make sure he grows up terrified of pro-lifers and more entrenched in pro-choice propaganda than he already is! Make sure you make a public pro-choice martyr out of her by making blog posts proud of humiliating her in front of her neighbors! I mean, that will win us some hearts for sure, it doesn’t make us look desperate or stalker-ish at all. I bet that lady is just ready to pull an Abby Johnson just about now!
Ok, sorry about the sarcasm. But honestly, I think this stuff is a really bad idea for the cause. All I have heard about this type of protest from the “in-between” and soft pro-choicers, the people I think we have the best chance of getting to see the light and turning the tide against legal abortion, is that this stuff makes them want to stay as far away from the pro-life movement as they can get. I don’t like things that seem to set us back, or that push people away. That’s just my opinion.
According to the attending policeman, this home protest was peaceful.
It’s crossing a line. It’s umcomfotable. They comitted the sin of what, tackiness?
Meanwhile thousands are dying a day- and prolifers just keep on putting down other prolifers efforts…
And another angle of this is from the view of someone in the neighborhood. I’d just as soon send my kids into the house of a pedophile as I would send them near abortion providers. Peaceful protesers do a service in letting neighbors know they have an abortion provider in their midst.
Sorry this is the third timei have tried to comment and been bumped off so I will be short. 1- no one shoved a bloody sign in a kids face!! All the signs were faces toward the highway. And Abortiopn is bloody and horivble. I am glad Abby Johnson left the business but when did she become the authority on pro-life tactics? How about Norma McCorvey who Flip Benham first made cry then brought her to repentance. A few tears in exchange for eternal life – not a bad trade to me.
I have been in this a long time and have seen abortionists and abortionworkers come to the Lord. IF i look foolish or mean a sould not going ot hell is worth it! We are called ot opedience not pragnatism.
When I was in Auschwitz last fall I asked a guide how doctors could sentence people to death, smell the burninig flesh in the ovens and then go home to their families. The answer given was that they separated thier home lives from thier gruesome jobs and never thought of the Jews as people. Well this breaks that separation. Those bloody pictures are of 10 week, 20 week and 30 week victims of the bloody business of abortion. Fully human!
“When I was in Auschwitz last fall I asked a guide how doctors could sentence people to death, smell the burninig flesh in the ovens and then go home to their families. The answer given was that they separated thier home lives from thier gruesome jobs and never thought of the Jews as people.”
Isn’t this exactly what abortionists are doing? Just like the Nazis never thinking of the Jews as people the abortionists don’t see the unborn as people. They refuse to give them personhood.
Home protests. That’s a tricky one. I’m reminded of the union thugs who protested at an executive’s home near D.C. a few years ago. Only his scared-out-of-his-wits 14-year-old was there.
At a “clinic” I’d say almost no-holds- barred. But to not be considered a “pro-life thug” at a home, there ought to be some stricter guidelines. No Grim Reaper costumes. No bloody photos. Just a positive witness of the truth. Baby photos from before and after birth that say, “Please don’t hurt me!”
We have to make our Truth an inviting campfire to those who are cold and lost. We can’t hit them over the head with torches and poke them with pitchforks.
We’ll never get past “me, myself, and I” when our first instinct is self-preservation. Only when we feel safe do we worry about the safety of others. That’s the unfortunate grimness that is human nature.
I maintain that what is at issue here is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
People speak of “softening her heart” or “causing her to become more hardened.” The impression I get is that some people really think that our METHOD causes peoples’ hearts to change rather than the Holy Spirit himself. While I agree that God is more likely to use people of clean hands and pure hearts, I think that too much emphasis here is going to the outward appearance and neglecting to see that conversion is a deep spiritual change of heart wrought by the Spirit of God, not simply a persuasion or leading someone to think or feel a certain way.
Our METHOD ought to be preaching the Gospel everywhere — in the highways and the byways and compelling them to come in. There is no place where the Gospel is inappropriate. If pro-life ministry is not Gospel based, then it’s a paper tiger.
We also have to consider that some people will never convert to Christ. The Bible teaches that there will always be a reprobate element in the world. In that case, it is simply not possible to “soften” a reprobate heart with acts of kindness. Those people still need to hear the Gospel as a witness against their sin and God himself will judge them in light of their knowledge.
“We have to make our Truth an inviting campfire to those who are cold and lost. We can’t hit them over the head with torches and poke them with pitchforks. We’ll never get past “me, myself, and I” when our first instinct is self-preservation. Only when we feel safe do we worry about the safety of others. That’s the unfortunate grimness that is human nature.”
Very well put, Hans. Personally I think harassing clinic workers at home is just making them martyrs among pro-choicers and making them genuinely afraid of us. I certainly wouldn’t give the time of day to someone who thought the way to make me see the light was to show up on my doorstep and scare my children.
About Abby Johnson… I certainly don’t think she is the final authority on anything, lol. She’s just a person with opinions like any of us. I do agree with her that clinic workers are not monsters, they are not evil sociopaths (for the most part, Gosnell is certainly that), they are people who generally believe they are doing good. I don’t think harassing them at home in front of their children is getting the “we pro-lifers actually care about you people, and want you to find a better path in life and see the humanity of the unborn” message across. Comparing them to pedophiles? Yeah, Mary Ann, THAT’S gonna make them reeeaallllyyyy consider what pro-lifers have to say.
No justice, no peace. These people profit from killing children. That’s lowest of the low. They shouldn’t be allowed to go home, “tag base” as if it’s a children’s game, and just forget about everything they’ve done that day. They facilitate the killing of children for money. This is not a game.
BRAVO
Jack, it’s a valid comparison.
Sex offenders who target children commit atrocities against them by sexually abusing them. Abortion providers commit atrocities against innocent fetuses by maiming and killing them.
Or were you not aware that 3,000+ die at the hands of abortion providers every day?
I’m not arguing that they should be hurt or threatened with violence, an neither were the home protestors.
What’s your beef? So far it seems like you think it’s uncivil, tacky, won’t work because it’s meanish, or otherwise uncouth. I say that’s pretty shallow considering the scope of murders from abortion.
Jack,
Sorry but I’ve had about as much of this “give peace a chance” crap as I can take. Most monsters don’t think they’re monsters. I don’t care if clinic workers and abortionists are “people who generally believe they are doing good”: they ARE sociopaths and they ARE evil. They butcher children and women for MONEY under the guise of HEALTHCARE.
The TRUTH is NOT an “inviting campfire to those who are cold and lost.” ‘Scuse me while I hurl. The truth Is what it IS, and abortion is murder. Identify these freaks wherever they are: work, home, or church, and MAKE THEM DEFEND their workday to their community.
This is a campaign not of awareness but extortion, conducted not by mere activists but the “pro-life” mob. The message is obvious, and it has nothing to do with truth (or “Truth”): quit your job or we will attempt to undermine your standing in your community, disrupt your neighborhood, terrify your family and children, and maybe even draw violent predators to your home. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between this assault and the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing a black family for moving into a white neighborhood.
Except the black family isn’t killing children for a living, and the KKK committed violent acts. What these protesters do is lawful. That’s more than a dime.
Grow a conscience, joan. I am fed up with mealy-mouthed folks who pretend to take a stand but then draw caveats around what they are and are not lawfully willing to do because it (gasp) might hurt someone’s feelwings.
I’m writing this without reading through all of the other comments, so there’s a good chance I might be repeating someone else.
I’m as pro-life as they come and am praying for and eagerly awaiting the day that abortion is made illegal and all pre-born life is valued.
However, I really do not agree with this whatsoever. I could PERHAPS excuse the graphic pictures being held in front of her house since the sidewalk is public property. But having signs with her full name on them saying that she kills babies and hurts women? I think that is a terribly insensitive and crude way of trying to help abortion clinic workers see the truth and convert.
What kind of article would be written if pro-choicers held signs in front of the houses of pro-life workers? “Katy ***** ***** kills women.” “Katy ***** ***** hurts women.” I think picketing their house with signs that directly identifies the clinic worker in this fashion is comparable to the Westboro Baptist Church.
In all honesty, this is embarrassing to pro-lifers. MANY of us pride ourselves for being compassionate and loving. Quite honestly, there is nothing compassionate about saying she kills babies and hurts women- no matter how true any of it is. It is not the way to help them.
What do they expect? Her to suddenly come running to them for help after seeing all of the compassion and love they have for her? No…if anything, this may solidify her decision to work in the abortion industry because this portrays pro-lifers as ignorant, cold-hearted people who are willing to publicly shame you for working in the industry.
I’m very disappointed this happened.
I should grow a conscience? You’re endorsing, even celebrating mob harassment of a law-abiding young woman and her family, at their home, because of what she does for a living. That’s disgusting. It’s sick beyond contemplation for any decent person. I can only hope for her sake that her neighbors are not anything like you.
Joan, exactly WHAT would your neighbor have to do for you to get angry? What will YOU not put up with? And if folks protesting a baby killer for hire disgusts you, how come the actual killing of the babies doesn’t? In fact, you CELEBRATE it as an exercise of womanly liberation.
You come protest my house. Not only will I wear it like the badge of honor it is, I’ll come out and bring you cookies.
Yes, and I repeat: GROW A CONSCIENCE.
“Law-abiding.”
I think what you’re calling “mob harassment” is also a law-abiding activity.
So if you believe that she should not be “harassed” for killing unborn children on the grounds that it’s legal to do so, what is your objection — other than your editorializing about “harassment” — to the protesters engaging in comparably law-abiding activities?
The one is killing unborn children — which goes well beyond “harassment.” The others are merely protesting that she does that.
“This spring 28-yr-old Jenna was promoted to the position of CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando in Florida.”
What next for this mover and shake, elevation to the position of kleagle and election by unanimous consent to Grand Cyclops of the local Ku Klux Klan?
Jay,
Thanks so much for being a great example for all of us pro-lifers to follow! All your comments were right on target…
You are a WARRIOR for Christ and the unborn! God bless you!!!!!
What is alarming to me in many of these posts is condemnation over the Christians who went out and stood up against a holocaust that is going on in our land. A holocaust that has left over 50 million babies horrendously and brutishly killed, and a sick kind of kindness toward this woman that is in charge of a very busy Planned Parenthood, one who primarily makes its money off the backs of killing unborn children.
I truly believe that even in the Prolife community many still do not see the human being developing in the womb as fully human or many of you would not be protecting this woman more then the violent act itself. And many of you have said how could this help….well, I’ve heard that in Orlando, two abortionists quit after Awareness Campaigns like this and one of the abortionists became very friendly with those that participated in the Awareness Campaign. So, I think before you condemn something like this, you should probably get out of the box and understand that there are many ways God uses to touch the hearts of people.
After repeated attempts to dialog with our local abortionists, which were only answered with deafening silence, we took the next step and we went to all foour their homes and carried our signs with photos of intact human embryos/fetuses and messages asking them to stop performing abortions.
Met the daughter of one when she pulled her car into the driveway. She was shocked. Not that her dad paid for her car with blood money, but that we had the audacity to inform the neighbors.
Met the wife of another. She was a delightful lady with the vocabulary of a drunk sailor.
This is known as a ‘reaching the target audience’, ‘a direct hit’, ‘getting all of it’, ‘hitting the sweet spot’ or my personal favorite, ‘hitting the cowseye’.
As Jeremiah Wright would say, Tosh’s ‘chickens have come home to roost’ [and they are laying some rotten eggs.]
Who do you think will garner the most attention from the LORD, the tears of the unrepentent or the blood of the innocent/
2 Cor 7:10 For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death]. AMP
Rom 2:4 Or are you [so blind as to] trifle with and presume upon and despise and underestimate the wealth of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering patience? Are you unmindful or actually ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repent ( to change your mind and inner man to accept God’s will)? AMP
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance. AMP
“I think what you’re calling “mob harassment” is also a law-abiding activity.
So if you believe that she should not be “harassed” for killing unborn children on the grounds that it’s legal to do so, what is your objection — other than your editorializing about “harassment” — to the protesters engaging in comparably law-abiding activities?”
I believe she should not be harassed–and it most certainly is harassment, obviously intended to undermine her peace of mind and harmonious relationship with her neighbors–because harassment is wrong, not because of the legal status of her occupation.
Maybe it was having a bunch of people being hateful at her right outside her own home that made her cry. Anti-choicers aren’t exactly known for their tact and decorum.
“Sorry but I’ve had about as much of this “give peace a chance” crap as I can take. Most monsters don’t think they’re monsters. I don’t care if clinic workers and abortionists are “people who generally believe they are doing good”: they ARE sociopaths and they ARE evil. They butcher children and women for MONEY under the guise of HEALTHCARE.”
I just love this attitude. Because you know, if you vilify the people you are trying to change, that totes works to help them see your side of it and help stop the killing. Idk, you can caps lock it and call people evil and sociopathic if you want, I personally rather would reach out to people that have a chance to learn better. Have fun!
