AFY_EmilyB
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Saturday was the anniversary of the historic Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Today is the so-called "March for Life," for which anti-abortion activists from all over the nation travel to express their point of view that all abortion is wrong and should be entirely illegal. Speaker Boehner has graciously welcomed marchers; Michelle Bachmann will deliver the keynote address at tonight's celebratory dinner; Sarah Palin has tweeted about it; various Representatives and Senators will speak throughout the day.
So what are they marching for, and what are all these powerful politicians rushing in to show support for? It's totally going to be "A reasonable, if ideologically different from the pro-choice movement's, approach that takes into account each woman's personal situation and advocates for a moderate and humane abortion policy," right?
Ha ha! No. Of course it's not going to be that. These are anti-abortion protestors we're talking about, they set the standard for extremism. All other extremism is weak sauce.
The March's slogan is:
March organizers are really pulling no punches here. They're not bothering with their usual distractors of "abortion hurts women" and "abortion shouldn't be used as birth control" or even raising the spectre of taxes, as Republicans are doing with HR 3. These are just slogans, messaging strategies the anti-abortion movement (correctly?) believes will be more effective than the truth at eroding abortion rights around the nation. But this time they're showing their true colors: "No Exception! No Compromise!""Thou Shalt Protect the Equal Right to Life of Each InnocentBorn and Preborn Human in Existence at Fertilization.No Exception! No Compromise!"
No exception: for a nine-year old girl raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather.
No exception: for a woman who would have died had the hospital not performed an abortion.
And certainly no exception: for the 20 million women around the world who seek out abortion even though it is unsafe or illegal -- or the 68,000 women who die from those procedures.
Millions of women seek out abortion every year. Without safe and legal access, many of these women die. Putting up barriers to abortion access means endangering the lives and health of more and more women.
It's an important decision -- one that should be private. One that could be life-saving.
But, I guess for these "March for Life" protestors, valuing life just isn't in their wheelhouse.
Photo Credit: Darrow Montgomery, DC City Paper
lol nice picture. i find it disgusting that those people say they're pro-life, yet they want abortion illegal even if the mother's life (maybe even the baby's life) was in jeopardy.