r/worldnews 15d ago

Western Australia has made it illegal to protest outside abortion clinics *Within 150 meters

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/western-australia-has-made-it-illegal-to-protest-outside-abortion-clinics
79k Upvotes

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago

I’ll never forget the time my girlfriend came back from a planned parenthood in tears because 50 or so women were shouting baby killer and whore at her. The best part is she wasn’t even getting an abortion. She was getting prenatal vitamins for a healthier pregnancy.

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago edited 15d ago

I get screamed at every time I get an STD test. Or they have people out pretending to work for PP and telling people you have to check in with them at the gate then BOOM they give you anti abortion shit.

I'm like, bro. This location doesn't even offer abortions.

ETA: there sure are a lot of uneducated people in the comments who are absolutely baffled by the idea of routine testing and responsible sexual health. Y'all are the reason for the statistics. But I guess if you never get a test, you technically never have to disclose your status to your partner. 🤡

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u/Akiba89 15d ago

pretending to work for PP and telling people you have to check in with them at the gate

Wow that's incredibly fucked up...

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u/OneBigRed 15d ago

I remember a Last Week Tonight episode where they showed anti-abortion activists having set up similiarly named ”clinics” with very visible signs just about next door of the places people were actually looking for. They would then offer ”help” to those unfortunate enough to walk in.

I’m from Europe and my knowledge comes from a entertainment show, but i found it absolutely bonkers that those instances do not need to state that they do not offer abortions, and it’s A-OK to keep your customer thinking that you do. Just stringing somebody along who is probably a complete mess long enough that legal abortion is off the table.

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u/Shaysdays 15d ago

This is true. And in the days when the Yellow Pages were how folks found out about local businesses, they would pay to be listed under “Abortion services.” These days they have to classify themselves as “pregnancy crisis centers” or something similar- which is better but not by much.

Their main thing is offering abortion (but never actually calling it that) at an insanely cheap price, then stringing the women along until it’s legally too late or they can convince her her body is not her own.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/KokoSoko_ 15d ago

Yeah I read a girls story where the crisis center said they would help her and then one it was passed the mark where she could get an abortion in her state they abandoned her completely, and she was pregnant with twins. She said it ruined her life.

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u/PGLife 15d ago

This is all about creating desperate people to exploit. American evangelical christianity has become heretical. If they were real Christian's theyd know Jesus is the kind of guy who would spend all day braiding a whip so he could beat the shit out of Christian's like these.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/MK2555GSFX 15d ago

Take a look at Poland, they've gone the other way.

We have abortion clinics in the Czech Republic now that only employ Polish speakers and serve only Polish women who have crossed the border to get help

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u/scifiwoman 15d ago

I've often thought maybe these unwanted babies are more likely to end up as cannon fodder for the military or slave labour within the prison system.

I'm a very pragmatic person, every child born is another drain on the world's limited resources, another consumer and contributor to pollution - as we all are. Why bring an unwanted person into the world? Life is tough enough when you're loved and wanted by your parents, let alone when you're not.

Anyway, abortion is supported in the Bible if you look at the "trial of the bitter water" which was supposed to make a woman miscarry if she was pregnant as a result of adultery- Numbers 5:11-31.

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u/KnightTemplar777 15d ago

You know why it’s in the Bible that way? Because like today nobody is going to raise and take care of a child that’s not their own. Pretty smart in my book.

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u/CedarWolf 14d ago

IIRC, one of the reasons they call it a 'crisis pregnancy center' is because in the days before abortions were legal, every ER had a dedicated ICU for catastrophic pregnancy complications resulting from attempted at-home abortions. These were for injuries from women who had tried to perform their own abortions with coat hangers, pills, and chemicals. People who had tried to douche with bleach or other strong solvents or had poisoned themselves with things in order to prevent their pregnancies.

People these days don't remember those horrors because Roe v. Wade was roughly 50 years ago; thankfully we haven't needed those sorts of dedicated ICUs anymore.

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u/dymdymdymdym 15d ago

The people who set these kinds of scams up should be legally liable for sending monetary support into raising the children they've helped bring into this world. That'll get them shut down extremely quick.

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u/DiggerDudeNJ 15d ago

More likely they'll just declare bankruptcy and reorganized under a new business name. That's what Randall Terry (forced birth terrorist) did when Planned Parenthood won a huge a civil case against him, he declared bankruptcy so PP couldn't collect.

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u/Toomanydumbsaround 15d ago

Child support is not a debt you can get rid of with bankruptcy. It sticks with you throughout the whole deal.

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u/DiggerDudeNJ 15d ago

No court is going to force an organization to pay child support.

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u/Plumb789 15d ago

Actually, I think that everyone who protests outside an abortion clinic should be made to pay an extra tax to support the financial upkeep of children from parents who can't afford to feed them. They should be GLAD to do so.

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u/gelinrefira 15d ago

Duplicity and lies are part of their tactics. They justify it by saying they are fighting for fetuses and god. For god, anything goes. They are the kind of people who are so convinced they are right, they are willing to do heinous things for it.

This is why I'm convinced the next rise of fascism will be in America. These people operate with impunity and they have the most powerful propaganda machine in the country. Imagine people like that controlling the most powerful military in the world with thousands of nukes.

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u/Akiba89 15d ago

Wow that's incredibly fucked up.

How do they set up right next to the clinic they're actually looking for though? They just rent the suite next to them?

Either way, yeah that's incredibly scummy and obviously not legitimate. That would be trashy if it wasn't a medical practice. But the fact that it is elevates it to "why tf is this not illegal?"

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u/OneBigRed 15d ago

Apparently the segment about ”Crisis Pregnancy Centers” is up on Youtube

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u/shadowsinwinter 15d ago

man someone's gotta pull a reverse uno on them and camp outside these clinics with those huge protest signs saying stuff like THEY ARE FRAUDS or THEY LIED ABOUT PROVIDING ABORTION HERE if this isn't being done already.