And no Mary Ann, pedophiles and abortion clinic workers are not a valid comparison. Unless there was some public campaign I missed that steeped us in decades of pro-pedophilia propaganda, and we have politicians proudly standing up for the right to rape children as a huge platform for election. Like it or not non-evil people have bought to whole “It’s not a life” crap that has been crammed down everyone’s throats for years and they genuinely believe it. And they aren’t going to learn any better, or stop any killing, by being harassed or publicly humiliated, or anything like that.
@JackBorsch,
We are all — redeemed and lost alike — equipped with a conscience. At the Nuremberg trials, holocaust participants tried the “it was legal” defense and even a faulty, humanistic judicial system ruled that their conscience should have told them they were illegal orders. When it comes to abuse of a young child’s body, there’s really no distinction as to whether it was sexual in nature. Let’s not split hairs. In God’s sight, the abortionist is a murderer and a pedophile is an abuser. Death vs. abuse is a big difference. And their conscience bears witness to that fact.
Daine said: “I’ve heard that in Orlando, two abortionists quit after Awareness Campaigns like this and one of the abortionists became very friendly with those that participated in the Awareness Campaign. ”
You are correct, sir! (Ed McMahon imitation)
We did several pickets of Scott Hye’s neighborhood. Here are two of them:
http://youtu.be/lSl0g8R3Bh4
http://youtu.be/gT8OCiHiAQ8
John Barros would tell him that he was praying for him and even came to his neighborhood and picketed. Now Scott didn’t LIKE that people came to his neighborhood, but he truly thanked John for prayer. He quit doing abortions completely (or so he says) and left Pendergraft’s mill in Olrando. He thanked John here in this video and even wanted people to see it on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/WzTW2CpF0WU
I don’t understand why people think we are not “loving” these abortionists.
Do you love your neighbor?
Consider Leviticus 19:17-18: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am
the Lord.”
You see, loving your neighbor as yourself includes warning him that he is in sin. “Bearing sin because of him” means that if you refuse to warn him, you also share in his guilt.
TO REBUKE IS TO LOVE! You need a softened heart and Holy Spirit power to do that. The problem is really that people don’t love enough to confront. They are worried about how others will see them if they do so.
I agree that so-called pro-lifers sound a lot like pro-aborts at times. It’s why we are not winning. There is compromise in the camp. We are riddled with the fear of man when we ought to fear God. People don’t stand for the truth, but are more concerned about their “feelings.”
Answer the question, Joan. What would you not put up with? Would you go protest a rapist in your neighborhood who refused to see the evil of his actions? And don’t give me any crap about how one is legal and one is not; we already know by slavery that legal and virtuous do NOT mean thesame thing.
Abortion is murder, and the abortionists must know, one way or the other.
How much tact and decorum does it take to tear innocent children apart in the womb?
How much tact and decorum does it take to support, celebrate and promote the killing of those very same children?
How much tact and decorum does it take to dance around in vagina and birth control pill costumes for PP?
Can’t remember who mentioned something about her young son seeing these graphic photos???!!!
Um. The graphic photo at 21 weeks? His name is Malachi. He is someone’s son.
“Answer the question, Joan. What would you not put up with? Would you go protest a rapist in your neighborhood who refused to see the evil of his actions? And don’t give me any crap about how one is legal and one is not; we already know by slavery that legal and virtuous do NOT mean thesame thing.”
I would go to the police. What would you recommend instead? Throwing rotten eggs at his house?
Holy. Effin’. Schnikes.
“Harassment is wrong, m’kay.”, but KILLING SOMEONE DEAD INSIDE THEIR MOTHER IS TOTALLY RAD AND STUFF.
Jack,
This is the kind of f-ed up thought process we’re dealing with, and you expect us to change a diseased mind like that through what…the magical power of ass-kissery? In a pig’s eye.
X, I was going to use the word asskissery, but you beat me to it.
Oh no no no no no. Doing this outside someone’s home is totally unacceptable.
Ed, I imagine it’s perfectly acceptable to the babies who are going to die under her aegis tomorrow.
Ass kissing = not being a fan of targeting them in their homes? The more you know.
Yes Carla, you are right, that child on the so-called graphic photo was Malachi, and each one of those children on those photos shown were children, that is the point. They died a horrible death, and all some pro-lifers can say is “those pictures are terrible and we shouldn’t use them.” The children aren’t even mentioned! This is so sad to hear some of the comments here condemning other Christians for alerting a neighborhood that there is someone in their neighborhood that runs a huge business that mutilates and dismembers innocent human beings. In many Awareness Campaigns neighbors that have found out abortionists/abortion workers were living next door or in their neighborhood were glad to find out so they could pray and or talk with the abortion worker.
Great minds think alike. *smirk*
I’ve talked to these people. I’ve talked and talked and TALKED to these people. And their minds are sick, and they ARE self-centered literally to the point of being evil. They’re psychopaths. And until they are shown the truth enough times that it sinks in, they’ll always be that way, regardless of how nice you are to them. I’ve SEEN the people on our side try and be nice to these people. The only thing I’ve ever seen that lead to is our “nice” guy trying so hard to bend over backwards kissing butt that they get sucked into trying to be the popular socially-accepted one. They EVENTUALLY AGREE THAT YEAH, KILLING BABIES AIN’T SO BAD, CUZ DAYUM THESE CATS ARE COOL! Plot = totally lost. So that’s how I saw “kill them with kindness” go down. Now, being a brutally-honest witch…yeah. I’ve actually buddied with one of the chicas on MPQ’s blog who was won over BY MPQ’S BLOG. Because everyone knows how super nice and extra sweet and kind MPQ and I are to Poor-Choicers. 9_9
Truth works. Sleeping with the enemy does not. #WAR is hell.
“Ed, I imagine it’s perfectly acceptable to the babies who are going to die under her aegis tomorrow.”
But completely unacceptable to her child, her neighbours children…..who have killed no babies.
I’ve read thru all the comments and can’t find a single good reason for this sort of behaviour. At best it’s intimidating.
I’ve also watched the video and can’t believe they have a sign with that ladies name on it saying she “kills babies and hurts women” Outside her home. What an awful thing to do to someone. Who is this meant to help…?
Oh my god, I just can’t get over this video. I had NO idea this went on and believe me it sets the pro life movement back years and years. She MIGHT quit her job because of the intimidation outside her house, but hundreds, if not thousands of pro choice people will have their resolve strengthened by this. This behaviour CONFIRMS everything the media tells them about pro lifers, and many many women considering abortion will get the message loud and clear…”when faced with an unplanned pregnancy don’t go to the pro lifers for help and advice…”
Awful awful awful behaviour.
Ironically the banner at the top of this page states “Why the pro-life movement is losing a winnable war”….just look at the video to answer that question.
No, ass-kissing = pulling punches because you’re afraid you might hurt someone else’s feelings. I want them to feel awkward. I want them sweating and stuttering trying to explain what they do to their kids. You really think they’re not trying to legitimize this to their kids from the SECOND they think their kids can even BEGIN to comprehend this subject? Really?! They’re already “entrenched” by their parents. They were entrenched the second mommy and/or daddy decided to kill kids for their daily bread. The only difference is, mommy and daddy are going to sanitize the heck out of abortion, and if it wasn’t for these people, they’d grow up thinking that the child is erased with a sterile magic wand in a totally okay way instead of ground up into a bloody paste and incinerated with garbage.
Honestly. Talking to people raised by moms who killed their siblings taught me this. They are brainwashed from the get-go by mommy dearest’s most sincere effort to legitimize what she did TO HERSELF. These people spend 24-7 listening to America’s Top 40 Hearts Under The Floorboards, and their kids have to pay the price for this crap. Acting as if these kids are cherubs instead of just another tool in the abortionists’ boxes is naive.
Joan made this analogy;
“There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between this assault and the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing a black family for moving into a white neighborhood.”
Actually the correct analogy is citizens protesting the leader of the local KKK’s house and letting the neighbors know that their neighbor is engaged in horrible practices at work and that they are responsible for many “lynchings” of innocent helpless individuals!
Displaying the truth of abortion vs. the actual abortion:
NO CONTEST.
I *love* when you guys act like lunatics! It makes the fencesitters move further away from you :)
Thanks for helping to advance the prochoice cause, guys!
You guys do realize that stalking is, in fact, a crime? And that she was almost certainly crying because she’s worried that she’s going to be the next victim in your lines of anti-choice terrorism? You are literally the worst.
I sometimes think about it this way. If I was about to be killed and Jenna Tosh was going to be the one to kill me…tomorrow, next week, whenever, and it was legal for her to kill me, would I want people to show up at her house and tell the neighbors what she was doing? YES!
Would I want people to show up with signs that said “Don’t kill Sydney!” YES! Would I want them to picket her home even if it was uncomfortable or rude? YES!
These babies she is helping to kill..they are REAL people just like you and me! What would we want others to do to save us? Why then aren’t we willing to do it for them?
The problem with the pro-life movement is we think its a “one size fits all”. Or that ALL pro-lifers have the same gifts. Lets face it, Kelly Clinger’s friend wrote an article for lifesitenews about how a guy was preaching outside a clinic. And Kelly’s friend (forget his name) thought that the approach was all wrong. But lo and behold several women came out of the clinic and said “We hear you! We hear you!” and drove away and didn’t abort! So his hellfire and brimstone preaching that many here would disdain did in fact hit the target.
Yes, sometimes we need to be soft and gentle with certain abortionists. Sometimes we need to be fierce and direct. It takes all different kinds of efforts to hit the target. Or as Jay says, God uses all different kinds of efforts to change hearts.
We can’t know where someone is spiritually. There are pro-abortion folks with very soft hearts. Then there are those with very hard hearts. We also don’t know who besides the abortionists are having their eyes opened.
For me, seeing the photos of aborted babies when I was a kid DID open my eyes. It made me pro-life. I have never forgot the utter sorrow I felt when I first saw the picture of an aborted baby. I have carried that sorrow for 24 years.
This is a war. A spiritual war but a war nonetheless with real fleshly and spiritual consequences. It takes all different kinds of tactical maneuvers.
*forgotten* sorry…typing too fast
she was probably just scared that one of you would shoot her…
This is absolutely disgusting. The protesters at this demonstration should be ashamed of themselves, as should whomever wrote this article for bragging about it. There is absolutely no excuse for practically stalking a woman and taking away her right to feel safe in her own home. The argument that I’m seeing in the comments seems to be that because Tosh “started it,” she should be harassed at her home. That carries the logic often seen in five-year-olds and is certainly not an example of Christian values. Jesus would have never done this. He was just and fair and above all compassionate.
I see no compassion in this. You should be ashamed. I will be sure to ask my friends to pray for you.
Riiiiight, “Liz”, “Lynzie” and “S Bee”. Are you the same person?
It wasn’t my side that attacked a 77 year old woman. It wasn’t my side that threw a violent temper tantrum that left an elderly man in the hospital with a broken hip. Plus the young pro-lifers who were violently attacked by the pro-aborts. I’ve seen video of those assaults. These all occurred in the last month or two. Numerous, numerous assaults.
But your side is all about violence isn’t it? So I’m not terribly surprised.
You people are sick. The Bible talks of love, compassion, and treating others with dignity more than anything else, and yet you’re proud of upsetting someone like this? You are not true Christians. I could get into a whole debate with you right now about abortion, but for right now, I wish you’d just step back and really think about what you’re doing. Jesus would be sad to see people who call themselves “Christians” tormenting someone else like so. Before you go around defending “life” – and whether or not fetuses are “life” is obviously a heated debate – how about you respect the life that’s already, undeniably living? INCLUDING people who disagree with you? This is so wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
We had the Woodward Dream Cruise here in SE Michigan last weekend. We had pro-lifers with graphic signs and other pro-lifers 5 miles south handing out literature about the Democrats’ actual War on Women – their refusal to punish our abortionists who maim women and block Republican efforts to hold them accountable – all under the guise of preserving women’s access to reproductive services. Yeah, preserving our daughters’ right to be maimed by a butcher within 5 miles of our homes – collateral damage.
As I’ve become more active in the pro-life movement, criticism of my activities has escalated. Nobody likes pro-lifers who speak out publicly. In the minds of most people, there is never a right time to speak out for the children in the womb. they want you to shut up and go home.
I try never to criticize the efforts of any pro-lifers. I see no point in allowing pro-aborts to promote divisions. I advise all pro-lifers to act Christ-like (whether you believe he is God or not – he is worth imitating). Speak Truth always, do it with humility – not arrogance. Learn from your mistakes. Be gentle with other pro-lifers; be polite but firm with all others.
Graphic images sometimes work – and lives have been saved.
Pro-choicers have no credibility preaching about protecting children from these inconvenient truths when these same people stand by and do nothing to protect women from being butchered by rogue abortionists – and interfere with others’ efforts. I’ve seen no evidence that pro-choicers care anything about anyone except shielding abortion providers.
