It’s frickin early in the morning as I write this and I have to decide if the cold weather (ah, Minnesota in the springtime) is too cold for escorting this morning. #livinglavidachronicpain
I’ve been sitting on this here link for days now, because it needs to be shared. The awesome folks at the much beleaguered EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, KY (follow them on Twitter to see just how much fuckshit they have to deal with EVERY DAY the clinic is open) have been giving out anonymous questionnaires to patients asking about what they go through to get into the clinic.
The results are fucking terrifying. These patients have had to contend with motherfuckers pushing against their car doors, shoving fetal snuff porn into their faces, being pushed, being physically blocked (hello there, violation of the FACE act), screamed at, and video taped. They reported feeling scared, threatened, HARASSED.
Now, EMW is collecting this info to use to try and get some sort of buffer zone in front of their clinic – not a big one, even 8 feet would do. And I support them in that struggle. I’m glad they’ve been collecting this info, because it gives me some actual numbers for this following rant:
Dear Former Chief Justice Antonin Scalia,
If only you were alive so you could see these numbers and watch the videos that the antis proudly post on YouTube. If only you could see that this protesters aren’t sweet old grannies just trying to peacefully offer pamphlets of lies. Hell the “grannies” sometimes are the most viscous and persistent people I’ve personally seen.
Then again, you probably wouldn’t have paid attention anyway. You sure didn’t when you were sitting in that seat in the Supreme Court.
May you continue to rot into pieces.
To everyone else alive enough to read these words,
THIS IS A THING THAT IS HAPPENING. Right now. Today. In the year of our Calendar 2016. Escorts battle with these antis, the patients battle with these antis, all in the name of some fucked up twisted interpretation of “freedom of speech”. This “freedom of speech” turns into harassment when someone says “No” and an anti continues anyway. You’d think it would be obvious.
But the patient can’t report them to the police. Not right then and there. And we can’t call the police on their behalf. Fuck, when we call the police for shit like crossing the property line/buffer zone/blocking the way, we mostly get nothing. NOTHING. They are useless.
We can’t fix this all by ourselves.
What can you do? If you have the time and spoons, why not call your local women’s clinic and see if they have escorts. Join us. If you don’t have those, then we need stronger harassment laws or to push our lawmakers to push the police to take these calls seriously while not forcing the patient to miss their appointment. There are violations of the FACE act and outright harassment that they can see, again, on YouTube. They call it “sidewalk counseling”, we should be calling it “evidence”.
This isn’t a free speech issue and it never was. This is (SPARTA!!) harassment. It needs to stop. It needs to be made clear that when you keep bugging someone after they’ve said “no”, you are committing a crime.
It needs to stop. Help us.