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u/RenegonParagade 15d ago

Would that count as impersonating a medical professional? I think it should, but I have no clue if it would actually count or not

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago

No, because they don't literally say that. What they do is put a certain color shirt on and reflective vests and stand at the gate with clipboards, waving cars to stop at the gate to sign in on the clipboard. But then BOOM. Surprise bitch! We're here to shit on you instead!

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u/cg1111 15d ago

If somebody took my name at a Dr office under false pretenses I can 100% promise you I will spend a night in jail.

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u/eatrepeat 15d ago edited 15d ago

*relevant ed- https://partnersforourchildren.org/resources/topics/foster-care

Dude, they used to bomb the university campus that I cooked at for 10 yrs. Every semester we would get notice that they were coming a week or so ahead. All staff were told they could stay home if that would upset them. Every god damn time I was short staffed and I don't even care if some just took it as a day of rest nicely placed in their lap, not my problem and I can rock a long ass shift on the line.

However I made a point of marching right up to them after my shift. They usually were being ignored by the passers by and so engaging me was just what they hoped for, until I unleashed. Listened first of course but just long enough to allow their own words to be the rope I used to hang them.

Starting with, where do you volunteer that assists orphans and foster children that were saved from abortion? What changes to the foster system are you fighting for? How is your outreach here affecting the orphaned and those in foster care? How many volunteer hours have you put in today, how many this year? What meaningful assistance has personally been given to orphans, orphanages or the foster children? How many at risk youth programs are you involved in?

Followed by generally asking passers by what they think of someone who is willing to hold anti abortion propaganda for an afternoon and has given X amount of time to foster children and orphans. Actively spending over an hour sharing their answers with those just going to and from class, students who happily chastised the activity of these activists. Often enough the head of their team would ask me to leave to which I happily pointed out that my freedom to express was as valid as theirs and ask if they wanted a security guard to come by, as I am campus staff and have them in my contacts. Then I'd open up to them that some 40 staff took the day off to avoid these activists, just another group of people like the foster children and orphans that they have shown disregard to by simply putting time and effort into this anti-abortion message instead of helping and caring for those who are hurting. That they seem very calloused to the fact that they bring a huge wake of events that they do not engage. Once I felt like I aired my grievances for the long shift I'd leave them with this. Foster kids are expected to have all there personal items fit into black garbage bags as they are moved through the system and no church group has bothered to do a thing about it, they are abandoned by the very people who preach that life is precious, people who have more things than can fit into black garbage bags. Fix that issue or admit your a hypocrite.

And with that I went home smiling. Moved on from chef life so I haven't had a chance in years. Maybe that'll be my goal this year, find some anti-abortion activists and give them my 2 cents.

Edit Thanks for the kind words. Appreciated honestly but like I said I cooked for students on campus a *long time. Many fine cooks came from tough circumstances, needed a break coming in late and hung over, again. I shared this today because it still is a broken system today in 2021 as it was in 2004 when my eyes were first opened to the foster system realities. Always burned me seeing so many hold signs and no one could even get the foster system to afford these kids some luggage. Black garbage bags... Doesn't feel very good to admit that I've done very little though. I'm no hero. So I googled foster care reform and found this, seems a good place to start but open to suggestions. https://partnersforourchildren.org/resources/topics/foster-care

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u/Niku-Man 15d ago

That's a whole lot more than 2 cents. Like 2 dollars at least

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u/imdefinitelywong 15d ago

Sir, that is a whole TED Talk.

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u/mjb1484 15d ago

Maybe even another dollar and 50 cents on top of that

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u/Dinokknd 15d ago

I'd give more than three fiddy here.

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u/better-planit 15d ago

I'd say more like treefiddy

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u/Wereno 15d ago edited 15d ago

Where I went to high school there was a civics teacher who was religious and prolife. I remember when talking about Roe V. Wade he let some of his personal views come out while reading the decision and arguments. Him and his wife were foster parents, and adopted two children. He was pro-universal health care before it was ever talked about in the US. Thought it was a moral obligation Christians had along with feeding, clothing and housing the poor. He was anti-war, anti-nuclear proliferation, anti-death penalty and strongly anti-poverty.

When discussing the Supreme Court decision and the arguments the lawyers presented, he said that while he personally felt abortion was murder, it wasn't a classification that could be made legally. He had us go down slippery slope arguments of "could you abort a baby 2 weeks after it's born?" Or "Do you try to police the uterus and try to charge every woman who miscarriages with negligent homocide?" That was when I first learned how common miscarriages were. He did that to help explain why the court decided on the trimester model that they went with. He explained how women who were raped or were victims of incest would would often kill themselves instead of bring the baby to bear, and how virtually everyone in the US agreed that baring those women, or women whose lives were threatened biologically by pregnancy was seen universally in the US as the worse than abortion of two (and the reasons and polls behind it). He then explained how the 14th ammendment was interpreted that it wasn't O.K. to force the disclosure of the reasons behind abortion, so even if rape/incest/mother's life being in danger is a small percentage of total abortions, the government could not distinguish those abortions from the others.

He also showed us some statistics of women who died from and hospital wings filled with self-abortions or back-alley abortions.

He said his personal conclusion was making it illegal wouldn't change demand, only make it more dangerous and hurt more people. And that the best way to get rid of abortion was by making a world where having a child wasn't having a burden by making child care, health care and economic aid etc more readily available for everyone. While he didn't like contraceptives, he sill considered them the lesser of two evils when compared to abortion so figured they should be free and available to everyone.

Completely warped my view of what "pro-life" was. I assumed most pro-life people were like him. Working at their church food pantry on the weekends and all that bs. Nope. I have never met another pro-life person since then, only anti-choice people. I assume there are more pro-life people out there, maybe, but we only ever see or hear from the anti-choice people.

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u/Buscemi_D_Sanji 14d ago

Oh jeez, I can imagine you going around like "I don't get the hate for pro choice people, they make a lot of sense" for a while before you ran into the vast majority of them

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u/Wereno 14d ago

Yup. 100% I didn't get the hate for pro-life people before I met "pro-life" people. He did make a lot of sense. Prior to the deep dive on Roe V. Wade I was solidly in the pro-abortion camp. Just a collection of cells, why not use it as birth control etc. After, while he didn't sway me to a pro-life stance, I understood that it is a much more complicated moral, biological, social, legal, philosophical and political issue than I had thought. The idea of when personhood started, the court cases where the murders of pregnant women were charged as double homocides vs. the dystopian ramifications of starting personhood at conception.