I have to ask everyone: what would you do with an unwanted pregnancy? How would you go about things if you were truly penniless, young, and your partner wouldn’t support you? Or perhaps you’re the mother of young children or even older children, and your body cannot handle the pregnancy. You could die, if you go through with it. How about rape victims, who should NEVER be forced to carry their aggressor’s child?
I think it is a gross invasion of privacy that you found out where this woman lived, stormed on the sidewalks and showed your disgusting pictures to passerby that included children. You should feel deeply ashamed of yourselves. If you so love your Jesus and his teachings, you would understand that those people will be judged and that you should not do the judging. How dare you think you can let yourselves be righteous in judging this woman?
In Proverbs, it is stated that you should “Let all paths of peace begin in your heart”. This is not a path of peace. It is a path of fear, destruction, sadness and turmoil for you that pass judgment on those who sin as you do. Do not judge the women who decide through their own minds and hearts of what is best for them. Do not think you know best. If the Lord knows best and what is in his will, you would do best to stop this foolish overzealous ranting.
And for the record, comparing paedophilia, rape and abuse to abortion is horrific and an insult to those who have been physically and mentally mutilated by their transgressors. These should never be compared. The Holocaust should never, EVER be compared to abortion. It is an insult to my Jewish peoples, from whose religion you hail.
May God judge your paths and have mercy on your souls, and God alone.
Wait, if fetuses never have a chance to sin and get killed then they go strait to heaven…so this woman is really doing them all a favor!
You trolls sure like to throw around the word “horrific”. I don’t know of any horror movies where the plot is about non-violent protest.
There are many horror movies about bloodshed caused by chainsaws and machetes. That’s the type of thing we are against happening to the youngest members of humanity. That is what is truly horrific.
Tact and decorum?
LOL
Have you seen the TACKY ways that PP promotes using condoms and sexual activity?
Most people and or use contraception at some time in their lives, so the objection is not to contraception or sex. It is to the utter tackiness with which PP promotes it.
TACKY!!!
1.) I’m not a Christian, so bite me.
2.) When a human being’s life begins is not under debate, it’s well-established scientific fact.
3.) So, how about YOU respect life that’s already undeniably living, by supporting their right to continue living and helping to fight people like Mrs. Tosh, who makes her living helping to kill them?
4.) I respect a lot of people who disagree with me. My fiance thinks Social Distortion is the best thing since sliced bread, whereas I don’t care for them. I think TOOL is the greatest thing since sliced bread, he thinks they’re merely okay. I’m able to respect that sort of disagreement. What I AM NOT willing to respect is someone who disagrees with me that it shouldn’t be legal to kill children as they gestate in utero-what should be the safest place in the world for a child. I can’t, nor will I EVER respect that.
5.) what would I do with an unwanted pregnancy? How would I go about things if I were truly penniless, young, and my partner wouldn’t support me? (hell, let’s throw “homeless” in there for accuracy too, okay? Also, edit that so that my partner is also emotionally and physically abusive.) I’d BIRTH MY FREAKING DAUGHTER, LIKE I’M SUPPOSED TO, and she would turn 10 years a couple weeks ago, THANK YOU. It’s quite a better outcome than being killed and thrown away or incinerated as medical waste, don’t you think? Oh, you mean it’s not happening to you, so you don’t care because you lack basic human decency and any sort of compassion whatsoever? Yeah, I thought so.
I just love it when the Poor-Choicers get K.O.’d when it comes to their pseudo-scientific blather, so they have to start falling back on religious notions, which is what they used to accuse us of doing all the time. :)
All these, “Nicer than God” “christians” and we wonder why we can’t end the abortion holocaust?
NO CHILD KILLING WITH TRANQUILITY!!!!!!!!
Abolish Human Abortion ~ Personhood Now!!
X, you should know me well enough I am not worried about “hurting feelings”. You might notice my objections have to do with effectiveness, and how to further the movement so legal abortion can just be a terrible memory in this country. It’s not about being “nice”. It’s about being as effective as possible. You think this stuff is effective. I don’t. That’s about it.
And I realize their kids are being steeped in ideology. I fail to see how making sure that the kids’ first memories of the pro-life movement scaring their parents at their home and waving bloody signs is going to make sure they reject their parents’ philosophy when they are older. Somehow I don’t think they will want much to do with us!
I do love and respect you even though we obviously aren’t going to agree on this one. I’m out, you know my opinion.
I wonder where this article got linked to, our new trolls all showed up at the same time.
1. Xalisae, I was not rude to you nor was I defamatory to your character. I was not rude to anyone. I am simply appalled at what is to believed “pro-life” when it is harmful to women. I do not lack basic compassion, decency or character, and your attack on my personhood is not appreciated nor will it be tolerated.
2. My facts are not pseudo-scientific blather, as you so like to say. I do not fall back on religious notions, rather I point out the things that people use all the time. The judgment you seek to pass upon a woman in her chosen profession is wrong and distasteful, and your attacks on the rights of others are very wrong. Especially when no one was harming you or anyone else. Had I been attacking people through posts on the internet and being very awful, I would have deserved the self-righteous dithering you went on with. That being said, I hope you feel better about yourself for that.
3. If you were homeless, penniless, young, and with an abusive partner, your life would be in great danger. You would not be able to provide very well (if at all) for your hypothetical child. Especially since abusive partners are known to be jealous of pregnancies (and previous children, if any) and may harm you and your child. This is not pseudo-scientific, this is fact founded in many studies across the world.
4. That is great and all that you have a child! Do you think pro-choice folks are out there to murder and maim and kill everything? No, we’re here to face the reality of things: having a child is a great and honourable responsibility, and its also a large and definitive change in lifestyles and previous patterns. I do not believe you are dealing with the full deck as far as being a young mother goes.
5. What if your daughter got pregnant at a young age (lets say 15, for example)? What if she was truly not ready to be a parent, and being pregnant threatened her life? What would you do? I would hope you would not force motherhood on her when she was at her most vulnerable. You cannot mother her child in good conscience. And you did not answer my questions about children and pregnancy that result from rape, by the way.
” If you were homeless, penniless, young, and with an abusive partner, your life would be in great danger. You would not be able to provide very well (if at all) for your hypothetical child. Especially since abusive partners are known to be jealous of pregnancies (and previous children, if any) and may harm you and your child. This is not pseudo-scientific, this is fact founded in many studies across the world.”
LOL. The point went over your head a bit. She just described the exact situation she was in with her oldest.
Jack, she did not say that was her situation. The point did not go over my head. She said she would birth her daughter like she is supposed to. This is not an indicator that this was the predicament she was in.
I still love you too, Jack. We disagree, but at the heart of the matter, it’s going to take firebrands like myself and carebears like you to accomplish the same goal, because just as you and I are different, so too are those on our opposition, and some will be receptive to you, and some will be receptive to me. <3
Ya know, my initial reaction – a feeling – is that this is crossing the line and not super productive, BUT then after thinking and hearing both (life) sides I have to go with: Do unto others …
If I were an abortionist, in all my splendor, I would want someone to shake me any way they could. This includes building a kindness campfire (Hans Johnson-style) as well as destroying the separation between my two worlds.
As Pat said regarding doctors who killed Jews: “They separated thier home lives from thier gruesome jobs and never thought of the Jews as people.”
Jay is absolutely right. Calling out people for their wrong is indeed loving. Jesus did it – constantly.
He was gentle with the broken and humble. He was combative and harsh with the self-righteous.
1. Xalisae, I was not rude to you nor was I defamatory to your character. I was not rude to anyone. I am simply appalled at what is to believed “pro-life” when it is harmful to women. I do not lack basic compassion, decency or character, and your attack on my personhood is not appreciated nor will it be tolerated.
You and every other troll here was going on about Christians, not only berating them, but assuming that all of us are Christians simply because we are Pro-Life. That offends me. Someone making assumptions about my religious beliefs because of my political stance is offensive and rude, as is berating my friends. We are more appalled at your support of abortion since it is DEADLY to children. Forgive me for asserting that you lack basic compassion and decency, but please enlighten me as to how supporting the legality of a child being killed in utero is compassionate or decent. I was not attacking your “personhood”-unless I were to find out you are actually a canis lupus familiaris behind your keyboard or something. This is funny though: “…nor will it be tolerated.” What exactly do you plan to do about it? Spank me?
2. My facts are not pseudo-scientific blather, as you so like to say. I do not fall back on religious notions, rather I point out the things that people use all the time. The judgment you seek to pass upon a woman in her chosen profession is wrong and distasteful, and your attacks on the rights of others are very wrong. Especially when no one was harming you or anyone else. Had I been attacking people through posts on the internet and being very awful, I would have deserved the self-righteous dithering you went on with. That being said, I hope you feel better about yourself for that.
Well, you haven’t presented any facts yet, so I don’t yet know how scientifically-sound your facts are, but since you seem to be supporting legal abortion, I’d venture a guess they’re not very. You are, however, welcome to prove me wrong, and I eagerly await your attempt! You were just falling back on religious notions-you mentioned a bible quote, ffs. Now that you’ve been called on it, your argument is, “Well…YOU GUYS do it all the time!”, which is really no argument at all, considering to whom you are speaking. I never claimed to have good taste-I can think of graver wrongs to commit. For instance, helping to operate an establishment that kills perhaps thousands of children in utero every year. THAT would be worse than having bad taste. It would even be-dare I say-wrong. Would you say that attacks on the rights of Germans to kill Jews (it was legal!) were wrong? Would you say attacks on the rights of whites to own slaves before the Civil War were wrong? That too was considered a “right” at the time. And here is what leads me to believe your views come from a center of pseudo-science: “…no one was harming you or anyone else…” Umm…I’m afraid that many, many children have met a swift end in Mrs. Tosh’s establishment. THAT is a textbook case of harming someone, I’m afraid. Where is your basis that no one is being harmed in this situation? Your continued support of legalized abortion does its own small part to continue harming to death 3,000+ children who die by abortion every day.
3. If you were homeless, penniless, young, and with an abusive partner, your life would be in great danger. You would not be able to provide very well (if at all) for your hypothetical child. Especially since abusive partners are known to be jealous of pregnancies (and previous children, if any) and may harm you and your child. This is not pseudo-scientific, this is fact founded in many studies across the world.
I’m glad you recognize that my life was in great danger. I’m sure it was. My partner threatened suicide at the time if I didn’t abort, and I can only imagine what went through his head in his darker moments. He refused to look at ultrasound scans of our child when accompanying me to appointments, and didn’t tell his family I was pregnant until our daughter was past 7 months gestation. I was not able to provide very well for my daughter at all after she was born. My partner refused (he claimed he was unable) to hold down a job, I was working double shifts at a minimum-wage job, and being unable to breastfeed consistently, my daughter was in dire straights. She didn’t get better until I quit my job and my partner and I separated. He was outright neglecting her while I was working, and she would have died if I hadn’t put my foot down. But, she was not “hypothetical”. That’s the point. That’s why she wasn’t aborted. She was NEVER “hypothetical”.
4. That is great and all that you have a child! Do you think pro-choice folks are out there to murder and maim and kill everything? No, we’re here to face the reality of things: having a child is a great and honourable responsibility, and its also a large and definitive change in lifestyles and previous patterns. I do not believe you are dealing with the full deck as far as being a young mother goes.
No thanks to legal abortion. That’s why I’m here. I don’t think you’re just out spoiling to do so (although some ARE-I’ve talked to plenty post-abortive people who actively counsel others to abort simply because misery loves company), but that’s the consequence of your political position. You campaign and fight for keeping legal the actions of those who murder, maim, and kill. I am here to truly face the reality of things: once a woman is pregnant, she already has at least one child, and no amount of lifestyle change for better or worse should make it legal for that mother to elect to have her child killed. To be able to say that a lifestyle change should warrant the legality of a mother having her child killed is obvious lunacy to this “young mother” (although I am no longer a young mother. I’m a 31 year old mother of two, and this was more than 10 years ago).
5. What if your daughter got pregnant at a young age (lets say 15, for example)? What if she was truly not ready to be a parent, and being pregnant threatened her life? What would you do? I would hope you would not force motherhood on her when she was at her most vulnerable. You cannot mother her child in good conscience. And you did not answer my questions about children and pregnancy that result from rape, by the way.
If my daughter became pregnant at a young age with my grandchild, I’d expect every effort to bring about a healthy delivery of my grandchild while maintaining the health of my daughter (which would qualify as rape, regardless). I didn’t go out of my way to rebut your example of rape because my answer would be the same, and I didn’t want to be redundant. I would not “force motherhood on her”-whoever would have impregnated her would have done that already. And why do you say I cannot mother her child in good conscience? Why not? Why can I not at least help her? I mean…this worked for Jack Nicholson, did it not? Would you tell him that he should’ve been killed in utero because his mother (the woman he ended up knowing as his sister) was young? I dare you to tell that to him to his face. He seems like a scrapper. ;)
Jack, she did not say that was her situation. The point did not go over my head. She said she would birth her daughter like she is supposed to. This is not an indicator that this was the predicament she was in.
