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unusualmusic_lj_archiveDon't look now, but the front lines of the abortion battle are shifting. The decades-long face-down between insanely brave Planned Parenthood clinic workers (who accepted bodyguards and stalkers and phone harassment and the possibility that they'd be blown up at their desks or taken out by a sniper while sitting at their dinner tables as just another part of the job) and earnestly sincere raving crazies who drive around town with gruesome and bloody pictures taped all over their cars and derive their greatest satisfaction in life from howling public "murder" accusations at women who are, far more often than not, simply trying to see a doctor for a yeast infection -- well, that little piece of urban guerilla warfare, which has been ravaging lives and careers for decades in an American small town or suburb near you, is finally heading into a new phase of engagement.
And this new round looks like it may find the screeching mob of would-be fetus rescuers all dressed up -- with nowhere left to go, and nobody left to terrorize.
Or...it may not.
Christian fundamentalist trolls are fond of insisting that they're nothing at all like the Muslim fundamentalists. After all, they declare proudly, heads drawn back and chins jutting forward in quivering self-righteousness, they don't engage in acts of terrorism. Which is beyond crazy. I mean, just imagine what those same denial-mongers would have to say if radical Islamic terrorists had pulled off a 30-year campaign of violence against US and Canadian medical clinics that ended up with this kind of casualty list:
7 murders, including three doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, and an escort
17 attempted murders
383 death threats
153 incidents of assault and battery
3 kidnappings
41 bombings
173 arsons
91 attempted bombings or arsons
619 bomb threats
655 bioterror attacks (all hoaxes), 554 of which were committed by one man
1630 incidents of trespassing
1264 incidents of vandalism
100 attacks with butyric acid stink bombs
One-third of all abortion clinics in 1981 were gone by 2005.
If Islamic jihadists had done even a tenth this much damage, every last Muslim in America would be doing stress-position calisthenics in a concentration camp somewhere in the Nevada desert right now. But since this impressive achievement in domestic terrorism was almost entirely accomplished by white Christian men -- well, y'see, it's Not Terrorism when we do it. And, as we all know by now, it's especially Not Terrorism when the targets aren't white, Christian, or male.
And this new round looks like it may find the screeching mob of would-be fetus rescuers all dressed up -- with nowhere left to go, and nobody left to terrorize.
Or...it may not.
Christian fundamentalist trolls are fond of insisting that they're nothing at all like the Muslim fundamentalists. After all, they declare proudly, heads drawn back and chins jutting forward in quivering self-righteousness, they don't engage in acts of terrorism. Which is beyond crazy. I mean, just imagine what those same denial-mongers would have to say if radical Islamic terrorists had pulled off a 30-year campaign of violence against US and Canadian medical clinics that ended up with this kind of casualty list:
7 murders, including three doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, and an escort
17 attempted murders
383 death threats
153 incidents of assault and battery
3 kidnappings
41 bombings
173 arsons
91 attempted bombings or arsons
619 bomb threats
655 bioterror attacks (all hoaxes), 554 of which were committed by one man
1630 incidents of trespassing
1264 incidents of vandalism
100 attacks with butyric acid stink bombs
One-third of all abortion clinics in 1981 were gone by 2005.
If Islamic jihadists had done even a tenth this much damage, every last Muslim in America would be doing stress-position calisthenics in a concentration camp somewhere in the Nevada desert right now. But since this impressive achievement in domestic terrorism was almost entirely accomplished by white Christian men -- well, y'see, it's Not Terrorism when we do it. And, as we all know by now, it's especially Not Terrorism when the targets aren't white, Christian, or male.
But, while most of the country was looking the other way, the entire abortion battlefield quietly, slowly, and irrevocably changed. Over the past seven years, medical technology has been gradually shifting the supply lines through which abortion is delivered. The change crept in so silently that, for a long time, very few people noticed. But suddenly, according to an article this week in the Washington Post, that one subtle change -- in the form of mifepristone, aka RU-486 -- is starting to make a fundamental difference in the way abortion happens -- and is talked about -- in this country.
According to the Post's Rob Stein:
At a time when the overall number of abortions has been steadily declining, a new survey reported that RU-486-induced abortions have been rising by 22 percent a year and now account for 14 percent of the total - and more than 1 in 5 of early abortions performed by the ninth week of pregnancy.
It's not the actual numbers that are interesting here; it's the trendline. RU-486 has been available in the US since 2000; and its use has been increasing at a slow but steady rate ever since. What's new is that it's finally approaching critical mass, gaining acceptance with the vast numbers of doctors who've wanted to offer their patients the option of a safe early abortion, but simply couldn't take on the daunting social, financial, or physical risks of performing the operation themselves. Increasingly, year by year, drug has allowed more and more of these doctors and their patients to do a complete end-run around the crazies at the clinic door. And this has gone on long enough now that it's starting to change the way we approach the whole issue, on several fronts.
Rest here:http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2008/01/all-dressed-upand-no-one-left-to.html
According to the Post's Rob Stein:
At a time when the overall number of abortions has been steadily declining, a new survey reported that RU-486-induced abortions have been rising by 22 percent a year and now account for 14 percent of the total - and more than 1 in 5 of early abortions performed by the ninth week of pregnancy.
It's not the actual numbers that are interesting here; it's the trendline. RU-486 has been available in the US since 2000; and its use has been increasing at a slow but steady rate ever since. What's new is that it's finally approaching critical mass, gaining acceptance with the vast numbers of doctors who've wanted to offer their patients the option of a safe early abortion, but simply couldn't take on the daunting social, financial, or physical risks of performing the operation themselves. Increasingly, year by year, drug has allowed more and more of these doctors and their patients to do a complete end-run around the crazies at the clinic door. And this has gone on long enough now that it's starting to change the way we approach the whole issue, on several fronts.
Rest here:http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2008/01/all-dressed-upand-no-one-left-to.html
