First Amendment Rights for Abortion Protestors?
by Warner Todd Huston | View comments |
Print This Post
Ed Snell was thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious while exercising his First Amendment right to protest outside an abortion clinic. The media completely ignored it.
On December 22nd a 69-year-old pro-life activist who was standing atop his automobile and protesting in front of the Hillcrest Abortion Clinic in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was physically attacked by an abortion supporter and thrown to the ground with enough force to knock him unconscious. Doctors even worried for a time that the elderly man might perish from the attack. Over a week after the attack, there aren't any accounts of the attack in the mainstream media. As I searched for the story, I found only two Internet hits for it.
Why the silence from the MSM? Can you imagine the MSM swarm that would have occurred if it had been a pro-lifer who attacked an abortion supporter? The cacophony would have been deafening if a pro-lifer had been the one to get violent.
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property issued the first story to hit the net a few days ago. Also, a Catholic PRWire and media advisory from Catholic Online was released on the 28th. But the MSM has remained silent on the matter.
Here is the account from the TFP:
When Mr. Snell tried to counsel the woman, his words were cut short when the man became furious, jumped the fence and, in the words of Mr. McTernan, "leaped on the vehicle with Ed and catapulted him off of the vehicle and onto the ground." Mr. Snell hit his back and head on the pavement and was knocked unconscious.
His medical report outlines the extent of his injuries: "multiple trauma, right subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding in the area between the brain and the tissues that cover the brain), compression fractures of four vertebrae (T3, T4, T5 and T10), right scapula fracture and fracture of the fourth and fifth ribs." Before doctors were able to stop the bleeding in his head, they even feared Mr. Snell would die.
An elderly man almost dies from an attack by an abortion supporter and the MSM is mum. But, the receptionist at the clinic sure wasn't mum!
When asked on the phone about the vicious attack, the receptionist at Hillcrest Abortion Clinic refused to give a recorded statement and angrily shouted: "He got what he deserved! He earned what he got!" She then hung up the phone, according to the TFP account.
And, on top of this indignity, the Harrisburg police didn't seem to want to do their duty and arrest the attacker at first, letting the man go home after witnesses pointed him out as the assailant.
Ed was taken away in an ambulance and three police officers arrived to investigate. They went into the clinic, where the assailant was waiting. After a few moments, the assailant and his companion left the clinic freely, got into their car and drove away.
Shocked, Mr. McTernan shouted to the police: "What are you doing? That's him! That's the assailant!"
One cop replied: "It is none of your business!"
To "protect and serve," eh? Apparently not to serve the victim of a vicious attack in this case.
So, why the widespread disinterest by the MSM over this story? It can only be because the wrong guy got attacked.
Read more articles by Warner Todd Huston
They are afraid.
Deep down, they know that one side has science and reason on its side, the other has blind faith and force… and science/reason ain't on their side.
This incident only proves it.
Better to sweep it under the rug.
Comment by amccann | January 6, 2008
The pro-aborts can justify it. This guy was impeding the right to obtain an abortion, so anything goes. Nothing is more important than killing babies.
Same thing with other leftist causes. For example, bicyclists in my town swerve all over the road, blow through stop signs, go the wrong way down one-ways. Someone actually defended this by saying, "Well, they're helping the environment by riding bicycles."
Comment by Mountain Man | January 6, 2008
"Why the silence from the MSM?"
I wish everyone would quit calling it the "mainstream" media because it is not "mainstream"; it is LEFTstream (LSM), and we know the Left's dementia is fueled by its fascination with death and communism.
Comment by sedonaman | January 6, 2008
[…] read this from the Iintellectual Conservative Blog… First Amendment Rights for Abortion Protestors? […]
Pingback by BlogWonks | January 10, 2008
I want to know why supporting a woman's right to choose how she will live her life is a leftist position.
Comment by AMAI | March 15, 2008
AMAI:
“I want to know why supporting a woman’s right to choose how she will live her life is a leftist position.”
The “right to choose how she will live her life” is a broad statement that can mean anything to anyone. What do you mean by it?
Comment by sedonaman | March 15, 2008
Sedonaman, in the context of this discussion, the right to decide what to do with her body, i.e., to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, no matter in what setting that child was conceived. The right to decide not to have a first, second, fifth, tenth child, for whatever reasons.
Why should the line be drawn at birth? Why should people acquire rights only at birth, when they are stand-alone individuals, even though they still remain very dependent on others for their every need?
To preserve the rights of the mother, that is why. As long as that baby is inside her, she ought to have the right to terminate its life. Once it is born, neither she nor anyone else can have that right. Otherwise, a woman is declared a brood mare, a slave to the unborn, with no rights of her own because she has become pregnant. Some of those who oppose abortion, do not care about the circumstances in which the woman became pregnant. Others make exceptions in cases of rape. Others include other situations in which it is to be acceptable.