I did, but I did so in a roundabout way, so I’m not surprised it blew right past you. I said I would birth my daughter like I am supposed to, and that I did, and that she just recently turned 10 years old. Reading comprehension-do you have it?
Maybe she was upset because a bunch of people were harassing her outside of her home? I’m sure no one in these comments would be happy if they returned home to a bunch of people on their lawn with slanderous signs and launching personal attacks. Just a thought.
What would Jesus do? well, when the woman caught in adultery was dragged out into the public he told them “Whomever among you is without sin cast the 1st stone”
I just do not think doing this at their homes will bring conversion.
x: “We disagree, but at the heart of the matter, it’s going to take firebrands like myself and carebears like you to accomplish the same goal, because just as you and I are different, so too are those on our opposition, and some will be receptive to you, and some will be receptive to me.”
Well said. :-)
“the magical power of ass-kissery” LOL
Loreian: First, be aware that your questions have been fielded more than a hundred times (seriously) by the regulars here. If you’re coming in thinking you’re asking something new… LOL
I don’t think you’re sincerely asking for the sake of seeking information. I think you’re asking rhetorically as a prelude to schooling folks here once you hear, as you expect, a “gee, I dunno, that’s a tough question” response. Bullshit. You have no idea. Your questions don’t probe ignorance here — they reveal your own.
On the matter of judgment — what kind of effete, limp-wristed idiocy are you trying to pass off? People exercise judgment all the time. Your post expresses judgment, even as you cluelessly imagine yourself engaging only in the judgement of judging others judgmental. Do you have any idea how comical that appears?
No. We judge things. You judge things. That’s what makes us human and not mere simians. We have emergent qualities that permit us to judge, and the fact that other qualities we posses make it a matter of our survival to be forced to judge, we judge all the time. That’s precisely why Jesus et. al spoke to how we judge, and warned about the consequences of disingenuous judgment and hypocrisy. It’s rightly part of our nature. And it’s also why Jesus modeled judgment for disciples who learned well — you find in Acts and the epistles much of the “judgement” you putatively loathe.
It’s amazing that a do-gooder would drop by like any two-bit toll and JUDGE people here, ostensibly for being judgmental.
And all these other trolls. Who unleashed a whole congregation of Episcopals (well, half of one, anyway) on Stanek’s site?
And all these other trolls. Who unleashed a whole congregation of Episcopals (well, half of one, anyway) on Stanek’s site?
ROFLMFAO! *dies laughing*
See what you’ve done, rasqual? Now I’ve died laughing. That wasn’t a very Pro-Life thing of you to do! ;(
These kinds of protests are the reason I’m pro-choice. You aren’t spreading love. You are spreading hate and fear. The only people you get to your side of this argument are the ones who can ignore the needs of women and close their minds and hearts to them . I’ve been harassed on the street more, by walking past our local clinic, not even going inside, than in all the streets of my entire life. Your movement is hateful and stupid. You aren’t helping already born children and trying to shame women. Very Christ-like.
“These kinds of protests are the reason I’m pro-choice.”
This is a VERY bad and irrational reason to be pro-choice.
Maybe, “Attackwomb” (I’m sorry you seem to think of yourself as nothing more than your reproductive system), if you actually listened to what we were saying instead of getting indignant at the fact we are saying it, you wouldn’t insist on being so Pro-Choice. Why can you close your mind and heart to a very young child who will have their entire life taken from them by abortion? Why should we do the same? Do you not realize that MANY, if not MOST of us here ARE women ourselves, and are even women who have been in HORRIBLE pregnancy situations, and the largest part of the reason we are Pro-Life ourselves is because we are able to weigh our temporary circumstances against what would be the epitome of permanence: a young life forever lost?
X, I live in the episcopal epicenter of the South. How popular do you think I am?
I suggest that you peace at any price types read WHAT JESUS MEANT by Garry Wills. He was NOT some kum bah yah hippie, he was a true RADICAL who had a true love for ragamuffins, i.e, the people at the bottom of life’s totem pole. (Also read THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL by Brennan Manning) READ HERE: the unborn. (duh).
The protesters outside this woman house are not trying to shame the woman in crisis. This abortion CEO is profitting from the deaths of innocent children. Under any other circumstance, you would support a protest. But when it comes to the sacred cow of abortion, we as Christians should try to be more understanding and forgiving?
Maybe one day. But right now I am there for the babies, for the justice, for the despicable act of killing for convenience”s sake.
For those Christians who chastise me for my passion, try growing a pair. X, you come join me any day!
When it comes right down to it do you really believe this is murder of a defensless child? If so,then you do everything you can to stop it. We must never put the perpetrator above the victim. The only difference between a serial killer and an abortionist is a paycheck. The Lord was invited to lunch and he offended everyone there. He was noty politically correct or “nice”. Jesus would probably be banned from the pulpits today for being so offensive . Lets get rid of the Nicer than Jesus mentality . People need to be doers of the Word.
Courtnay,
Meet me in Arkansas the next time I go down to visit my folks! My brother makes great mead, or we might be able to get some homemade muscadine wine from my uncle. Good times, girlfriend. ^_^
(Note: We are well-aware of any and all laws regarding homemade alcohol, and follow them strictly. No more is ever made than even half the yearly allowed amount, which, since we rarely drink, is more than enough for personal consumption of self, family, and friends. DRINK RESPONSIBLY!)
With all due respect to Courtnay, I would STRONGLY advise anyone Catholic or non-Catholic Christian to stay away from any of the writings of Gary Wills. Wills is a Catholic and an academic (we all know what that means) who, at least at the time of writing What Jesus Meant, was in rebellion against the Catholic Church. Though What Jesus Meant does have some very excellent meditations on the gospels, Wills condones many sexual perversions in this book, including homosexual actions and artificial contraception (if memory serves correct). Again, he CLAIMS to be Catholic yet attacks Catholic doctrine such as the perpetual virginity of Our Lady. I actually complied several pages of doctrinal errors contained in this book back in 2006… I may be able to still find it. Yes Jesus was a radical, but Wills paints a portrait of Jesus in the image and likeness of himself.
Wait, X, isn’t Arkansas one of those unenlightened states?? Sounds fun!
Bobby, I guess I am in rebellion against the Catholic Church, too. Sigh. Please don’t make this into a believer’s litmus test. You KNOW the point I was trying to make about the book. And it is absolutely valid AS WELL AS scripturally based.
“I guess I am in rebellion against the Catholic Church, too”
No, you don’t go around claiming to be Catholic. It is a very grave scandal for someone to go around claiming to be Catholic ESPECIALLY with a scholarly bent who writes books constantly undermining the faith he claims to be upholding.
Also, if I recall crroectly, doesn’t Wills give the whole “God hates shrimp” argument in favor of homosexual acts? The whole “Okay, I’ll concede that Leviticus condemns homosexual acts. I just have a few questions. In Exodus 21, God tells me that I can sell my daughter into slavery. What is a fair price for her in this day and age? If understand Leviticus 11 correctly, may I still play football if I wear gloves? etc.” I would hardly call this line of argumentation scripturally based. I mean, just his approval of all sorts of sexual perversions (not just homosexual actions) should really make us stop and think if this is the kind of person we want those who are trying to learn about Jesus to be reading. Hence, I do not think it is irrational to say that anyone who makes this argument should not be recommended.
Courtnay,
Heck yeah. Overalls are the new loincloths, ya know. ;P
BB,
In her defense, perhaps we can acknowledge that maybe even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes, and a stopped clock is right twice a day? I think this would go back to the sort of trumped-up charges of Ryan being a “Rand devotee” simply because he can acknowledge the truth even in a nest of pap.
So sad that anti-choicers have to resort to violence and intimidation…
Right. The “violence and intimidation” of people peacefully praying for this woman while lamenting the dead children she helps execute every day. The horror, I tell you. The horror.
“In her defense, perhaps we can acknowledge that maybe even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes, and a stopped clock is right twice a day?”
Yes, I do concede this. I probably came off a bit too harsh in my previous posts. In particular, if I remember correctly, Wills’s meditation on the temptation of Our Lord is magnificent. So I guess my point is that both NEED to be acknowledged. There is some good stuff there, but we (and I think Courtnay would agree with this) can’t recommend 100% of it, even though we may not disavow all the same things. That’s fair, I think.
What violence???
Oh come on, Courtnay, you know, the violence of… that, you know, when they went there and that thing, when it happened and they decided… and then it… you know, VIOLENCE.
So tearing up an innocent human being in utero(who was made in His image btw) Jesus would be all for??!!
And He would not stand against it?? No posters of the horror inflicted on His children? No calling out those that perpetrate the acts of violence depicted?? He would be quiet on the evil of abortion?
Yikes. The trolls need to study Scripture a bit.
LOL at all the pro-aborts who come here with their one-liners who think they’ve just written something terribly clever!
YAWN. You’re late to the party, dearies!
To say that what prolifers do is what keeps you from being prolife is absolutely laughable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your desire to live as you wish and kill your own should you ever need to exercise your
“right” to abortion is what keeps you PRO ABORTION!
Good grief. Own it.
Btw, pro-aborts…Jesus’ was more concerned with saving people from sin than He was with being polite. This is the same Jesus Who resorted to physical violence when money changers were disrespecting His Father’s house.
Jesus often spoke out and people “murmured”. He said things that got people riled up. He was told by his disciples many times that He was out of line. LOL, right? Sinful humans telling the Son of God what He should or should not do.
I’m sure God really appreciates you pro-aborts dictating what is and is not acceptable. We got it. Pulling children limb from limb in their mothers’ wombs…acceptable. Calling baby killers out in front of their community…not acceptable. How is the weather there in Bizarro world?
Please remember that Christ said to be careful how you treat children because their angels’ faces behold the Father’s face in heaven. Think on THAT.
@Joan — As a black woman, I am highly offended by your analogy. I am not really comfortable with home protests, but the protestors are NOT there to firebomb this woman’s house or kill her family. They are not making her try to move from her home by force. Your post is an insult to all the people who have been terrorized by the Klan and other hate groups, including my father, whose cousin was killed in rural Florida in the thirties by the “nightriders.”
Theresa sez:
“What would Jesus do? well, when the woman caught in adultery was dragged out into the public he told them “Whomever among you is without sin cast the 1st stone”
I just do not think doing this at their homes will bring conversion.”
Biblically, earlier in this comment string I noted that Jesus DID have confrontations, but as far as memory says, NONE were in the form of protesting outside a sinner’s home, or in a home. We have many accounts of Jesus visiting people in their home contexts. I will note again: what was his deameanor and efforts there? Those episodes are NOT his confrontation episodes.
Theresa’s example is yet another example – Jesus was in a public setting, where Pharisees were carrying out their intimidation of everyday citizens – which I see as them continuing to support their power hold on that society. Jesus did not go to the woman’s house. When Jesus was in people’s homes, his behavior was distinctly different.
David Risler sez:
“The biographies of prophets we have in Scripture are not just a good read, but also for our example. Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Peter, and Jesus all confronted evil where it lived. There is no sanctuary for the bloodguilt. The term “humanistic gospel” is apropos. Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man,But its end is the way of death.”
Getting into the OT: From what can be gleaned, I think it is clear that ther prophets were prophecying in public places. If they were going into homes, it was homes of leaders.
I don’t think these scriptures specifically answer the questions about whether the home protest is OK. The prophets and Jesus were addressing people within their own religion, or own belief system. They were not going to the Canaanites and holding up signs or anything.
After the murder of Dr. Tiller I can understand why this woman is upset – you people are no better than the WBC fanatics. Florida has Stand Your Ground laws – hopefully this woman arms herself to the teeth and makes an example of these protesters for all to see. With all of the violence coming from the “pro-life” side over the years I could see a judge siding with her – she should most definitely be in fear for her life.
A couple of clarifications about our Awareness Campaigns.
First, the purpose of an Awareness Campaign is to let the neighbors of an abortionist or abortion worker know what they do for a living. We often encounter Christians who are concerned and troubled when this comes to light. Awareness Campaigns can go far beyond picketing neighborhoods. It can include any form of making people aware that child killing is going on in their community.
Second, we do go right up to the abortionists’ property, but we are not trespassing and many times (most abortionists live in gated communities) we stand in the road way quite a distance from the home. It is very easy for an abortionist to be loud and proud among pro-aborts. But every one of them comes in contact with solidly pro-life Christians in their daily life. The goal then is to expose the darkness to the light and thus create an ongoing witness to the Truth.
The prior CEO of Planned Parenthood had pro-life Christian neighbors living right across the street who did not know what Suzie Idtensohn did for a living. Is it a coincidence that she retired, sold her beautiful home and moved out of state shortly after two of these campaigns? We see this happen again and again.
