See the first post here. Since writing that one I have started to pay more attention to the prominent anti-choice blogs than I used to. I read these sometimes to get a grasp on what people “on the other side” are saying; I do this partially because I hate the idea of “sides” and so its fun to see the things we do agree on and try to find common ground. I do this to test my beliefs by reading opposing viewpoints and seeing if they sway me. I do this because it is summer and I have free time… so why not? I feel a little bad for singling out one particular post to structure this post about, but I feel like this has to be said.
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This post , titled Abortionist’s wife gone wild – with lawnmower, from Jill Stanek’s popular anti-choice blog really pissed me off. I wasn’t annoyed so much by the content of the post itself (which was bad, but unsurprising and not worth its own post) but rather by the content of several comments.These comments – as you will see shortly – characterized the worst of a movement that already makes me anxious.
First, a quick summary of what the post said:
Members of an IN pro-life activist group called Intercessors for Life spend theirs picketing the Noblesville, IN, home of abortionist Michael S. King, who slices and dices at 3 Planned Parenthood mills in Indianapolis. [...]
Word to the wise: a lawnmaker can function as a postborn abortion machine.
In this video, taken two days ago on Memorial Day, King’s wife Shelley gave pro-lifers the finger before trying to shoo them off with her mean blades. But Shelley quickly remembered pro-aborts can’t pick on people their own size and walked off in a tiff.
Just so that we all understand here: protesters gathered outside of a doctor’s home, one walked right up to the edge of the lawn that his wife was outside mowing. She is being criticized for responding to the people who came to her home to harass and intimidate her family over her husband’s profession in a less than cheery manner. All she did was flip them off, push the mower by the house, and walk away… that is what this anti-choicer considers “going wild.”
More wild, in my opinion, is the audacity to stand outside someone’s home with picket signs and harass them while they go about their daily life; its way more threatening than standing outside of their place of work (which, although I obviously disagree with, I will not criticize) because this sends the message we know where you live and we do not plan to leave you alone until you give in to our will. This is harassment, plain and simple.
In the post itself we see the phrase “postborn abortion machine” which, in this case, is serving to imply that Shelley King was considering using her lawnmower to murder the protesters. Not only did that threat never fucking happen but calling a murder an abortion (the most egregious example of this are the people who called Dr. Tiller’s murder an “incredibly late term abortion.” No, just no.) I’m sorry but there is a difference between an already born person, fully capable of surviving without the support of another human being’s body, and a fetus. Using this phrase not only distorts what abortion actually is, but it is incredibly disrespectful to the human beings, like Dr. Tiller, who are murdered over this debate.
If we’re arguing about the sanctity of life here (a phrase anti-choice love to toss around) then shouldn’t we treat the loss of life that comes with murder with more respect?
In the comments though, that’s where things really went to hell.