This is a kind of dictatorship by society to women, for what purpose? What is the point of YOU telling me what I may do with my body? You are essentially trying to tell me that if I become pregnant I lose my right to decide how my life shall continue. I am to be held hostage by this embryo, this fetus, this unborn thing.
It is not a decision that should be made by anyone but the woman involved.
Comment by AMAI | March 15, 2008
Sedonaman, I mean the right to her life, fully and totally. If she becomes pregnant, the right to decide what to do with that pregnancy, without interference from busybodies, no matter what their religious, political or economic persuasion.
Comment by AMAI | March 15, 2008
AMAI:
Same argument slave-owners used to justify slavery.
Comment by sedonaman | March 15, 2008
Sedonaman, you are equating a potential (the fetus) with an actual living human being (in this case, humans used as slaves.) You are advocating that the law consider women slaves to the reproductive function.
When the child is born is when it should acquire rights. Not before.
Comment by AMAI | March 15, 2008
Sedonaman, for the record, I'm against slavery in ALL its forms. Are you?
Comment by AMAI | March 15, 2008
AMAI:
“…the issue is actually, "When should rights begin?"
According to The Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Slavery was inconsistent with this clause which led to the ultimate abolition of that institution. Note that it says “created” not “born”. Therefore, your rights start when you are created, and only continue after you are born. Abortion, like slavery, is nothing more than the exercise of property rights over another human being, and if you have to rationalize it, as you are doing, you know it’s wrong.
“If the unborn have rights, then the living do not.”
This has got to be one of the worst non-sequiturs that I’ve ever seen. Actually, it’s the inverse that is true – if the most innocent and defenseless among us have no rights, the rest of us have no rights, their being simply a question of whoever has political power.
“I'm against slavery in ALL its forms. Are you?”
I can see where this question is leading – that any imposition by society on the individual constitutes some form of “slavery”. You apparently resent any such imposition on yourself but don’t hesitate to demand from the so-called “unwanted” their very lives. Well, by what authority do you decide who will live and who will die?
“And you people wonder why someone might want an abortion.”
Even though I cannot support something I wouldn’t want to have happen to me, I must admit that you might have a point here. Perhaps it should be reserved for aborting people with bad ideas like abortion.
Comment by sedonaman | March 17, 2008
I disagree. I think (hope, even) that the Constitution is trying to be even-handed with its use of the term "Creator" but if what is meant by that "God," then I would reject it on that score. In fact, rights need to be formulated, acknowledged and respected by human beings. We seem to be very good at formulating rights, but only mediocre at acknowledging them and all too quick to disrespect them. It is not "God's Law" but "Human Law" that we must formulate and agree to live by.
Re your second point: You wish to grant rights to a bit of protoplasm, which requires extinguishing the rights of the living woman in whose body that protoplasm is growing. It IS a choice here. If embryos have rights, why not eggs and sperm? If no matter how a woman becomes pregnant, she is to be the slave of that embryo until at the least it is born, with no care or concern for her wishes in the matter. Sorry, but I disagree with you. And why should you care if someone else has a child or an abortion? How does that change the fact that actual rights of living human beings are being abridged on so many fronts? Why are you taking up for protoplasm?
Re point 3: the imposition with which I am concerned is taxation. The proper imposition by society on others should be one, and one only: that no man or woman has the right to initiate force on others. That should be the guiding principle for all social interaction. It is not. You concern yourself with protoplasm, and condone all manner of atrocities against human beings in the name of … I don't even know what. What is the purpose of forcing people to do things, again?
By your last point, I suppose you would go on to justify murdering those who condone abortion. Since you hold abortion to be murder, it's an easy step to take, am I wrong? Because you cannot know when a person is still an embryo whether he or she will grow up to be pro-choice or not.
Comment by AMAI | March 17, 2008
AMAI:
“I think (hope, even) that the Constitution is trying to be even-handed with its use of the term ‘Creator’ but if what is meant by that ‘God,’ then I would reject it on that score.”
Whether the use of the word “Creator” means “God” or not is irrelevant. The use of the term “their Creator” implies people are “created”. If it doesn’t mean they are “created”, what does it mean? If it doesn’t mean people are endowed with rights when they are created, when do they get endowed with them?
“It is not ‘God's Law’ but ‘Human Law’ that we must formulate and agree to live by.”
What do we use as a basis for Human Law?
“You wish to grant rights to a bit of protoplasm …”
You are rationalizing again, and you know it.
“The proper imposition by society on others should be one, and one only: that no man or woman has the right to initiate force on others.”
Why not? If the law allows the use of violence against the most helpless and defenseless, it can be used against anyone. You say that a baby has rights only after it is born. What about those who are already advocating for infanticide up to 30 days after birth and euthanasia for the elderly and infirm? And in the most grotesque use of the word, these ideas come from a person who calls himself an “ethicist”. BTW, how old will you be in 2040? http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05120205.html
“You concern yourself with protoplasm, and condone all manner of atrocities against human beings …”
What “atrocities” do I condone against human beings?
By my last point, I was showing the absurdity of your position.
Comment by sedonaman | March 18, 2008