It is true that some neighbors who even say they are pro-life are angered with our graphic signs and the disruption to their lazy weekend tranquility. Yes, we are quite the spectacle. But I have been surprised at the number of people who have thanked us for exposing the Truth. People know what an abortion is in 2012. We have all seen the graphic images. We know this is a Person, not a blob of tissue, so it’s not nearly as shocking and horrific to pro-life advocates — it’s more upsetting to those who want to deny the facts.
Lastly, some people say, “This is just wrong” and “You should be ashamed of yourselves.” I have nothing to counter here. God will judge each of us.
Others say: “I am not sure I feel comfortable with doing this.” And I say: That is fine! I am not sure I feel comfortable with it either and I’ve been doing neighborhood pickets years!
Residential picketing is not for everyone. Every pro-life ministry has its own niche. There are excellent pro-life people working hard at different things: sidewalk counselors, CPC volunteers, media spokespeople, educational activists, post-abortion outreach ministries, adoption advisors, prayer “warriors,” and many professionals who spend a portion of their time and money assisting the pro-life movement: OB/GYN’s, attorneys, technology experts, investigators, and friends of the pro-life movement inside law enforcement – and so on.
I just want to thank Jill Stanek for showcasing this tactic. I also want to appeal to those who are “on the fence” to consider the fruit of what has come out of this and avoid rushing to judgment.
For those who want to know more about the rationale, we’ve published an article about Awareness Campaigns here:
http://www.forerunner.com/impact/residential-picketing-questions-and-concerns
Attackwomb: “These kinds of protests are the reason I’m pro-choice.”
Wow. One of those paradoxical statements that has to be false if it’s true. Because if the value you place on unborn children is determined by how some protest on their behalf, you’re beyond stupid and THAT would be why you’re pro-choice.
Surely some corner of an MLA convention (between the gender studies pavilion and the incoherence colloquy) has parsed out this kind of odd construction before. Anyone seen it documented?
Another bloomin’ Episcopalian.
Golfer: Dude, your . . . oh never mind. Another bloomin’ Episcopalian. Who sent you people over here?
As a person, I have a problem with outing people to their neighbors. It is too much like the stocks in the market square where people would throw cabbages at people who broke rules.
God knows what people do. He sees hate. He sees murder. He punishes those who break his rules.
I watched the video above, but aside from the signs and a few people carrying bibles, I saw nobody on their knees praying. I saw a lot of angry people trying to shock and embarass people into thinking like they do. If I were the woman crying in the video, I would want to crawl under my house and never come out again. Not because of my job, but because of my privacy being invaded. I am sure that I would not change my opinion.
Obviously, her job choice stinks, but who will be next on your lists of complaints. Why not protest against prostitutes, or people on public assistance, or alcoholics who drive drunk. What about protesting against the poor and uneducated. How about protesting against the people who buy or read the wrong books. Or just against anybody who thinks in a way other than THE group. Next thing you know everybody is out protesting all the time and no work gets done. Problems never get solved because everybody is so angry that their opinions are unchangable.
So now why don’t we just get rid of all the people who are doing things that we think are wrong. We could send them to a reservation like we did with the Native
Americans. Or we could put them in camps like the Germans did in WWII. They deserve to be treated this way, look what they do! Pretty soon this would be a great place to live. All the bad people gone. I wonder if their would be anybody left?
Angry mobs are useless. Do some real good. Feed the hungry, educate the young, help those in need, but most of all everyday trust in God and pray for a better world.
. Why not protest against prostitutes, or people on public assistance, or alcoholics who drive drunk.
First off, people on public assistance aren’t killing any innocent people. You coulkd make the case ofr the other two (and HIV infected prostitute knowingly has unsafe sex and a drunk driver definitely can kill.
Ok, so leaving legality aside for a second, if there were a person in my neighborhood who consistently drove drunk and would not stop even though he hit folks, you better believe I would do ANYTHING within my 1st ammendment rights to out, shame, dissuade, reproach this person. People’s live depend upon him changing his behavior.
Similarly, if a person was running a prostitution ring out of her house in my neighborhood and would not stop, I would do whatever it took. Especially if drugs and human trafficking were part of it. People’s lives depend upon me taking a stand.
This PP princess chooses how to shake her moneymaker. I can choose to both pray for her victims and express my absolute horror at killing the unborn. I mean really, Lisa, if we aren’t going to be vocal about this issue and these killers, what in good God’s name are we going to speak up for?
You can compare me to an “angry mob” all day long. How come you’re not outraged??
I am angry, but I choose to pray
Ok Lisa, fair enough. Maybe that is your calling. As someone wholly sold out to Jesus, I pray too.
But there is very real and persistent evil in this world. Some of it resides at that home pictured above. I am called to NOT walk on by that house, but to confront and expose and challenge. There is nothing unChristian about that.
Lisa: “Obviously, her job choice stinks, but who will be next on your lists of complaints.”
Tell ya what — get back with me when the unborn are welcome in life and protected in law, and we can consider the matter.
I understand how important it is to stand up for what you believe in, but sometimes the big stick approach does not get the results.
I am a school teacher. What I have found with my students is that teaching them early shows the greatest success. I realize that you cannot catch everybody early, but showing compassion and kindness goes a long way when it comes to motivation.
Work on making adoption a great choice. Set up youth outreach programs that will help to guide the girls who might be in the position to make that choice. Be willing to help man a hotline for women considering abortion. Continue to fight laws to stop abortions. Campaign against abortion supporting candidates.
That planned parenthood CEO is unimportant. So you go protest at her house and get her to quit her job and move away. Planned parenthood will just hire somebody else. You will not have stopped a thing by protesting against her. She is a nobody.
Don’t waste time holding a sign, when you can make a real difference elsewhere.
Sometimes I wonder if the “just pray” people are little more than effete do-gooders who prefer personal comfort and lack of even necessary conflict — at any cost. Geez, the country was full of ’em during times of slavery. Same thing. Just keep the peace and pray for change. Don’t speak prophetically at all. Don’t call a spade a spade. Rather, whisper fearfully about it behind closed doors. Doors that shelter comfortable people from an unnerving world.
Prayer is necessary. But what do we make of folks who can’t imagine that maybe God has replied to some folks’ prayers, saying “get out there!”
Perhaps folks who are brave enough for the fray are God’s hands and feet in response to your prayer, Lisa. If so, consider praying not that they’ll change their ways, but that they’ll be instrumental in others changing their ways. The most urgent matter for your concern, certainly, should not be whether protests are appropriate but how many more unborn will be slaughtered by the woman whose comfort would be enhanced on your advice.
So now why don’t we just get rid of all the people who are doing things that we think are wrong. We could send them to a reservation like we did with the Native
Americans. Or we could put them in camps like the Germans did in WWII. They deserve to be treated this way, look what they do! Pretty soon this would be a great place to live. All the bad people gone. I wonder if their would be anybody left?
You have it a little backwards. We wouldn’t be the people eliminating the Native Americans (and as someone who has quite a bit of Cherokee on my Dad’s side-yeah-you’re offensive) because the Native Americans by-and-large were defending themselves and their homeland. We’d be the people arguing against Andrew Jackson’s disdain for and persecution of them. We wouldn’t be Germans rounding Jews up for extermination in concentration camps. We’d be the Allied Forces coming to liberate them. Are you from a parallel dimension where abortion doesn’t kill 3,000+ children every day? In your universe, have they managed to find a way to simply remove a gestating child from his or her mother and continue the gestation elsewhere to later be born healthy and intact, and THAT is what they call “abortion” in your world? Because, you guys might have been able to settle your differences over afternoon tea where you’re from, but we just haven’t gotten to that point on our planet yet, and people are dying.
Lisa, why can we not hold a sign AND make a difference elsewhere? I personally do protest. I hold signs. I also pray. A LOT. I also put my money where my mouth is and support women in crisis pregnancy. I have talked a couple women out of aborting. I also am helping my sister raise money for her adoption. She and her husband have 4 children but want to open their homes to a fifth. I do ALL these things.
Again, what is with this idea that we can only have ONE approach?
And as Courtnay said, why are you NOT outraged Lisa? Because you can claim you are, but your actions and the fact that you come here to shake your finger at other pro-lifers proves otherwise.
If the government were hauling off black people to kill them would you tsk, tsk us for protesting? For outing where those government officials live and letting neighbors know they kill black people? Or if you lived in Hitler’s Germany would you reprimand those who were working in the underground to safely hide Jews? Would you just choose to pray and not life your flesh and bone arm to save a life?
Jesus wants us to pray. He also says that if we clothe the naked and feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty it is the same as if we did it to Him. God wants us to be people of action AND people of prayer!!! Where on earth did Christians get the idea that we are supposed to sit around and pray but never lift a finger to help another? Doesn’t the Bible command us to rescue those being led to slaughter?
Comments editor won’t let me edit. I meant “lift” a flesh and bone arm.
That planned parenthood CEO is unimportant.
Not to the babies in the waiting room.
Do you think our Civil Rights heroes really cared, in the end, whether the KKK “got it”? Or were they really resolved to change the culture of racism—where it would be known, widely, that we don’t kill or discriminate against people who are black?
If we can get enough folks to stand up and say, the work abortionists do is unwelcome in our community and they are unwelcome in my neighborhood can go a long way in convincing people that abortion is murder, and we JUST WON”T HAVE IT. You wouldn’t allow a practicing terrorist who lived next door to you to come and go as he pleased, would you? Why would you allow a killer?
We’ve gone soft folks. As opponents of the biggest Holocaust in history, we cannot be afraid to hurt feelings, be disapproved of, called names, or as rasqual says, get out there.
And P.S. Feeding the poor and calling out killers are NOT mutually exclusive.
Jay, thanks for what you all are doing with this project. The protests I have seen on video are peaceful and prayerful.
I would definitely want to know if an abortion provider lived in my neighborhood. Or a pedophile or uncontrolled pit bulls or whatever or whoever is dangerous. These people are directly involved in mass murder and pose a threat to me and my family. They are either brainwashed to think what they are doing is sickly noble, or they are seriously mentally ill, or both.
Until they completely change their lives abortion providers cannot be trusted.
One of the effects of the Awareness Campaigns that I forgot to mention is that it makes it far more unlikely that young doctors will want to become abortionists. When they see it carries a social stigma – even if they are personally pro-choice – many will think twice about going in that direction. You can’t be a part-time abortionist and an OB/GYN at the same time and not lose patients (unless Christians keep quiet that is). You will eventually have to become full-time at one or another (if Christians do their job that is).
In Melbourne, Florida there were over 24 abortionists in 20 years because every abortionist was picketed at their home. Finally, they had to fly a killer in from Cincinnati, William Egherman. This man turned out to be a butcher injuring many women. (He was Kelly Clinger’s abortionist BTW, for those of you who know her). Finally, the mill in Melbourne could not stay open.
Eventually, what will be left are the really “bad doctors” among abortionists. It is that way already now, but the crop is getting smaller and worse. Again, I want to emphasize that this isn’t the only front in the battle. But the people who think it is wrong or ineffective really don’t know much. They don’t have the facts straight.
The fact that Neighborhood Awareness is so inflammatory from the pro-abortionists’ perspective ought to speak volumes. When pro-aborts start telling us that something is counter-productive to the pro-life cause, we know we are on the right track.
I feel very sorry for Jenna Tosh. Those tears were from her heart.
28 years old is too young to have developed that callousness that it takes to be a PP administrator. Too young to be dead inside.
When Abby Johnson was that age, she genuinely believed that PP helped women and that she was working to reduce the “need” for abortion. She was still in innocent self-denial about the killing of children that happened at her clinic. In Unplanned, Abby talks about the coldness that she encountered sometimes, and her husband had to spell it out for her: “Abby, you work at an abortion clinic.”
We can be sure that Jenna also sees herself as a good and loving person. She’s no Cecile Richards yet. That’s why she was not emotionally prepared to meet the devastation that her career causes.
It is probably good that she learns this from a gathering of peaceful pro-lifers — and not from some deranged young man who’s child was recently killed at her facility. But still, the truth hurts.
Jack,
August 21, 2012 at 1:51 am
I wonder where this article got linked to, our new trolls all showed up at the same time.
It must’ve been a disturbance in the Force.
Ah, italics function! Your ways and customs confuse me.
Unfrozen Caveman Pro-Lifer
“That planned parenthood CEO is unimportant. … She is a nobody.”
Jesus doesn’t think so, Lisa. She is His dearly loved child, who is soooo lost.
Also, you do know that they are not camped out in front of her house every day, right?
There is a variety of sins and ways of falling away to tempt every different person. Why not a variety of different ways of finding grace?
How about rape victims, who should NEVER be forced to carry their aggressor’s child?
Shall the rapist be executed, too? or just his kid?
What did the child conceived in rape do to deserve death. Are we really suggesting that it is okay to murder children because of their biological lineage? Are we back to the Hammarabi’s code now where we kill someone’s child when they do something wrong?