Definitely put me in the pro-choice camp instead of the pro-abortion camp as I realized for many parents, miscarriage is losing a child and there is a ton of grey area where making the decision legally for every case and person is a mess.

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u/Scat_fiend 15d ago

I never understood how the same people who preach about life being sacred before a baby is born then have no interest in that child’s wellbeing after they are born. Eg the same politicians who want to criminalize abortions also vote to lower funding to preschools are don’t want to raise the minimum wage. They actively want these same lives that they save (and their mothers) to be in destitute poverty.

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u/Thanatosst 15d ago

Because they don't get the cognitive dissonance between two of their stances:

1) Abortion is murder, so all kids must be born

and

2) The government should do as little as possible to help people, even/especially those who have no ability to help themselves and rely on others to survive.


I've tried to argue with these types of people that reducing taxes and privatizing health care means people just won't be able to afford it (like what we already have in the US), and a better method is to take the taxes and health care costs we're already paying, and make it actually work for everyone via Universal Healthcare. They refused to accept that if you lowered taxes, there would be people who couldn't afford health care; they seriously believed the only reason someone wouldn't go to the doctor is that they didn't prioritize their health. It's pure insanity.

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u/Jahoan 15d ago

In other words, they think the government shouldn't exist.

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u/TheMadTemplar 15d ago

It's simpler than that. Abortion is murder, but if a young child dies it's god's will. Of course, they'll never straight up say that.

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u/Xpatpilot 15d ago

Insanity with extra steps. There's a word for that....

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u/ilir_kycb 15d ago

The motive behind it is quite simple to understand.

It is the currently most effective method of producing maximally exploitable (cheap) labor for the capitalists. In short, an increase in Reserve army of labour.

This also explains why these politicians don't care at all what happens to the children after birth.

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u/SwiftSpear 15d ago

They're basically being lied to that the church is really good about providing programs to help adoptees and orphans.

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u/Prisoner3000 15d ago

Because it’s not about protecting life it’s about controlling women and punishing them for having sex. Why is it than many so called pro lifers are in favour of the death penalty? Pro life is just a Trojan horse for female submission and control

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u/Jrdirtbike114 15d ago

It's literally just a culture of hating women. It goes all the way from the bottom up in conservative/christian culture. The wife submits to the husband, the woman must have an intact hymen at marriage or she's 'unclean,' periods are 'gross,' etc. It's indoctrinated into them from birth (I know, I was one) and not many have the critical thinking skills and willpower to logic their way out of that kind of backwards thinking. So they get shunned by society and the only people that will engage with them feel the same way. It would be sad if it wasn't deadly.

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u/puppyroosters 15d ago

The whole “unclean” and being grossed out by a period is so childish. Like how can you be a grown man who thinks this way?

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u/Xpatpilot 15d ago

I just commented upthread about this; wish I'd seen your remark first. It's patriarchy in all its ugliness, a descendant of the Puritanical approach to Christianity in the west, and related to other fundamentalist viewpoints in every major religion.

Indonesia, for example, just announced THIS WEEK that they will no longer submit female military recruits to a two-fingered "virginity test."

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u/Ascentori 15d ago

I think it's rather easy: 1. they think abortion is murder. Stoping murderers is a really really important thing, it comes first. 2. in their eyes it's a certain demographic that gets abortions: poor, not married women. They don't want that people to have kids, not as long as their are not married. Of they make the life of poor/ single mothers hard they can punish them for their way of life, don't have to spend their money for other people and make the life of a poor/ single mother/ family so unappealing that that it scares people from doing things that might get them in that situation: (unprotected) sex before marriage.

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u/Scat_fiend 15d ago

Along the same lines I also never understood why the same people who are anti abortion also demand abstinence only education. If you are actually against abortions then why not promote safe sex education?

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u/Sugarbombs 15d ago

They want to punish poor people for being poor, they grow up in insulated wealthy communities who are deathly afraid of losing the tiniest amount of privilege and see poor people as a threat when they ask for things like increased minimum wage and expanded welfare because they believe it will come at the expense of their tax haven loopholes and free reign to take as they wish.

There's also the double bonus of punishing women for having sex when they should be married and obeying her good Christian husband.

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u/annul 15d ago

you could do that.... ooooor you can do what i did and just take my vuvuzela and stand next to them and blow it every time they try to speak

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u/stfu_whale 15d ago

Dude holy shit, vuvuzelas are the most annoying things in the world (besides these anti-abortion activists and antivaxxers). You're a genius and I implore everyone to buy a vuvuzela!

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u/Dontyouclimbtrees 15d ago

Get someone with a vuvuzela and someone with a cowbell. Max annoyance.

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u/cockOfGibraltar 15d ago

All the annoyance with none of the hate.

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u/fireduck 15d ago

You go to war with the instrument you have. Bravo.

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u/CFL_lightbulb 15d ago

I like that one, and all you need is an obnoxious instrument!

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u/Taco_Hurricane 15d ago

Keep it classy man.... bagpipes

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u/FruitsOfDecay 15d ago

My best friend was a foster care kid, because his mom couldn't get an abortion, and was forced to try her best to raise a child she was mentally, physically, and financially too unwell to care for.

He went from house to house, getting continually traumatized by abusive foster homes mixed with getting sent back with his abusive family. He was sexually assaulted, starved and more in that system.

He ended his own life last year, just a few days after turning 19 and getting kicked out of his most recent foster home.

The adoption system is fucked, it cost one of the most amazing people I've ever met his life, and forcing a human being to have a child they cannot care for is immoral. There is no good that comes from it, people get abortions for a reason.

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u/mcsudds 15d ago

I don't go to church but I could listen to you preach all day

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u/Metamere 15d ago

Wow. You rock. I wish I had gonads the size of yours.

