In years past, when pro-life advocates were opposed to having an abortion center in their town, they normally looked to protests, legislation or zoning board requirements to help them place restrictions on abortion centers or make it difficult for them to do business. Now they’re trying a more direct tactic — buying them.
Abortion business have been purchased in states such as Kansas, Florida, Tennessee and Nebraska.
In one of the first cases the Pro-Life Majority Coalition of Chattanooga outbid a Tennessee abortion business for the right to own a local facility that had long been the sole place in town where abortions were done.
The buying of the building forced the abortion center to close and the site now houses the National Memorial for the Unborn, a memorial for all of the babies who died at the abortion center over the years.
Quite interesting. As someone who falls in the middle of this issue, I think we’re heading towards a time where a first trimester abortion will be easy to get, and a second or third trimester abortion will be near-impossible, despite being legal.
More power to them- where do I send my contribution?
I am pro-choice, however, there would be no need for abortion if people actually THOUGHT about birth control BEFORE doing the deed (barring rape and incest of course).
Why can’t they just buy another office?
james — 2nd or 3rd trimester abortions will only be near impossible here. Folks with enough money will either get not-so-legal done here — or combine it with a trip abroad.
As usual, the “moral” will inflict their rules on poor and middle-class families.
Since the embryo is nothing without the sperm and the egg, what group will protect them? Just think of all the sperm that gets killed during masturbation. Anyone who masturbates is a life killer.
Being pro choice I have to say that the approach is a very smart one and I appreciate the non-violent approach.
That being said, I think moss is right – the rich will get what they want & the poor are screwed.
So that means we should all support sex education dealing with birth control, right?
AB CD is right – if they bought the building, wouldn’t the abortion group have cash to buy another one. I admire their motives, but I don’t see the point of how it works (unless the abortion clinic was renting? Still, they’d have money to get a new place …)
Capitolism, here, as in so many circumstances, demonstrates the elegance of being a solution that works, and only involves the resources of those willing to commit them. What ever you may think about the right to abortion, the right to spend your own money on something not intrinsicly harmfull to the fellow members of your society has always been assured and uncontroversial.
Ahh Americans – so worried about abortion and gay marriage that they turn a blind eye to their illegal prisons, botched war efforts and failed democracy.
Good work, lads!
The depth of antiChristian bigotry on this site never ceases to amaze me.
it seems silly to me.
everyone knows that decisions concerning who should or should not not give birth belong with the governement, not the people.
re: #13
And yet another self-rightous message from the religious right…
So, which would you rather have? Abortion or women casually throwing newborn babies in the trash? Neither is particularly pleasant, but the latter seems worse, and it already happens every so often, right here in the good old USA.
I’m not religious. Try as I might, I can’t prove to anyone that abortion is not murder. I don’t think it is, but I can’t prove it. One of the few things I learned in philosophy class at UCLA. Maybe we should go back to convicting women for having miscarriages….
There just is not a good answer.
Dave
Hey! You know, men shouldn’t be making decisions for women, just like women shouldn’t make decisions for men. (Because, you know, you can’t trust that women whouldn’t just vote to have you all castrated at a young age and only keep a few “choice specimens” for rebreeding!) I’m very tired of the so-called Christians sticking their noses where they don’t belong….and add to that, for them to NOT adopt the hundreds of thousands of children that are tossed aside by their mother’s (sometimes after the cute baby ages) and who languish in foster care. Let’s keep care of the babies that ARE BORN because of lack of birth control….and start making some sense. Life is OBVIOUSLY not sacred…not when children are raised to never have a stable family and then tossed out on their ears by “the system” when they are 18! What a life of suffering they are born into. Open your eyes, people. Theory (oh, save a baby) and reality (disposed of children and their lack of belonging in society) are two different things.
As it stands now a wealthy woman can get an abortion (as a byproduct of another procedure) in a hospital with full support staff.
The question of when an egg becomes a human is an old one. Biblically speaking (liberals close your eyes) Luke 1:42 shows that human life begins at conception. Today’s liberals have a difficult time. Which trimester does “life” start? Or as shown by their view of late term abortion in which it is OK to kill a baby as long as its head is inside the womb? Obviously they reason if the head were outside then it would be killing which would be bad. Perhaps a liberal could also reason that human life cannot begin until lasting memories are possible, say at age 2 or 3? As for me, I’ll be “conservative” and say that human life begins at conception and is worth saving at that point.