Solomon taught the world that the child belongs to the one that is willing to love and care for them. Not to a rapists. It is not “his child”. If the mother will take care, it is her child. Or she can do the right thing and give up to whom the child does belong to — the adoptive parent.
If it where my girl, I would be crushed if she were raped, but I wouldn’t allow the misanthropes to take advantage of her shattered state and convince her to confuse a child with the sins of totally different person. My daughter is too young to take care of child, but I don’t think I’d want her to give it up for adoption. It would pain me too much to be away from my granddaughter or son. If possible, I would want to take custody. Of course I would love my granddaughter no matter how she was conceived!
To me, people who want the child dead are bizarre.
How many people have cried their hearts out over what she has done to them?
Oh, they don’t count. Only Ms. Princess PP’s feelings matter.
Truth hurts, honey.
I was not trying to cut down on anybody elses efforts. It is a free country. Good for you! I personally do things differently. I will continue to pray for your effort to work out. I just cannot find peace in that kind of protest.
Good luck and may God bless you.
Courtnay: “We’ve gone soft folks. . . . get out there.”
And when we do get out there, well, here’s a favorite quote from theologian R. C. Sproul. It could be applied to the pro-life movement as well as to communities of faith:
“Wearing a benign mask, the secularist loudly proclaims his commitment to religious tolerance on behalf of those weak-minded souls who still cannot bear to face a hostile, or worse, an indifferent universe, without the narcotic effect of ecclesiastical opium. The church is safe from vicious persecution at the hands of the secularist, as educated people have finished with stake-burning circuses and torture racks. No martyr’s blood is shed in the secularist West – so long as the church knows her place and remains quietly at peace on her modern reservation. Let the babes pray and sing and read their Bibles, continuing steadfast in their intellectual retardation; the church’s extinction will come not by sword or pillory, but with the quiet death of irrelevance. It will pass away with a whimper not a bang. But let the church step off the reservation, let her penetrate once more the culture of the day, and the Janus face of secularism will change from benign smile to savage snarl.”
Bring it on.
R.C. Sproul… my favorite Protestant theologian. Love that man!
Rasqual–I had to read it 6 or 7 times to see if you were rebuking me or supporting me…LOL!
My mantra: Love me, hate me, but do’t you dare ignore me.
:)
In my case, my most supportive friends would be better off rebuking me more often. ;-)
“…the Janus face of secularism will change from benign smile to savage snarl.”
I suppose I’m better trained than I imagined. ;)
So you’re all totally fine with the consequences of this? Even if the consequences turn out to be this women getting killed? The way George Tiller was murdered in church? Abortion aside, are you alright with accepting that this may very well be a consequence of this sort of display?
Amanda,
When people here start calling for such action, feel free to just wring your little hands. “Abortion aside…” right, because these people would all still be out there even if hundreds of children weren’t meeting their ends in that woman’s facility. Sure.
Since when do the intentions behind an action negate the consequences? Considering how many abortionists have been murdered, it’s a legitimate question. Are the people who “outed” her to her neighbors prepared to accept their part in it should harm come to her or her family?
Are you totally fine with the consequences of Obamacare? Even if rationing does lead to some people dying sooner?
<snort>
So… you can’t answer the question then?
It’s alright to say you can’t, you know.
rasqual,
I think a better question is, does she think the people who supported Obamacare under the pretense that it would save lives through more people being able to get immediate, higher-quality care should be held accountable for the deaths that might be caused through rationing later on, and the deaths of anyone who dies due to shortages. ;)
Amanda, how many abortionists have been killed, exactly? Please post your source.
PS–I don’t want to kill that woman above. I want her to STOP THE KILLING.
According to Wikipedia, 8 abortion providers have been murdered, with 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidences of assault or battery, and three kidnappings.
I read through all the comments and found them very interesting and I felt all pros/cons about this sort of demonstration were properly addressed, except this one. That’s why I asked.
Amanda: I think the funnier question is this: is the only thing you can do in the absence of actual culpability among pro-lifers, for actual deaths, is to pose hypotheticals you somehow imagine constitute a critique of some kind?
In short, what if nothing DOES come of it, Amanda? Would you agree, then, that the peaceful outcome is a consequence of the pro-life ethic in action? Because a vast number of abortionists have been protested with no dire consequences.
If there’s responsibility, Amanda, it’s for whatever the outcome is — not just cases where something dire might happen.
Or do you not expect a raise at work when you’ve proven yourself productive and of value to the company? Is your idea of a great workplace one that only holds people responsible for failure? Not success?
Naive, Amanda. Your question needs to be framed with a paragraph crediting, first, the vast number of pro-lifers whose protests and such have resulted in no malign effects on persons or property. Discounting, of course, profits for the murder of the unborn. Impacting business is, as we all know, fair game.
Based on your stats, for what proportion of those incidents are pro-life people (that is, those who value both born and unborn life) responsible? Be sure your answer can be applied categorically to all political movements.
Well, your argument is akin to asking Christian Bale if he feels he should apologize for making possible the Aurora theater shooting. That’s why we scoff.
Xalisae, that would make sense if the Aurora shooter had claimed to be Christian Bale. He didn’t. But people who kill abortionists DO claim to be doing so in the pro-“life” cause, though the irony always seems to be lost on them.
Rasqual, I wasn’t critiquing anything, I was asking a question. Nowhere did I say anything about right or wrong, or what I thought of this demonstration. I asked a question. I personally feel that you should always consider every consequence of your actions, no matter what they are. I was simply asking if that consequence had been considered and how you all felt about the possibility.
Black folks were killed during the Freedom Rides, indeed the whole Civil Rights Movement…does that mean we should have never undertaken it?
The Civil War, WWII–were they worthwhile?
I too think its pretty amazing MORE abortionists haven’t been killed by a very mobilized and passionate mass of supporters. This is precisely because most of us, generally, turn away from picking off folks when they don’t fit into our grand schema of how we think life ought to go.
I eschew violence because Christ commanded me to. But I am human. In the same way if a someone murdererd my child, I know on principle not to advocate the death penalty. But if he got it, I wouldn’t feel that bad. In another way, when an abortionist is gunned down, I mourn that on principle. But I do not stay in my sorrow for very long. And that’s me being perfectly honest.
Oh, and Amanda, if I considered every consequence of every action, I would never get out of bed. Sometimes we must step out on faith and right judgment.
Thank you for that answer, Courtnay, I completely understand, and it was well said.
Really, I wasn’t trying to argue or attack anything. If pro-choice people found the home of a prominent pro-life advocate and did the same thing, this would be my first question as well.
And Amanda, I would LOVE it if proabortion peoplecame and picketed my house. I’d meet them out there! I’d love for my neighbors to know that I am championing the rights and dignity of the unborn. I would wear that as a badge of honor.
Why, Amanda? Those who advocate for a woman’s right to destroy her unborn child do not necessarily exclude killing from their repertoire of choices. Pro-life people, somewhat by definition, do.
Why would you ask pro-life people whether they’d accept responsibility for the actions of killers? Is making someone’s name public an act for which the divulgers would be held culpable? Why? People are constantly publicizing the names of those they disagree with on issues of public policy and so forth. Why would we think at all differently about abortionists?
This is the weird thing I find: every time I turn around, folks are thinking that the normal ways people do things have to be bracketed on the issue of abortion. And I can’t see why that should be true at all — other than, it seems to me, on account of the way people wish abortion to be thought of in some special sense for whatever political reasons they have for . . . wishing abortion to be thought of in some exceptional sense.
Seriously, I’m going to have to start collecting ways in which I’ve observed this thing.
“Since when do the intentions behind an action negate the consequences?” That’s begging the question, I think. Are you prepared to consider a “consequence” of any person’s actions, anything that happens subsequent to those actions and connected merely by a perp’s cognizance, to those prior actions? You’re going to rake a lot more than just pro-lifers in, if that’s how you’re viewing responsibility for third-party actions.
Hi Amanda, there was a pro-life family recently that had their home vandalized. Huge rocks were thrown through their window even though they knew the family had young children and the mother was pregnant and due to give birth soon.
Picketing is one thing but violence and vandalism is quite another. As you can see the pro-lifers here were very peaceful and did not step one foot on Ms. Tosh’s property.
If pro-aborts picketed my home I would be excited. I would definitely engage them in some dialogue and show them the posters I have of aborted children. I would invite the local news and let them film the exchange and the visuals I would bring (the aborted children).
What a bunch of PC BS. Abortion is insanity and pro-choicers are insane. She can cry crocodile tears the whole way to her next ‘feeding’.
Amanda, it is actually amazing to me that there are only 8 documented cases of abortionists being murdered. I would not condone or encourage any violence on them but they kill children for a living so you would think the number would be even higher..wouldn’t you?
50 million + human beings who hurt no one killed via abortion providers to 8 human beings who performed abortion killed via prolife murderers.
Considering the anger and hurt that post abortive men and women report, I’m really glad, but kind of surprised that ratio is what it is. There is a TON more innocent blood shed on the prochoice side.
Amanda, an interesting stat to know, and one that would be more specific to this discussion, would be the number of abortion providers who were killed by prolife murderers (or even physically injured) AND whose homes were protested by prolifers.
Its surreal that we consider ourselves to live in a civilized society, and yet we solve personal problems by paying someone to kill innocent babies before they’re born. And we have laws that support this (however vulnerable those laws are). Sometimes the whole reality of it all makes me just want to barf on the spot.
It would be awesome if abortionists and assistants came to my house to protest me! How much easier would it be to witness to them. No driving out of town to where they are, when they are there. I could just grab a snack, a cool drink and lawn chair and go outside to preach at them! Where do I sign up?
every time I find myself wavering – after spending probably 2-3 years of inner debate, being personally pro life but having constantly conflicting feelings about legal issues – I see something like this, and I feel firmly pushed towards resigning myself to the idea that I have no “home” when it comes to abortion. When it comes to values, I have nothing in common with women who choose abortion after consensual sex – but I also have nothing in common with people who justify terrorizing a woman and her child at her home.
Amanda, I honestly don’t see how you can use the term ‘terrorizing’. There was no violence, no threat of violence, no yelling at Jenna, no intimidating words directed at her.
Even the police officers said there was nothing to complain about, and that they were called out on false pretenses.
People exposed what Jenna does for a living. Of she was a lawyer, or a professor, or a retailer, or a lab tech or other normal jobs, what kind of pictures and slogans would peope use to describe her work??
As it is, she facilitates killing human beings for a living, and probably hundreds this year alone. So concerned citizens called out her grisly business and embarrassed her.
No tar and feathers, no terrorism. Let’s use words how they’re meant.
You can call it nicer sounding names if you choose – but thats just as disingenuous as abortion providers calling their offices “Women’s Health Centers”. I call showing up on someone’s driveway with the sole intention of humiliating her and upsetting them to the point of tears in front of her child, and then posting pictures of her online in a paparazzi meets “neener neener we made her cry! lulz!” style post to be terrorizing, and needlessly exposing her and her innocent child to countless crazies. I’d certainly feel terrorized in her shoes.
As terrorized as an innocent human being in utero when the cannula held by some crazy begins to tear off her limbs?
You are either prolife because you believe and KNOW that an innocent human being is killed during an abortion or you are not. Either abortion ends a human life or it doesn’t.
You can’t have it both ways. Hence your waffling.
And you base your stance on what prolifers do or don’t do? Seriously?
Amanda,
There are plenty of other Pro-Lifers here I don’t care for personally. I think some of them are, frankly, jackasses. One or two I find downright spooky. But, regardless of their demeanor, I MUST be Pro-Life (and not just “personally”), because children are being killed, and they don’t deserve that. How can you treat such a literally dire situation as a social club you consider you might join? Does that have something to do with your mischaracterization of this protest itself, because you think we should keep our convictions to the realm of social club choir preaching and “Good Game!” shoulder pats? If so, why? Why call this “terrorizing”, when the point obviously is “Hey, why don’t you stop doing this already?”
If she came out of her home and said, “I’ve been thinking about what you guys are saying, and I’d like to get out of this work and do something better with my life. Can you all help me?”, what do you think would happen? Physical assault? Even just verbal assault? Or do you think these people would jump for joy with happiness and gladly and ecstatically help this woman find a new vocation all the while rejoicing with her? That is the difference between standing up for your convictions about those who don’t have their own voice, and “terrorizing”, as you put it. Think about it.
Why did you say “…When it comes to values, I have nothing in common with women who choose abortion after consensual sex…”? You do realize that we don’t do what we do because we just don’t personally like “women who choose abortion”, but because the abortion that is chosen kills her child, right? Can’t that be enough for you to change your own position to something more solid?
Amanda: “When it comes to values, I have nothing in common with women who choose abortion after consensual sex – but I also have nothing in common with people who justify terrorizing a woman and her child at her home.”
So it’s all about you. It’s what kind of affinity you feel for others, on either side. I mean, the common denominator in that remark is YOU, Amanda.