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u/LehKitteh 15d ago

I would subscribe to a YT channel where you rant about your experiences :3 PREACH

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u/derpyco 15d ago

My hero ♥️

I remember when the religious weirdos would accost me in college. My favorite moment was the look on some poor girl's face when I said 'well who's to say your holy book is right and the others are wrong?' She was just blown away. Clearly had never considered that Muslims also think their holy book is true scripture. It cracks me up you can be a supposed 'child of god' and understand so few of his children.

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u/Fritzkreig 15d ago

I really don't like the idea of abortion, but like all these silly "My body my choice" antivax people I think freedom sides with abortion! Don't like it, but I get it!

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u/gelinrefira 15d ago

Righteous.

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u/DuskyDay 15d ago

Thank you.

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u/Minscandmightyboo 15d ago

I like you!

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

In the EU you'd be able to sue them for vast amounts of money. The EU is starting to take Data protection VERY seriously for a few years now and medical data is especially sensitive (I work in medical IT, so I know a thing or two about what is necessary to work with that kind of data).

Gathering personal, especially medical, data under false pretenses can net you a 5 digit fine if you're unlucky.

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u/Akiba89 15d ago

I think technically not, as the check in desk wouldn't be a medical professional, but rather clerical staff.

However, the fact that they're impersonating a person who works directly with a doctor should (but likely doesn't by law) count. Frankly I think it's bullshit that it doesn't count, considering the end result would be the same.

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u/oooorrrrggggyyyy 15d ago

I swear to god I am not a violent person but i think with things like this, it should be perfectly legal to slap that person once really hard and walk away.

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u/Aerobie 15d ago

Still less violent than what I was thinking...

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u/Akiba89 15d ago

Yeah... Honestly, I'm not saying we should go back to the medieval times, but people have such fucking audacity to do terrible shit today because they're basically free of any violent repercussions. Or if they do suffer them, the person gets put in prison, even if it was morally justified.

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u/LadyOurania 15d ago

The worry is that it's hard to define the specific circumstances where violent responses are valid, and there are plenty of people who think that some tiny slight would be worth a fight over, and a lot more of those people carry guns than reasonable people who would only respond with force to extreme harassment.

For every service worker being harassed by a Karen to the point of tears, there's a Karen who thinks that a service worker saying "no you can't have her arrested for taking the last apple" is worth hurting them over, and while, for most circumstances, reasonable people would all agree, prejudice is a huge issue. What happens when someone assaults an autistic person because they had a meltdown and were incoherent, even though they weren't actually hurting or targeting anyone else (meltdowns often cause self harm, it's extremely rare, rarer than allistic people hurting people in regular tantrums, for an autistic person to actually target the people around them), and the fact that the autistic person can't look anyone in the eye makes everyone trust their assaulter? What happens when some black guy gets attacked at a rural gas station while driving cross country, and the majority of the people around him are racist assholes who want to go back to the days where black people could be lynched over any accusation?

I absolutely think it's morally justified to hurt the people who are actively harassing others. I don't think it would be to hunt them down since at that point, you can prevent further harm via other tactics, but in the moment? Yeah, punching them in the face is absolutely appropriate. But we have to treat any system as though it's going to be abused. Just as Jury nullification has protected as many, if not more, bigots who assaulted someone that the jury agrees is inferior than it has protected people charged with a crime that shouldn't be illegal.

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u/wewillwewont 15d ago

I vote stab with a fork.... Like a big fork

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u/Freakychee 15d ago

I literally saw that shit in a movie or show once. Guess that part was based on reality.

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u/Registered-Nurse 15d ago

They have trucks parked outside with images of a doctor. When the poor woman goes inside, she gets a lecture by some creepy pastor.

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u/Lochcelious 15d ago edited 15d ago

Sounds like possible kidnapping with extra steps. What happens if a human grabbed you and physically prevented you from leaving, say, the grocery store? Might as well be kidnapping, idk what else it could fall under. Assault is one thing, preventing someone from leaving a place... What is that called?

Edit: false imprisonment as the person that replied to me has noted

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u/purplegirl2001 15d ago

Kidnapping requires moving the person from the original location. Detaining someone against their will is false imprisonment.

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u/Akiba89 15d ago

Yep! Had to search for the term, but you're absolutely right. I don't understand how they aren't charged with that

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u/Zithero 15d ago

Me and my Ex-Wife got taken in by one of these fake PP clinics.

My wife was spotting and we had the goal of going to a Planned Parenthood for some Prenatal care, as we were uninsured at the time (Pre-ACA).

When we went in they offered a Pregnancy test... we were fine with this, like... standard right? Want to make sure she's pregnant and such.

When in there the woman is like: "So... what are your plans?" and we're like: "Well.. we want to make sure there's nothing wrong with the pregnancy and that everything is progressing normally" - she then is like: "Oh... we're not a doctor's office we're just here to provide information."

I got pissed: "Wait, then why bother? We're here for care, that's why we came to Planned Parenthood - for prenatal care and a doc." - note, we made an appt and both took off of work for this...

I didn't even know what a fake PP was... but I was proper pissed off. She offered to refer us to a few other places, none of which were doctors, and I basically said, point blank: "The reason we came here, was that the symptoms she's showing, are frightening, concerning, and we don't want to miscarriage if we can prevent that. We're looking for a doctor who can specialize in pregnancy." - and we left with nothing.

2 weeks later she miscarried.

I blame the free clinic for slowing down the process of us finding a proper PP which could have handled our situation. Good job fake PP! You ended up killing a baby.

The place is still opened - I am still furious it is still opened.

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago

I'm sorry for your loss.

That's so extra fucked up. These places are dangerous and make absolutely no impact on abortion like they think they do. Unreal that they are allowed to do this shit b

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u/11th-plague 15d ago

Is it flammable?

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u/Taco_Hurricane 15d ago

Is not, can we organize some kind of flash mob or DDOS? Like, have thousands of people go in and waste as much time as possible with their "information providers"? Maybe even have them all go in and make stupid puns? "Hey, I'm having trouble with my updog...."

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u/UltraWafflez 15d ago

I remember these fuckers would protest at my elementary school for some reason

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u/16yYPueES4LaZrbJLhPW 15d ago

There was a man, easily 80 years old, who would stand on the corner of a road right outside the city of the college I used to attend.

