Friday, August 5, 2011

More on the Summer of Choice in Germantown, MD



(Click here if you're having trouble viewing the video.)

More photos, videos, and stories are coming in from the Summer of Choice and Summer of Trust campaign this week. As you recall, anti-abortion activists are protesting near Dr. LeRoy Carhart's late-term abortion clinic in Germantown, MD as part of their Summer of Mercy 2.0 campaign. To show solidarity with Dr. Carhart and support women's reproductive rights, pro-choice activists have also convened in Germantown to take part in pro-choice demonstrations. (See here.)

Here's what pro-choice activists are sharing from this week's activism in Germantown.

- The World Can't Wait has posted several short videos at YouTube, featuring pro-choice demonstrators from the Summer of Choice and Summer of Trust efforts. The video at the top of this post is one example of their video series.

- Bloggers have posted their own accounts and photos from Germantown, including Femisisters, Feminist Campus, and Amplify Your Voice.

- RH Reality Check has accounts and photos from various demonstrators in attendance.


Anti-abortion activists are also weighing in from this week's Summer of Mercy 2.0 efforts.

- At the Operation Rescue website, Operation Rescue president Troy Newman is quoted as describing Dr. Carhart as a "dishonest man" and a "danger to the public" who allegedly belongs in prison. Newman was jubilant that Dr. Carhart's clinic would be closed for the week, calling the Summer of Mercy a "victory" as a result.

- The Priests for Life website described Father Frank Pavone's July 30th talk in Germantown, in which he urged anti-abortion advocates to mobilize others against abortion. 

- In a YouTube video from the Summer of Mercy 2.0, Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League spoke approvingly of graphic anti-abortion signs. At the 4:40 mark, he compared the use of graphic anti-abortion signs to the use of images in abolitionist, child labor, and civil rights struggles.
"I am an advocate of the graphics. I say that no social issue has ever been solved without looking at the victim. All the way back, Wilberforce had to show the chains and do a diagram of the way slaves were packed into these slave ships until Parliament woke up and outlawed slave trade. We had to show the backs of some of these slaves who had been whipped almost beyond endurance ... We had to show civil rights pictures, the people fighting for civil rights being hosed down and with dogs chasing them, and so on. We have to see-- the child labor acts came in after they took pictures of little boys working in the coal mines and the little girls running the big looms. You have to see the victim to understand what is going on. I don't say you have to use it all the time, or walk into church with a graphic sign, but you have to be willing to show what abortion is."
You can watch the video below. (Click here if you're having trouble viewing the video.)

4 comments:

  1. I wonder if the belief that showing graphic illustrations is appropriate applies across the board for these folks? My guess is they support capital punishment, guns for all, abstinence only sex education, etc. etc. They likely also support our military involvements in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. I imagine the graphic illustrations that could be used to protest all of the foregoing would be at least as gory and disturbing as aborted fetuses.

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  2. Cognitive Dissenter -- I too wonder how they'd feel about that. Good question.

    I frown upon the use of graphic images in demonstrations because they may be triggering to some people.

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  3. I suppose the pro-choice side could present graphic images of women who were denied abortions, then died from complications, etc. It would be a bad call, IMO. But the "pro-life" movement seems to be blissfully unaware or insensitive to the life of the mother.

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  4. Donna -- I agree with both your assessments.

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