Good Lord. What an asshat. Whether the child deserves protection is not, in the final analysis (“every time I find myself wavering”), at issue. It’s whether you like the people on either side.
Does being called an asshat make you feel less like you’re a pro-lifer and more like a pro-choicer? Does that kind of thing tip the pans on the balance in your head? If so, where the hell is the unborn child in your calculus?
Examine yourself and see whether this is about what “club” fits your social mores, versus what’s right.
Good grief.
And yes, I’m being purposely brusque. Do I instance the impetus that determines your ethic, or do only the unborn have that power? The answer matters.
Gosh, you guys, I would REALLY like to get behind you about this whole “Cystic Fibrosis Foundation” thing, but yesterday on the news I found out someone who donated to them once was arrested for stomping a kitten to death. I don’t know if I want to throw in with that kind of creep.
Gee, everyone, I’d really like to be all about ending spousal abuse, but yesterday at a meeting, Billy showed up wearing white shoes after Labor Day, and I don’t think I want to be associated with that kind of faux pas.
I guess I can appreciate RAINN, and I’d really like to donate, but Tori Amos’s last album like, really sucked.
I decided I am not pro-life anymore because Xalisae loves TOOL and I really hate that lead singer.
Just a reminder-
There is no swearing or name calling allowed.
Yeah but here’s the REAL litmus test:
Van Halen: Roth or Hagar.
(I’m a total Hagar girl, and I won’t be quiet about it.)
Yeah but here’s the REAL litmus test:
Van Halen: Roth or Hagar?
(I’m a total Hagar girl, and I won’t be quiet about it.)
Sorry Courtnay. It’s all about David Lee Roth. Better become pro-choice now! Haha
I am really disappointed in you, Jack.
Hi, Amanda – There are lots of disagreements among pro-life people regarding the strategies used to stop abortion, support women and babies, convert others, and promote a culture of life. As you can see on this thread, many others are not comfortable with this. I personally have now decided that I am, and the two of us could debate it all day long, but then it would be just two pro-lifers arguing over the most effective ways of saving babies and the souls of those involved in killing them – discussions that happen at this site every day. If you think abortion is wrong, you do have something in common with us. And I am glad you do.
Anti-choice, anti-women’s-health, anti-autonomy terrorists should be ashamed of themselves. Your savage inhumanity to the idea of women’s health is transparent.
Wow, you guys sure do know how to persuade effectively - calling me names (yes, I got the emails before you deleted the posts – thanks for keeping it classy) and mocking me. Thats sure to win folks over!
The fact is, nothing I do is ever going to change the legality of abortion. I’m a medical professional but not in that area, and politics make me sick to my stomach, so I won’t be getting in to that arena either.
What I DO have the power to do is stick to my personal beliefs and when those in my life ask my advice, give them advice that reflects my personal beliefs… but when it comes to aligning oneself with a group, a political party, a business, or otherwise – all I really have the power and authority to do is align myself with people of similar values… and people who think its right to harass others at their homes. especially in the presence of children, do NOT have similar values.
Amanda, I didn’t call you names. Many of us here didn’t. We tend to get snarky sometimes. Please accept my apologies, okay?
But I want you to know that YES YOU can make a difference! There are a couple little children alive today because I talked their moms out of aborting! I donate to my local CPC. That helps women in crisis. And yes, voting for pro-life politicians DOES matter.
Being pro-life doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything every other pro-lifer does. It only means that you see that the unborn are human beings and that you think it is wrong to kill defenseless human beings.
None of us here agree 100% on everything.
“Anti-choice, anti-women’s-health, anti-autonomy terrorists should be ashamed of themselves. Your savage inhumanity to the idea of women’s health is transparent.”
Oh, wow. Projection gone to seed and on steroids! OK. Murder victims do not have choice, health, or autonomy. Abortion (as savage act of violence) is murder; e.g., the premeditated taking of an innocent human life. Tosh is at least an accessory to every child killing done at PP. And yes, she should be ashamed of herself. After this protest, she still had choices, health, and autonomy. After abortion, her victims (and not all of them are likely preborn) do not. End of story.
Can’t help wondering though if a healthy person exercised his/her autonomy to destroy your life, health and autonomy, if you would tell him/her to be ashamed of him/herself? I doubt it.
Amanda says:
The fact is, nothing I do is ever going to change the legality of abortion.
I see something like this, and I feel firmly pushed towards resigning myself to the idea that I have no “home” when it comes to abortion.
Do you vote?
Do you contact your legislators when a pro-life bill is on the table?
It’s not all about politics or legality, it’s about saving lives. What type of pro-life home are you looking for? Not everyone has to be an activist or a protestor. There is pro-life work to fit every pro-lifer. You could call your local CPC and offer to volunteer in the donation room. You could write Letters to the Editor responding from a pro-life viewpoint to current events. You could wear a baby feet pin when going about your usual daily life and respond when someone asks about it. If you’re a person of faith, become a prayer warrior, privately or publicly. You can donate to organizations that support life. There are endless ways to work to promote life. One of the earlier comments on this thread had a whole list of things one could do.
The pro-life movement is made up of an incredible diversity of people. I often feel uncomfortable with the methods others choose to employ. If you truly believe in the cause of life, you have to let go of control issues and do your part, whatever it might be that you are being called to do. Try not to let the actions of others get in your way. There is a home for you in this movement.
Secular zealots also wave guns and fire bullets at peaceful pro-lifers.
The protesters on the street are at much greater risk of violence than the PP director in her home. Even so, we would stop any violence that might attempt to injure the PP staffers. We do not believe that killing solves any problems, and we protect the guilty as well as the innocent.
In spite of the risks, we must bravely uncover the truth and reveal the injustice.
As a moderator here I deleted the posts and typed out a reminder on commenting rules.
Sometimes things here get heated or out of hand and we take the appropriate steps.
You can also uncheck the notify me of followup comments via e-mail box.
Amanda,
I’m sorry you don’t find this site a welcome home for you, being putatively pro-life.
But I’m a lot sorrier that you care more about this than the millions of young innocents who are being denied a home of any kind.
There is a 4 year old girl in NY who exists because I talked her mother out of keeping the appointment she made at an abortion clinic. Given the choice between that and harassing people at their homes, I’ll go with the former. It doesn’t mean I’m not personally pro life, it means I will not be able to politically align myself as a “pro lifer” when these desperate, classless tactics are supported. It doesn’t change how I’ll vote – but it means I’ll always have to add a qualifier or explanation when someone asks me where I fall on the issue. Just keep in mind I’m probably not the only person who feels this way. From someone who has been for the most part “converted”, I can tell you with 100% sincerity – this isn’t helping.
Amanda, being “personally pro-life” is pretty much meaningless, just as it was pretty much meaningless for personally abolitionist, personally segregationist, personally pro-suffragette. Without a cultural awakening–and political movement that responds in kind–the slaughter continues.
I truly appreciate your work with the mom in NYC and I rejoice in her daughter’s continued life. I also appreciate your honest grappling with this issue. Some of us are all or nothing when it comes to killing babies. It sounds like you have a stylistic disagreement that is keeping you from fully throwing your hat in the ring with us. That’s Ok. We’re all trying to find our own way.
But let me say this: I could care less how unattractive and uncouth warring for the unborn makes me. I am desperate. And if I am classless, well, silly me. My protesting is not an event where I have to decide between the Ferragamos or the Tretorns. The truth will get out there one way or another. With me, God’s given me strong legs and a strong voice. I will use them for these children whose legs are pulled apart and who will never speak.
And in the end, I’m not out there FOR you to like me, accept me. I’m there for the babies and the soul of a child of God who kills other children of God for money. It will never be anything, or other, than that.
DO YOU LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR?
Consider Leviticus 19:17-18 NKJV. ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Loving (rebuking) your neighbor as yourself is warning him that he is in sin. Bearing sin because of him is what you do when you refuse to warn him. You get to share in his guilt….now that’s neighborly don’t you think?
p.s. REBUKE IN LOVE!!! You need a softened heart and Holy Spirit power to do that.
DO YOU LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR?
Consider Leviticus 19:17-18 NKJV. ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Loving (rebuking) your neighbor as yourself is warning him that he is in sin. Bearing sin because of him is what you do when you refuse to warn him. You get to share in his guilt….now that’s neighborly don’t you think?
p.s. REBUKE IN LOVE!!! You need a softened heart and Holy Spirit power to do that.
Hi Darryl.
Your use of the terms “Anti-choice, anti-women’s-health, anti-autonomy” is question begging in the sense that we are arguing that abortion is not a legitimate choice (just like the “choice” to rape), that abortion should not be classified under women’s health anymore than removing your testicles for fun should be considered men’s health, and abortion does not fall under autonomy any more than the right to torture your fetus for fun does. So your accusation is simply that- an accusation without any kind substance or points for us to consider.
So, who was the target of this “awareness” demonstration? I mean, did the demonstraters inform any pregnant women who might consider abortion? No. They demonstrated at the house of someone who is totally aware what an abortion is. So, it’s a lie that this is about awareness.
What was it about? Why is it good to demonstrate at the house of someone who works there? What’s the goal? What did they want to achieve? They just make her feel bad about it. And that’s called bullying.
If you don’t want abortions, help the young women and girls avoiding pregnancy.The same people could’ve taught teenage girls how to use contraception. Because contraception doesn’t kill fetuses, it kills sperm, right?
Thank you for your witness, Amanda, and for visiting here every once in a while :)
Hi again, Amanda – Groups of people are never homogenous. Each comment is written by an individual, not the pro-life movement collectivity. Please try to “reverse underline” – look at the words and actions you have not focusing on (because they weren’t contrary to your perspective) and see what conclusions you can draw about “us”. As for who you (and sometimes I) disagree with, I embrace them for their passion and our common goal.
Algi, how about READING WHY people did this from the people who were there?
You’re judging them, and incorrectly. If you had read the whole thread, people who did this said they said they were there to publicly pray for Jenna and make people aware there was an abortion provider living in their midst.
Calling the protests terrorism or bullying is untrue. Maybe its not everyone’s style. Ok, some people are squeamish about it. BUT There was no trespassing, no yelling at Jenna or her family, no threats, nothing a police officer could complain about.
If Jenna was embarrassed- I say WHY? If the pics were disturbing, DUH! its because abortion is disturbing. If she can’t be proud of what she does for a living, and own it like a real woman, well maybe she should… get a new job.
Algi, please try to keep up. The pro-lifers were making the neighbors and community of this abortionist aware that she kills babies for a living. So it was indeed an “awareness” campaign. Do you understand now?
Amanda,
Please try and understand the underlying message of anything that was said to you in a biting manner. There was a reason it was biting, and it wasn’t personal.
Geez, her house looks really nice! Bought with blood money.
My litle house is not half as nice but it was bought with money that my husband and I worked hard at with clean conscience.
If this protest made her cry, too bad. Think of the cries that will never be heard from all of the babies she has killed.
I suspect she was crying because now she has to tell her child what she really does for a living.
I find it interesting that you list one of your comment “don’ts” as :
No deliberate inflammatory comments.
Do not violate another’s privacy.
Do not threaten fellow commenters or anyone else.
No personal, racial, ethnic or gender-based insults/slurs.
YET you commend people for invading Jenna Tosh’s privacy – for standing on her property, in front of her HOME, a place that should be sacred, and yelling HORRIBLE things and her and her young son. It is ok for people to do that but not to post their ideas on your website? You say you shouldn’t threaten people yet you allow people to threaten Ms. Tosh.
Maybe you should educate yourself. Planned parenthood is not a service SOLELY to provide abortions. Thousands of WOMEN would DIE every year if they did not have access to planned parenthood – for STD screenings and treatments. For mammograms and HIV testing. Did you ever stop to think about that?
The fact that women don’t believe in women’s rights makes me disgusted. Just because abortion is legal doesn’t mean that everyone is going out and aborting their babies. If abortion were to become illegal women would be dying all over america because they would be obtaining illegal and unsafe abortions. I hope you can live with the fact that women will be losing their lives because of you – you say that you’re protecting “babies,” but what about the women of america who will not have access to planned parenthood services.
Planned Parenthood is not the only place for STD screenings and treatments. I daresay the number of females killed at the youngest and most vulnerable time of their lives at a PP “retail vivesection outlet” greatly outnumber the number of their older sisters “saved”.
Regardless. Some people aren’t as fortunate as apparently you are and don’t have the means to see a private doctor in order to get the help they need for other services. I hope you or the ones you love never find yourself without health insurance and unable to get a life saving treatment.
@ X – ehrrm, nope. Calling me names is definitely personal. But..thanks?
@ Stephanie – thanks to the Affordable Care Act, there will no longer be a need for politically-affiliated healthcare for women who can’t afford private payer insurance. Unless the ACA is repealed, ALL of PP’s “other” services will be better handled by a Primary Care Physician or hospital, and eventually they’ll have to admit their main reason for existing is abortion. But I agree with your first point – its interesting that “invasion of privacy” is a rule for online interactions, but posting pictures of this woman and her private residence, and protesting at her private residence are acceptable, even encouraged. It’s a huge contradiction.