I saw him every time I drove past that corner. Every single day, at every time of the day, he was there. Equipped with a baby doll in a stroller and an 8ft sign, it was like this man was protesting for his life.

I felt bad for him. Especially since he was devoted to protesting a clinic that overall decreases the need for abortions, but provides them in a safe and sterile environment if necessary. I don't know if he realizes that these clinics will first compile all the resources they can to help you carry through with your pregnancy, and have stopped more abortions than he has.

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u/PraiseGodJihyo 15d ago

They don't care. For them it's all about being righteous warriors for their god. All we can do is try to educate the young in the hopes that one day religion, at least fanatical religion, will be a relic of the past.

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u/The-Lord-Moccasin 15d ago

I went to a private Christian school from K-12 and I can definitively say that's how these belief systems are propogated: Getting to kids before they can properly develop their mental skills and trapping them in such beliefs.

My analogy has always been: Imagine an athletics facility that claims "Send kids to our programs and we'll teach them how to exercise, run, leap, etc!" So parents drop their children off, the employees lead them inside, knock them out, and surgically remove their legs. Then the children crawl out when the program is finished, and the employees go home to sleep soundly knowing they've brought joy and goodness to this evil world. That's about what such schools are for academics rather than athletics.

I despise such fundamentalist worldviews with a passion only intimate knowledge could inflame, but I can't help but feel a deep pity for those I grew up with (and people like them) even as they spout nonsense and insanity and vitriol. They were born in a casket.

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u/Cha-Le-Gai 15d ago

There's an old guy who walks up and down the shoulder of a major road near me, always dragging a 10-foot cross. Actually dragging isn't the right word. It has little caster wheels on the bottom. But still he'll do it for a few hours at a time in the Texas heat. I don't know what he protesting or promoting but all I can ever think is "this did is fucking crazy."

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u/CalvinCopyright 15d ago

There is no religion without fanatical religion.

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u/JustABizzle 15d ago

Yes. Please educate Affectionate-Date-31 over there. They seem to be quite uneducated on this subject.

They might as well be the person shouting “baby killer!” to the women at the clinics.

Terminating an unwanted pregnancy is not killing a baby.

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u/wretch5150 15d ago

In downtown Denver in the late 1990s/early 2000s there was an Abraham Lincoln cosplay weirdo on the 16th Street Mall that would be constantly loudmouthing against abortion as if it were his job.

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u/drdrdrnrs 15d ago

Schools having staff that taught about planned parenthood and where to go to get counselling about their future were targetted a lot were I am from. We had school nurses who were all former military and the head nurse for our region was a former Marine who told any women protestor that if they wanted to discuss it with her personally, she'd be more than happy to have a brief conversation with them. One that was light on talking.

That lady endured a whole lot of entitled and arrogant stupidity but, not surprisingly, none of the Gyneth Paltrow following church going soccer moms wanted to push their luck with her face-to-face. And they knew they couldn't push their husbands to do it either (many of whom were former military as well) on planned parenthood or anything, including getting vaccinated.

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u/its_whot_it_is 15d ago

These people aren't normal and we have to pretend that their speech is somehow sacred because slippery slope bullshit. We're so much better at recognizing cancer when we see it.. we need to outright ban this shit as well as disinformation. It's rediculous to think that people.are fighting tooth and nail to allow these people terrorize others

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u/santagoo 15d ago

Their logic is simple. if you're going to PP, even for non abortion, you're doing something about your sexual health. Ergo, you're sexually active. Ergo, you're a whore.

The types that protest outside PP is the religious fanatics who think sex is not only for husbands and wives only, but also expressedly for procreation only.

It's a very sex negative mindset, and PP is antithesis to that mindset, doesn't matter whether abortion is ultimately involved or not.

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u/juicemagic 15d ago

It's so messed up. PP was that first clinic/doctors office I went to, that finally answered my questions and provided the information I needed to make my own informed consent about birth control. Not because I needed birth control per se, but because my periods were awful and painful and being a young adult woman who never wanted children who couldn't afford sterilization AND had limited insurance options... they did an amazing job at helping me find what works for me.

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u/W1nd0wPane 15d ago

Most locations don’t! There are like 4 PP clinics in my city but only 1 does abortions.

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u/Max_1995 15d ago

Probably fliers for "crisis pregnancy centers"

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u/Ricky_Mourke 15d ago

It’s almost as if these protesters aren’t very intelligent 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/GlazedDonutGloryHole 15d ago

Shit like this really makes me consider volunteering as a clinic escort. I can't imagine how horrible that is to go through alone and I'm sorry you've had to deal with it.

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u/esperanzanaut 15d ago

I get screamed at and all I was going in for were my hormones

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u/cum_in_me 15d ago

That's the most backward shit to me. They protest outside ANY WOMEN'S HEALTH CLINIC not just ones that actually do abortions. I've even seen them at WIC once. Because their brains are like little peanuts rattling around in there.

So they're just stopping women getting prenatal care and medical care. They're not even protesting abortion.... JUST protesting medical care for women.

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u/xjulesx21 15d ago

this is why I truly despise the people who protest outside of PP. only 10% of the services they do are abortions.

first time I went to PP was also for an STD test at 18/19 and I felt so uncomfortable that people were telling me I was going to hell (for an abortion) when they have ZERO idea what any of the women are actually going there for.

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u/sadowsentry 15d ago

These people are the same ones who spread this cancerous misinformation about vaccines.

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u/rothIsBadHeSaidSo 15d ago

Friend had a lady hand her a clipboard on her way in for not an abortion, and asked for her name and address to "Make the process go quickly," and when she said "They usually do that inside," the lady flipped on a dime, spit on her, called her a baby killing slut and told her God doesn't love whores, he kills them.

I mean, put turbans on these people and God == Allah and you're more than half way through an ISIS recruitment tape.

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u/gelinrefira 15d ago

The duplicity is disgusting, and they have the arrogance and audacity to think they are on the right side of morality.

