Protesters target Blackfriars Medical Practice’s abortion clinic

I have just signed up, because I received a Google alert about a report on this site about the Abort 67 presence outside Blackfriars Medical Practice's new abortion clinic.

What I wanted to say was that I couldn't help but noticing that the report

Protesters target Blackfriars Medical Practice’s abortion clinic
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/7900
by "London SE1 website team"

quoted a single sentence of Ruth Rawlins, and then disgorged upon the reader a veritable avalanche of unchallenged quotes emanating from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service that took up about 80% to 90% of the article's entire length!

Was the ONLY thing that Ruth Rawlins said the single sentence of hers quoted? "A GP surgery is a place to cure people not to kill them, therefore having an abortion clinic on site is a huge contradiction."

If Ms Rawlins was tongue-tied, couldn't at least Abort 67's head office have been contacted, and invited to contribute a quote or two of its own to the reportage?

Or is only one opinion about abortion considered reasonable nowadays, as far as the London SE1 Website Team is concerned, the opinion of those who earn their salaries providing abortion services?

Abortion is an immensely serious topic. Does the website team really believe that there is nothing interesting or important left to discuss, for all time?

A new generation of readers and voters has sprung up, born since the crazy days of 1967, a year in which I was too young to vote myself so I played no part in procuring the Abortion Act 1967. The members of the younger generation owe their very lives to the choices of their mothers not to kill them with impunity whilst they were still very young. Must we impose upon them, as an irreversible fait accompli, the results of the coup of a certain faction within a generation of politicians and those who elected politicians in those days, who are by now mostly dead themselves, by which abortion became not just legalised, but normalised? Are they to be discouraged from scrutinising the new status quo that their dead ancestors bequeathed them, and making their own informed decisions as to whether they want to have human blood on their own hands and, if they don't want blood on their hands, voting for MPs who will repeal the Abortion Act 1967?

From the point of view of the late human (an embryo or a foetus) who is deliberately killed during an abortion, in what amounts to lethal age discrimination, his early death from abortion is a failure to accord him equality with the older humans who took the decision to kill him and carried it out.

I consider it entirely possible that a future generation will have a more sophisticated grasp of the ever-evolving equality ethos that has come to fore during their lifetimes. This would create a generation gap to rival that of the sixties, between them and the mostly dead generation who elected the Parliament that in 1967 paved the way for eight million - EIGHT MILLION - humans to be killed in the UK alone, in what ought to be the safest place in the world for anybody, our own mothers' wombs.

The only way we are going to find out whether today's youth are less blood-thirsty and more conscientious than the hippies and feminists who got their way in 1967, is to allow calm and informed discussion of abortion. It seems to me that this is not something that the London SE1 Website Team wants. Otherwise, it would surely have written a less obviously biased report of the Abort 67 action at Blackfriars Medical Centre.

Calm, informed discussion of what abortion is and does, is the cornerstone of Abort 67's campaign. Abort 67 uses emotive pictures, that show the reality of abortion, because they have to counter all the propaganda of the abortion industry that misrepresents the reality. But their arguments are all calm and rational. BPAS doesn't have any arguments. They really entirely upon emotional appeals that are based upon misinformation, in my experience, in order to protect their vested interests.

It was shoddy reporting to publish the piece that was published, which seems calculated to stifle reasoned debate.

Please your acts of intimidation and fear provoking actions on the doorsteps of clinics do not advance your cause rather the opposite.
Parliament is the place to change laws use what influence you may or may not have to try and convince Parliamentarians of both houses and all religions and no religion of the worthiness of your cause and then accept the democratic system under which we live.
Please do not challenge the laws on the ridiculous notion that the people who created them might now be dead or are dead and the laws they passed should be overturned. That is the logic of the madhouse and would have our society in a constant state of turmoil as laws bequeathed to us since Magna Carta would be overturned.
I would suggest that if you want to doorstep clinics the let one person with leaflets do the job thus promoting your cause by calm and reason rather than intimidation and fear .

John Allman wrote:

...quoted a single sentence of Ruth Rawlins, and then disgorged upon the reader a veritable avalanche of unchallenged quotes emanating from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Er, that would be five quotes. Did the quote describing BPAS need to be 'challenged', or the one describing what will happen at the practise? Or, indeed the one saying what method of abortion women would prefer. These are not statements about whether abortion is desirable. And I understand Abort 67 would argue the women shouldn't have the choice in the first place, and BPAS shouldn't exist.

Abort 67 may proffer opinions that are calm and informed. Saying that abortion was legalised because the population of 1967 was 'blood-thirsty' would suggest you don't.

I was over at the gym yesterday morning, and noticed the demonstration outside of the medical centre, so went over to find out more.
There was no intimidation. A lot of passion and strong views expressed, as you would expect, but I had a long conversation with one of the protestors.
I agree that the place for making changes to the law is parliament, but making changes to how much people know about something is surely through face to face conversation and the opportunity to ask questions and think through issues. This one is partiularly emotive, and debate on it long overdue.