So what’s so bad about forcing women to have abortions only in the first term?
I mean, how long does it take to realize that you’re pregnant, and then decide that you don’t wish to carry the embryo/fetus/baby?
Re:19
Luke 1:42 does not show that life begins with conception!
It is a prophesy by Elizabeth that the fruit of Mary’s womb would be blessed. There can’t be any fruit of her womb until it is brought forth. The word “is” does not appear in the Greek texts from which we get our English versions.
However, My Bible says in Genesis 2:7 that Adams life began when God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
And, if you want to understand the word “soul” look at Genesis 1:20. The word translated “life” there is the same exact word translated “soul” in Genesis 2:7.
As Christians, we need to be more concerned about understanding God’s Word than blindly accepting popular opinion.
That is why we get such a bad rap.
#20
Frank – You make a great point I agree with. I would be in favor of restricting abortions to first tri-mester, with reasonable exceptions (rape, incest, endangerment etc.).
I think a lot of pro-choice would agree.
I’ve always been pretty centrist on this issue, until I recently saw my own unborn child’s 7 week ultrasound. Even at this early stage it looks like a little person starting to form and there is a heartbeat. It certainly gave me new perspective. Ultrasounds are frequently used by the alternative (pro-like) family planning clinics to show what’s actually in there. It’s more than just tissue.
I’m leaning toward a stance of Abortion being illegal except in the case of threat to mother (physical or mental). It should not be a form of birth control.
If the clinic owners would smart, they would refuse to sell at less than an absurdly high price, take the money and go open another one. They make money, they retain their business, they can rehire their own staff after the place shuts down, and the religious right gives them a lot of money for nothing.
The only problem with this is the time in between.
I agreee Abortion should be limited to rape and danger to ones life but why should women be given the right to kill another human being? dont the baies have body rights too? yes there are too many kids in foster care but i bet their glad at least they are alive. Sorry to say this women its your fault you got pregnant not the baby. Its jsut sensible i dont know why my fellow liberals cant see it
I think we should prohibit the abortion of any embryo or fetus that tests positive for a soul. God never bothered to mention at what point he implanted the soul, or why even He sometimes treated both infants and the unborn as expendable forms of life, so we’ll have to develop our own “soul” test.
Once we have a reliable test for the soul, then the government can enforce abortion rules with more certainty. But until then, we should trust the woman to make that decision, along with anyone she brings into her decision-making process.
Re: 19 & 21 “Luke 1:42 does not show that life begins with conception! It is a prophesy by Elizabeth that the fruit of Mary’s womb would be blessed.” The key phrase for you is when Elisabeth’s babe (John the Baptist, a six month old fetus by the way) leaped in her womb which is a direct response to Mary already pregnant within about 24 hours with Jesus. At any rate, honest folks can disagree but if one uses conception as the definition of when an egg becomes a human then you are taking the safest position which is not a “bad rap” as you say. Your position puts us back into not being sure when human life begins which many would consider a “bad rap”.
You’re going around in circles people, I’m a Catholic, straight male and I say:
You’ll never stop or reduce abortions/adoptions/fostering until you stop unwanted/unplanned pregnancies. You’ll never stop unwanted/unplanned pregnancies without a healthy dose of sex education for women & access to contraception for women – no questions asked, no alternate solution.
Take your naive ‘abstinence education’ and cram it, do you remember when you were 16?
Look at the places around the world or around the country where children have it worst: Africa, India, Dixie. Wherever there are stacks of undernourished, negelcted or abused kids the society invariably is one where the women are treated like second class citizens with no control over their lives. I believe you ‘christians’ are familiar with the term Chattle?
Nothing like a bunch of middle aged, middle class men to have the true answers to issues that don’t affect them quite as personally as they affect the women facing these difficult decisions.
I can see where you’re headed with this, GaryMarks.
You’re looking for the pretext to perform a post-birth abortion on Karl Rove, aren’t you? 😛
With so much awful stuff going on in the world, I can’t understand how anyone can get so worked up about this.
lol Frank, I’ve long suspected that Rove was born with a “good twin,” and Karl simply ate him 😉