It is the same kind of insidious duplicity I always encounter with Christians trying to convert me. The lies, the fake promises, the attempts to induce fear and guilt, the subtle indoctrination tactics, all designed to lure emotionally vulnerable people into their religion. It's dishonorable and disgusting.

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u/cold_lo_mein215 15d ago

That is my biggest gripe with planned parenthood protestors. Seems they fail to realize PLANNED PARENTHOOD DOES MORE THAN JUST ABORTIONS.

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u/santagoo 15d ago

What you don't realize is that they're against more than just abortion. Anything that promotes sexual health or sex positivity is of the devil, to them.

Sex is just for married people and JUST for making children in their small world.

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u/jumping_jack_flush 15d ago

Imagine what a shitty existence that would be.

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u/Jahoan 15d ago

They see suffering as sacred because otherwise what's the point.

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u/digiorno 14d ago

Explains why many American Christians have such a hard on for capitalism.

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u/loldudester 15d ago

Sex is just for married people and JUST for making children in their small world.

So.. for people want to become parents... in some sort of planned fashion?

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u/santagoo 15d ago

Yeah but if you're otherwise having sex with your wife or husband with contraception you avoid babies that is sinful, too.

Every time you have sex it has to have baby consequence.

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u/FapplePie85 15d ago

And more than that, women who have sex should be punished. Period. Even if they're married.

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u/Rainboq 15d ago

It's about punishing women for being in control of their bodies and having sex. Abortions are just easier to yell about than contraceptives.

And even then, Evangelicals didn't care about abortion issues when Roe happened. They only started talking about it when the Feds came for their segregated private schools, and they knew being pro-segregation wouldn't get them very far politically

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u/causalNondeterminism 15d ago

I’m trans and get my HRT through planned parenthood. I frequently get harassed on my way in because they assume I’m getting an abortion when I don’t even have a uterus.

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u/Tiny10H2 15d ago

The worst part is, these people are also against contraceptives but at the same time, they don’t want to support the poor in society. It’s like they want to see more people suffer in society to feel better about themselves.

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u/Jahoan 15d ago

Exactly.

People react to suffering in one of two ways: "I don't want anyone else to suffer what I have", and "If I have to suffer, everyone else should suffer too".

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u/bro69 15d ago edited 15d ago

My wife and I had to terminate for medical reasons, TFMR, a term I wish I knew never existed. It was a wanted child that was not well and had an unsurvivable condition, and my wife would only be risking her own health continuing to term. I’ll never forget the experience and how much worse protestors made it.

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago

I’m sorry to hear that. I could only imagine going through that let alone going through that and being harassed on the way out.

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u/bro69 15d ago

Luckily there is a back entrance and they aren’t allowed on it, but they get as close to the door as legally allowed and yell the entire time. They also play baby screams on the loud speaker. It’s horrible. I want to drive by and egg them sometime, ha.

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u/ManyIdeasNoProgress 15d ago

May I suggest that you freeze the eggs first? Alternatively, make sure to get the really ripe ones.

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u/Major2Minor 14d ago

They must've missed the whole "love thy neighbor" part of the bible, I guess.

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u/efficientcatthatsred 15d ago

Thats so fucked up

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u/Kabouki 15d ago

I don't get how that's legal too. Protesting a organization is one thing, but targeted yelling and harassing of individuals wouldn't be accepted anywhere else.

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u/crayphor 15d ago

My girlfriend (who is new to the US) when to a planned Parenthood to get an IUD inserted. She called me laughing about the "crazy white people" telling her they would adopt her baby. They continued even after she told them she wasn't pregnant.

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u/Yawzheek 15d ago

telling her they would adopt her baby.

Yup, check is in the mail, too...

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u/badnewsbets 15d ago

They yelled at my dad who walked me in saying “grandpa why would you let her murder your grandchild????”

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u/ChiefJabroni94 15d ago

idk why this made me think of the scene from Holes. "grandpa I don't want to abort this baby anymore.." "well thats just too damn bad!"

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u/sleezydorito 15d ago

I don't know why but I always think of that scene in instances that it fits in.

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u/Jwr32 15d ago

I got a good laugh out of that lol

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u/GenerikDavis 15d ago

11/10 joke man, I'm rolling over here picturing that. I watched that movie a lot growing up and always get a laugh out of the old man saying that if the movie comes to mind.

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u/MajesticBread9147 15d ago

Shit I don't remember that from the movie, OR the book.

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u/icarianshadow 15d ago

It's from the flashback when Sigourney Weaver's character is a little girl, digging holes with her insane grandfather. "Grandpa, I'm tired of diggin' these holes!" - "Well that's just too damn bad!"

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u/MajesticBread9147 15d ago

Ooh right! thank you

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u/TiredPandastic 15d ago

My old man is savage enough to have retorted "I've got enough grandkids, I'll murder plenty for my kids' health!"

I'm so sorry your dad and you had to go through that, I hope you're both doing alright now.

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u/badnewsbets 15d ago

Doing fine, thanks. Was many moons ago, and I knew they were wrong then too.

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u/Are-Sole 15d ago

Those crazy religious nut jobs are the same people saying god will protect them from Covid, but they still get taken to the hospital when they catch it, if it's god's will they should just stay home and expire.

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u/lafigatatia 15d ago

Their God has sent them a fucking vaccine to make them immune yet they don't want to get it.

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u/thathighguy112 15d ago

Nah man humans made the vaccine, their god doesnt exist.

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u/lafigatatia 15d ago

I know, I know...

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u/PoliticalDissidents 15d ago

saying god will protect them from Covid, but they still get taken to the hospital when they catch it,

It's called Darwinism. It's how we evolve, the idiots kill themselves off.

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u/KeeblerAndBits 15d ago

🤞 can't wait

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u/Jahoan 15d ago

If only they wouldn't be taking so many innocent people with them.

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u/wjglenn 15d ago

Back in college I used to be a volunteer that escorted women into the clinics past all that shit. The whole idea was to terrorize those poor women, get their heart rates and blood pressure up so they wouldn’t be able to get the procedure. Our job was essentially to to escort them in, keep them focused on us, and try to keep things as calm as possible.

Just despicable people.