[quote Thebunhouse]... your acts of intimidation and fear provoking actions on the doorsteps of clinics ...[/quote]

Whom are you accusing? I have never done anything that fits you description of what you characterise as "my" acts.

I have serious doubts as to whether anybody from Abort 67 has ever intimidated anybody or provoked any fear either. Such accusations are routinely made, but have always failed to be stand up in court.

If anybody can be said to be intimidated, it has been those who represent Abort 67, some of whom have suffered from police harassment, arrest and prolonged detention without charge or trial, as they have sought, with courage, to bring their factual message about abortion to the general public in the most appropriate venues imaginable, at the "point of sale", the entrances to the abortion industry's own retail outlets.

[QUOTE]... do not challenge the laws on the ridiculous notion that the people who created them might now be dead or are dead and the laws they passed should be overturned. That is the logic of the madhouse ...[/QUOTE]

Far from this being "the logic of the madhouse", almost every campaign there has ever been to change the law about anything, has relied in part in suggesting that the inherited status quo, despite its antiquity, ought to be "overturned". Without that "logic of the madhouse", the Abortion Act 1967 would never have been passed. I was using one form of chronological snobbery to challenge another.

[QUOTE]I would suggest that if you want to doorstep clinics[/QUOTE]
I don't want to "doorstep clinics".

[QUOTE]... let one person with leaflets do the job thus promoting your cause by calm and reason rather than intimidation and fear.[/quote]

Abort 67 cannot risk promoting their cause using one leaflet distributor alone, because they have to *film* their protests, precisely to be able to disprove the frequent false allegations of "intimidation" that those who profit from killing the youngest members of the population in their millions routinely make, to protect their vested interests.

I dare say that Mrs Thatcher would have preferred a single NUM member to have been handing out leaflets in Weston-Super-Mare, rather than mass pickets at the entrances to pits in Yorkshire and South Wales threatened with closure. She would have preferred a discreet letter to be printed in The Times, rather than a poll tax riot throughout the Congestion Zone. The Apartheid governments would have preferred a solitary leaflet distributor in Swindon to mass demonstrations across the road from their embassy, in Trafalgar Square.

If one classifies the Abort 67 presence outside the premises of the purveyors of death as "demonstrations", they are about as tiny as demonstrations can be to be effective, avoiding the accusation of being a "fringe" group being replaced by even greater put-down of being a "lone crank".

My personal rule has always been not to put yourself or any lady you're with in a position where she would need an abortion, so I have always made sure we were safe. I would never want to be in a situation where such a decision had to be made. Growing older and no longer promiscuous, it is increasingly unlikely I ever will. I am not against abortion per se. It depends on the circumstances. I do object to using those awful pictures to scare off people who seek help. I wouldn't class "1967 hippies and feminists" as blood-thirsty (how ridiculous), but there definitely is something disturbing about the people dragging those pictures along. It is not helpful. you can make someone who already might desperate even more so, cut off a possible LEGAL way out. Should I drag along images of pregnant young girls who killed themselves because they couldn't get help / advice?

I admire anyone that feels strongly about something and protests, let's face it, militancy gets results in this country.
However, children would be seeing those pictures so for that reason I'm out.

@ eDWaRD WooDWaRD

If you are "not against abortion", why do you disapprove of photographs that reveal what abortion really is? Is what you are "not against" something different from what's in the pictures, a different kind of abortion that is in your mind?

If there weren't so many people who approve of abortion, because they have an idea in their heads as to what abortion is that is different from the reality that Abort 67 displays, Abort 67 would not need to display its pictures, and abortion would be a criminal offence again already.

John Allman wrote:

@ eDWaRD WooDWaRD
If you are "not against abortion", why do you disapprove of photographs that reveal what abortion really is? Is what you are "not against" something different from what's in the pictures, a different kind of abortion that is in your mind?

If there weren't so many people who approve of abortion, because they have an idea in their heads as to what abortion is that is different from the reality that Abort 67 displays, Abort 67 would not need to display its pictures, and abortion would be a criminal offence again already.

What support/help/advice do Abort 67 offer to those women seeking support/help/advice on abortion?

I appreciate that abortion is a highly contentious issue, but protesting outside clinics that offer the procedure do nothing but harass and intimidate the women who are doing no more than using their legal right to choose. Please bear in mind that you do not know the circumstances of these women, some of whom may already be in a very vulnerable position.

If you are opposed to abortion then lobby your MP or Parliament, by all means. Do not attempt to shame or intimidate those women who are making a carefully considered and legal choice.

I would hate to think we are becoming like the US, where harassment outside abortion clinics is severe to the extent that there are volunteer clinic escorts to guide women in and out of the clinic past the barrage of hate and vitriol. Let's be a more compassionate and civilised society, shall we?