YET you commend people for invading Jenna Tosh’s privacy – for standing on her property, in front of her HOME, a place that should be sacred, and yelling HORRIBLE things and her and her young son. It is ok for people to do that but not to post their ideas on your website? You say you shouldn’t threaten people yet you allow people to threaten Ms. Tosh.
You know where else should be “sacred”? A mother’s womb when occupied by her child. I guess Ms. Tosh is experiencing a little of what it feels like to be some of her clientele. Only, I’d really like to know what they said to her that was so “HORRIBLE”, and would also enjoy you substantiating your claim that those people were threatening her.
Maybe you should educate yourself. Planned parenthood is not a service SOLELY to provide abortions. Thousands of WOMEN would DIE every year if they did not have access to planned parenthood – for STD screenings and treatments. For mammograms and HIV testing. Did you ever stop to think about that?
97% of services Planned Parenthood provides to pregnant women are abortions. However, that’d still be too much for me to support them even if it were only 1%. No matter how much good someone might do, if they spend even a little bit of their time and resources killing innocent children, I cannot support them and will oppose them in everything else they do. Especially when all the other services they provide to the poor can be obtained at the same costs from the local Health Department. Whups!
The fact that women don’t believe in women’s rights makes me disgusted. Just because abortion is legal doesn’t mean that everyone is going out and aborting their babies. If abortion were to become illegal women would be dying all over america because they would be obtaining illegal and unsafe abortions. I hope you can live with the fact that women will be losing their lives because of you – you say that you’re protecting “babies,” but what about the women of america who will not have access to planned parenthood services.
I believe in women’s rights. I believe in women’s rights starting with the right of every woman to live, and not be killed in her mother’s womb. Why don’t you? Why don’t you care about THOSE women? I find it disturbing that every woman you seem so concerned about now could’ve been killed by her mother in utero and you’d be absolutely fine with it. What’s the difference of being killed by any abortionist in utero or dying as a result of obtaining an abortion a few years later? Except that 9 times out of 10, the abortion will certainly kill the child, and due to medical advancements post-Roe, it’s far more unlikely a woman will die as a result of the endeavor?
Not to mention, I’m not sure if you read the article posted here, but a woman was asked of her abortion experience that if abortion had been illegal, what would have been her avenue of action? To which she replied that she simply would not have opted to try and have her child killed in an abortion. I saw a survey performed some years ago at this point which has since been lost to me that found when asked the overwhelming majority of women (somewhere around 80%+, if I remember correctly), if abortion were illegal, would simply not abort at all. The statistics only back up this fact.
@ X – ehrrm, nope. Calling me names is definitely personal. But..thanks?
Not when we’re trying to illustrate how you’ve lost sight of the forest for all the darned trees everywhere. I’m sure the plantation-owning gentry of pre-Civil War America was much better dressed, well-spoken, and carried themselves far better than runaway slaves. I’d still rather count myself as being an ally of the slaves, no matter how crass they might have seemed.
There is a lot of discussion here about the appropriateness of invading an abortionist’s privacy.
There are a few fallacies though. First, this was a PUBLIC demonstration on a public sidewalk. We are still under the first amendment in America. We have the right to speech, religion, press, assembly and petition. We exercise all five of those rights in Awareness Campaigns. If we were on Tosh’s property, then we’d be invading her privacy and we could be arrested for trespassing. If we were in a gated, privately-owned community, then we could also be arrested. But we were on public property. Public is public. Private is private. There are laws and boundary lines that define this.
We also have to ask the question: Who is most culpable for abortion? Is it the abortionist or is it the church? In polls and surveys, about 100 million Americans (or about one-third of America) claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That means that on Tosh’s street there are likely many Christians. We are responsible for abortion because we have the power as the church to stand up and prophetically condemn child murder. So we go to such communities to involve the church and to reach those who can be reached. The message is “to those who have ears to hear.”
The response we get from passing motorists is mixed. Some honk and give us the thumbs up. Some yell and curse at us. Some will stop and say, “I am a Christian. I go to church. How dare you invade our neighborhood’s privacy! This is not the way. I am against abortion, but it is legal. Change the law!”
Of course, when we are involved in political activism, the same people tell us, “Keep your laws off my body. It’s my choice.”
No, those who oppose our free speech and street activism are pro-abortion by default. It doesn’t matter whether they claim to be Christians or even “pro-life.” They don’t understand the issue of blood-guiltiness. We are all guilty. Where we ought to be demonstrating is NOT in front of abortion clinics, but in front of every “church” that supports abortion on demand and in every community that has an abortion clinic within its city limits.
I used to live across the street from an abortion clinic in Melbourne, Florida for seven years. In all that time, many church people would ask me how could I stand to live there in sight of child killing every week. I would ask them, “How can you stand to live in the same CITY in the sight of child killing every week?”
We falsely believe that since the sin of “legalized” child murder is out of sight, then therefore it is out of mind and not our responsibility.
The purpose of an Awareness Campaign is to make people aware of the sin of abortion. It is THEIR sin. Either it’s the sin of complicity or of actual commission. It’s never pretty to look at sin, but without knowledge of sin, there can be no salvation. Abortionists are not more likely to repent simply because we show them “kindness.” True kindness would be to show them and everyone around them the truth about what they do. True kindness is to love your neighbor as yourself. This includes the unborn.
Stephanie, women ARE dying. 2,000 just today.
Tosh kills them. We speak up for them.
YET you commend people for invading Jenna Tosh’s privacy – for standing on her property, in front of her HOME, a place that should be sacred, and yelling HORRIBLE things and her and her young son.
Stephanie, I’m not quite sure where I stand personally on this protest. There’s probably not much I can add that hasn’t already been said. But I believe you’re comparing apples to oranges. The rules for blog comments apply only to blog comments, not to everything site users choose to do with their time. It’s not out of line for a pro-life blog to report on a pro-life protest.
I can’t see the video, but if I understand correctly the protesters were not yelling or threatening Ms. Tosh. And had they stood on her private property, they would have been arrested (as Jay pointed out above).
It is ok for people to do that but not to post their ideas on your website?
Didn’t you just post your ideas on this website? And didn’t plenty of people with diverse opinions on the issue of home protests do the same?
You say you shouldn’t threaten people yet you allow people to threaten Ms. Tosh.
Once again, Jill can’t and doesn’t control everything any pro-lifer does.
Maybe you should educate yourself. Planned parenthood is not a service SOLELY to provide abortions.
When was it ever said that abortion is the only service Planned Parenthood provides?
Thousands of WOMEN would DIE every year if they did not have access to planned parenthood – for STD screenings and treatments.
{{citation needed}}
For mammograms
Can’t let you do that, Star Fox. Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms.
http://liveaction.org/blog/planned-parenthood-ceos-false-mammogram-claim/
and HIV testing. Did you ever stop to think about that?
I did. I think the following must be taken into consideration:
- Planned Parenthood not only kills over 300,000 human beings per year through abortion, but also aggressively lobbies against even the most modest restrictions. You might argue that abortion is not a serious moral wrong on par with murder, but this is what you have to prove (not something you can merely assume when dialoguing with pro-lifers). I’m sure you would still be against the Taliban if they started providing healthcare to low-income patients. If so, then it’s unreasonable for you to ask pro-lifers to look past all those abortions and see the good things that Planned Parenthood does.
- Planned Parenthood’s practices are often illegal or unethical. This includes billing fraud, statutory rape cover-up, and willingness to aid sex traffickers.
- There are other health care providers besides Planned Parenthood, including thousands of federally qualified health centers (which administer to the uninsured). For example, Planned Parenthood only does about 1.3% of all HIV tests nationwide. Abortion is the only service that gets a double-digit percentage (over a quarter nationwide). So it seems highly unlikely that defunding Planned Parenthood would make important health services impossible to obtain.
The fact that women don’t believe in women’s rights makes me disgusted.
The fact that humans don’t believe in human rights seems a great deal worse.
Just because abortion is legal doesn’t mean that everyone is going out and aborting their babies.
What do you mean by this? One in five pregnancies ends in abortion, and over 90% are done for socioeconomic reasons. A third of all women in the U.S. are expected to have at least one abortion. Furthermore, even if abortion was “safe, legal, and rare”, that would still mean that a certain category of innocent human beings can be killed simply because they’re in the way and can’t defend themselves. This is an unjust law that we’re morally obligated to change.
If abortion were to become illegal women would be dying all over america because they would be obtaining illegal and unsafe abortions.
As xalisae pointed out, there is good reason to doubt this. Prior to Roe, over 90% of illegal abortions in the U.S. were done by physicians in sterile environments. Ireland, where abortion is illegal except to save the mother’s life, has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. This objection also begs the question. If abortion really is ethically equivalent to murder (as pro-lifers claim), then this is akin to saying that we should make it legal to hire a hitman because some people are killed trying to murder others. Philosopher Mary Anne Warren (author of one of the most widely cited essays defending the moral permissibility of abortion) makes this point:
I hope you can live with the fact that women will be losing their lives because of you
An interesting thought experiment comes to mind. Suppose a woman undergoing a legal late-term abortion at Planned Parenthood is given instructions to follow but, despite the warnings from the clinic staff, decides not to follow them and dies as a result. Is Planned Parenthood to blame? After all, late-term abortion is only legal and available in this case because of Planned Parenthood. If she had been unable to have a late-term abortion, she would still be alive. But it seems that most abortion proponents would not blame Planned Parenthood in this case. They would point out that the woman chose to do something dangerous, despite knowing better. While the death is tragic, Planned Parenthood and abortion access are not to blame. This seems reasonable to me.
But it would seem that if a woman dies of an unsafe, illegal abortion, it’s also because she chose to do something dangerous (not to mention illegal and violent) despite knowing better. While the death is tragic, restrictions on abortion are not to blame.
This is just about the worst way to bring about conversion. Talk about reinforcing the crazy, over the top prolife zealot stereotype. Geez. Our ministry has helped facilitate 30 clinic worker conversions in less than a year. They have all happened by showing the love if Christ…by building relationships, showing genuine compassion, getting to know them, finding out what led them inside those clinic doors. We never cross lines, and we have successful results…all thanks to God and His guidance. If someone had picketed my home like this, I can almost guarantee that I would still be at Planned Parenthood. To learn more about our ministry, or to have fliers mailed to you to hand out to clinic workers, go to http://www.attwn.org.
Abby Johnson, (if this is really Abby) I see that you recently spoke at Joe Scheidler’s Pro-life Action League conference?
http://prolifeaction.org/hotline/2012/converted/
Are you aware that Joe pioneered the concept of residential pickets and has had success in converting former abortionists to Christ?
See: http://prolifeaction.org/hotline/2010/chapter37/
Are you planning to tell Joe that this doesn’t work?
Everyone is different. Everyone is reached by different means, but ultimately God is sovereign and no one can come to Him unless He draws them.
I’ve been watching various pro-life tactics for over 20 years, yet I am still a newbie compared to someone like Joe who has been doing this since the 1970s. I think that your story is wonderful and your opinion is valuable. But at most it’s the perspective of a baby Christian. You don’t know the compassion that is shown by all of these people and the numerous conversions we have seen here in Orlando.
Please stop attacking us, Abby. We are not crazy, over-the-top zealots.
I am saddened by the several instances of you attacking Orlando pro-lifers. These are my friends and I know something about their hearts. I think it is great that you have personally saved 30 abortionists. But this is not a contest. Jesus saves. When you publicly criticize people who have been doing this with success for many years, it serves to “bite and devour” people whose ministry has been approved by God and who are doing a good work.
Even if you can’t agree, we would prefer you work as a co-belligerent with us, not against us.
The best piece of advice I can give you is this:
“Welcome to the pro-life movement Abby! Now please grow up.”
I happened to be driving through Winter Park the day this Awareness Campaign happened. I decided to stop and watch the whole thing going on since I’ve heard about protests such as these. What I witnessed was alot of people praying, some of the women were singing. When the police came, they were genuinely polite and what I observed was a genuine respect for the officers. When pedestrians walked down the sidewalk they all moved out of the way and when the woman Jenna Tosh and her husband walked toward their house…..they didn’t have to ask anyone to move, everyone moved out of the way, from what I observed.
What I’m noticing on this blog is alot of Christians bashing other Christians, which I think is the worst. Slander is right up there with murder. For this Abby Johnson, I would be careful how you bash fellow Christians and be careful about flaunting yourself, it is a stench in God’s eyesight!
If someone had picketed my home like this, I can almost guarantee that I would still be at Planned Parenthood.
So…if someone had been less than perfectly nice to you, you’d still be helping to kill children and reassembling baby parts for a living, even after knowing exactly what was going on for yourself?
I don’t think I would admit that in public.