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u/Albatrossosaurus 15d ago

Some people are just wayyy to passionate about unborn fetuses. Aren’t there like 50000 kids in foster care or something?

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u/djehutythecutie 15d ago

They only care about babies when they're attached to the mothers. It's more about controlling what women can do for many of them rather than it being about the fetus. People have gotten very angry with me for saying this but in my experience these exact same people are vehemently against social safety nets that would help families with small children so they can go fuck themselves.

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u/Bladelink 15d ago

They're also against birth control, which is the real tell. It's not about reducing the number of abortions, it's about the punishing of women for sex.

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u/FishUK_Harp 15d ago

If they really wanted to actually reduce the number of abortions, they'd spend their time funding or delivery good quality sex education to teenagers and throwing condoms and contraceptive pills at anyone and everyone by the ton.

But noooooo, they're not doing that, are they? As that's not what they really want.

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u/Bladelink 15d ago

This has been my takeaway as well. They don't want to hear any shit on all of the many ways to address abortions as a problem. Their one and only answer is "stop having sex whore".

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u/ZeikCallaway 15d ago

Right because it's not about the abortions themselves it's about them wanting everyone to subscribe to their exact brand of their "faith".

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u/jammerjoint 15d ago

The vast majority of abortions are actually for medical reasons, not unwanted pregnancies.

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u/valiumandcherrywine 15d ago

Absolutely 100 % this.

There are effective ways to reduce abortion numbers, most of which revolve around sex ed, increased welfare payments, better access to health care and better access to birth control. These fucks aren't out there protesting for universal basic income to lift women out of grinding poverty, or for better birth control, education and health care. They aren't at the other end, working to improve the foster system and state care. They just hate that women might be outside of the control of a man and / or might be having sex, those brazen hussies.

These are the fuckers that think The Handmaid's Tale is aspirational.

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u/isuckatpiano 15d ago

There are 400,000 children currently in foster care in the US alone.

Side note there are 380,000 churches in the US. All they have to do is adopt one child per church with the mega churches adopting 2-3 and this problem is solved. Hmm I wonder why they don’t do that…

Ps I do not wish religion forced on any child, I was merely pointing out that the church has a solution but chooses hatred and violence instead.

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u/gelinrefira 15d ago

"If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're pre-school, youre fucked."

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u/spaceaustralia 15d ago

Some people are just wayyy to passionate about unborn fetuses

Best argument I've heard is this:

You're in a fertility clinic. It doesn't matter why. A fire breaks out. To your right, you hear a crying baby. To your left, you see a table full of IVF embryos, ready to be implanted and carried to a full term. The fire is raging and you have no time. Do you save the crying baby, leaving multiple embryos to be consumed in the fire or do you grab as many culture media as possible at the expense of a single child?

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u/Few_Paleontologist75 15d ago

Of the 400,000 children in foster care in the US, approximately 120,000 are waiting to be adopted. Many of these kids will age out of the foster system without ever being adopted. Then, they're on their own.
But...these protesters don't want to help the already born, just the fetuses - they're less work!
www.adoptuskids.org

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago

I’m sorry to hear that. Idk what these people are claiming to be but they sure as hell aren’t Christians.

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u/BissoumaTequila 15d ago

There’s a private clinic in the UK near where I live that my friend wanted to go to for fertility treatment. The clinic also offered abortion services so naturally she was called every name under the sun.

One guy actually grabbed her so I pinned him down told him she was receiving fertility treatment to have a fucking family of her own and they all shut up and packed pretty sharpish. They were back two weeks later when she was going for treatment so me and my friends boyfriend accompanied her. The ending to that scenario was 1000x worse.

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u/JustABizzle 15d ago

I’m dying to know the 1000x worse part. (But I get it if you don’t wanna tell)

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u/BissoumaTequila 15d ago

Same thing happened except the boyfriend pinned the guy up on the wall and threatened to wire his mouth shut while explaining what’s happening. I laughed when he said “we are literally doing the fucking opposite”. The protesters weren’t having any of it and tried to pull him off, big mistake he’s 6’4’’ and built like a brick shithouse and toppled all of them in a single push.

Then, one of the protesters broke in and accused everyone of being murderers proceeding to throw fake blood at everyone. My friends bf was soaked and he’s in the army suffering from PTSD - he was gone and knocked the guy out cold.

He then proceeded to slash the tyres of the van the protesters were using and made sure all of them got a share of the fake blood too.

Meanwhile, my friend was receiving the treatment and was completely blindsided when she came out of the office to find it caked in fake blood and her boyfriend wanting to throttle everyone.

He went AWOL but found him down the road head locking the main protester who thought it was a good idea to call him a “murdering nonce”. Again, knocked out cold.

He got a suspended sentence given the actions which caused his PTSD trigger and was ordered to seek help which he was already getting.

The protester was sentenced for 6-months after breaking his suspended sentence from a previous charge.

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u/cum_in_me 15d ago

I wonder if there is some kind of general legal fund for "I got in trouble for hitting Nazis" - I would certainly donate

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u/Nulligravida 14d ago

That was a scary yet satisfying story.

Hope your mate gets continued support for his PTSD.

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u/Wolfdreama 15d ago

Wait they protest outside UK clinics too??! For some reason I thought we were past that shit here.

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u/bluepushkin 15d ago

They used to protest in the highstreet where I lived. They had huge boards with bloody chunks of meat and babies covered in blood on them whilst they screamed at people. Terrifying children left and right ironically 🙄🙄🙄

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u/JustABizzle 15d ago

I was just a kid when my folks had a booth at the state fair. I can’t remember what the booth was for, but right across was a huge -bigger than me- poster of a bunch of fetuses in a garbage can. (As an adult, I realize it was an anti-abortion booth)

I stared at that damn poster day after day for a week. I had no idea what I was looking at. I remember thinking “who took a big ass picture of a bunch of fucked up dirty baby dolls that got tossed out? Looks like a dog buried them in the backyard and they all melted in the sun.”

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u/monkeysinmypocket 15d ago

Yeah, but councils have the power to get them banned from a certain distance outside the building effectively putting a stop to it. This happened to one near where I live. Everyone was thrilled because the clinic was located in a residential are and these people where basically ruining the neighbourhood for anyone who lived there.

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u/ClosetIntrovert 15d ago

I don't get why some places have specific abortion clinics instead of just performing them at doctor's clinics or hospitals like most other medical procedures. That's what we do here in Denmark and I have never heard of an anti-abortion protest here. We absolutely have anti-abortion nutjobs of our own, they just run for parliament and fail to get the minimum required votes to get any seats instead of protesting.

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u/Salome_Maloney 15d ago

Most of the organised ones are funded by American groups.

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u/BonfireAngelcake 15d ago

You're right. There's a sex health clinic in Edinburgh that doesn't even do abortions, but it's protested regularly and every protester is American.

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u/CharlesComm 15d ago

We were, but some people have found they can get americans to pay a lot of money for them to form identical rightwing political groups here and push the same ideology.

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u/YakuzaMachine 15d ago

I picture football hooligan punches for everyone.

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u/theworstfuckingyear 15d ago

Because people who shit on PP have no idea what it actually does.

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u/Door90 15d ago

Jfc, im tearing up just hearing that. I hope your girlfriend can forget those fuckwits and not give them an ounce of mind.

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago

I don’t think either of us lost too much sleep over that. I come from a very religious family so I just shrugged it off and got her Taco Bell to feel better haha. But sucks that this happens to people every day.

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u/UnusualClub6 15d ago

I like to walk in with a pillow under my shirt and walk out with a much smaller pillow. Humiliation fetish 🤷‍♀️

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u/Hamoodi1999 15d ago

Most women who are early enough to get an abortion wouldn’t be showing anyway. Not that those people would know.

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u/patsyst0ne 15d ago

Hmm it sounds like they were bearing false witness against your gf. Oh well, I hope hell won’t be too unbearable for them.

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u/Logical_Grapefruit73 15d ago

You would think if those people really cared about life they would be shouting “we love you” “you matter” “you have choices” instead of “whore”. They’d probably save a lot more babies that way and keep many of the mothers of those pregnancies from having any related mental health struggles from being bullied. I guarantee if those protestors were waiting with adoption pamphlets and names of families looking they’d get a much better response.

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u/Liam_Neesons_Oscar 15d ago

There are times when moral obligations trump legal rights. I would feel morally obligated to create a physical bar to entry for protests- if you aren't willing to be punched in the face, then you don't believe in your cause enough to protest here.

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u/MaxStupidity 15d ago

These are the people who think Vitamins have probes in them and Vaccines have trackers.

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u/cbeiser 15d ago

That's the thing. Most people are just trying to be healthy people and use the resources they are given. But they have to be harrassed for no reason

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago edited 15d ago

Some people don’t like others having resources that makes life easier. No idea why.

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u/Historical-Author-49 15d ago

Right wingers think that abortions are all that Planned Parenthood does, but really they provide a great range of reproductive health services to men and women. They did my vasectomy for free.. I didn't see anyone yelling at me for that

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u/Lotus-child89 15d ago edited 15d ago

I went to Planned Parenthood for a doctor confirmed pregnancy test and they said they just didn’t have the resources to give me one. I did pay to a private doctor, who confirmed I was pregnant. I went to the same planned parenthood to see if they could give me affordable prenatal care and they just directed me to apply for Medicaid. Medicaid lasted until my daughter was a born and a few months old, then it was tough shit. So much for pro life agenda.

Edit: literally the hour after I wrote this, my kid jumped too fast off her bed and broke her arm in the middle of the night. Cost a few hundred in insurance fees lol. Still glad I kept her, I love her so much. But, let this be a warning to those who don’t take birth control seriously enough! It figuratively and literally costs you.

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u/sanguine_sea 15d ago

I would absolutely be facing criminal charges if my girlfriend came back and said that happened to her.

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u/shrimp-and-potatoes 15d ago

So we actually went to an abortion clinic (I'm the guy) because we were having serious doubts about keeping the pregnancy. Anyway, the protestors were there calling everyone names and trying to guilt us and smite us at the same time, etc. It was so bad at this clinic, that they built a security fence around parking and had a guard escort us in. It felt like we were literally walking into a prison. It was a crazy experience, i couldn't imagine anyone doing it alone. Anywho, long story short, we decided to not do it, but I was young and vindictive, so I went to grocery store and bought some beef liver, walked up to the chanting crowd, and told them that if they wanted the unborn so bad, that they should keep it, and threw a chunk of bloody meat at their feet and I got the reaction that I wanted. But to this day my wife still thinks I'm idiot and I shouldn't have done it. And maybe she's right, and I do kinda feel bad, but deep down, I don't think I regret it as much as I tell myself. I think I feel worse for wasting a piece of a cow's life on terrible people more than anything. Because fuck those people.

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u/TheBSQ 15d ago

I lived near a clinic in the US and they’d photograph the person, their car, the license plate, etc., and enter it in on a laptop.

People would call the cops who’d explain it’s totally legal to photograph people in public.

Later, it was revealed the protestors had people inside govt agencies who would run those plates and provide them with names and addresses. They’d then use public records and social media to identify, friends, relatives, employers, etc., and would send them letters to the effect of, “hey, did you know so-and-so is a baby killer?”

And they truly believed they were good people doing God’s work and making the world better.

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u/TroutFishingInCanada 15d ago

If they really thought that it was like murder, they wouldn't just be screaming at people. If you believe that abortion is murder, then clinics are basically concentration camps, but without and barbed wire or armed guards.

And all they do is scream terrible things at women? Talk about no respect for human life.

They're not there for legitimate beliefs. They're just there to hate.

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago

Fascinating. So screaming at my girlfriend trying to have a healthy pregnancy was against their beliefs?

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u/TroutFishingInCanada 15d ago

They don’t believe in anything.

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u/Jahoan 15d ago

They worship a God of malice.

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u/MyHerpesItch 15d ago

Damn whore and their healthy babies

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u/kateofhearts 15d ago

That is so unnecessary; Hope she’s okay. 😞

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u/slugsliveinmymouth 15d ago

This was years ago. I don’t think she dwelled on it too much.

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