Tying Abortion to Corporate Personhood

Conservative Cal Thomas says of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission: "What makes the ruling and the march ironic is that the 1973 court...downgraded a human fetus to the level of nonperson, while the modern court has invested "personhood" in corporations. Does anyone else see a contradiction or at least a moral inconsistency in these two rulings?"

Thomas is a rare conservative to admit a problem; most say it's the greatest blow for freedom since Plessy v Ferguson. Thomas is also correct to suggest the decision is judicial overreach every bit as awful as he holds Roe v Wade to be.

The very name Citizens United is Orwellian doublespeak. The ruling culminates a decades-long campaign by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, corporate trade associations, and assorted right-wing think tanks. It is "grounded" in the 14th Amendment, which was specifically intended to establish the rights of former slaves.

And what of these corporate "persons?" For instance, when a person sells $40 billion of toxic waste that blows up the global economy, bets on who dies first, declares an emergency to accept government help, and amasses the world's largest fortune in the process, we generally hound them to the ends of the Earth and relieve them of their accounts. Yet this comic book supervillain has a name: Goldman-Sachs. The Supreme Court has announced this psychopathic "person" has the same rights accorded to me by the Constitution. Actually, it has more rights than we do: corporations quite literally get away with murder. Blackwater, too is now a "person."

This happy state of affairs comes courtesy of a movement Thomas has abetted his entire adult life. They said, 'be afraid of Big Brother!' while endowing little brothers with unelected and unaccountable power. To this end Thomas has said much of a "right to life;" but his movement has designed a world in which that right ends at birth, leaving us all on our own against the little brothers.

I find Cal Thomas to be a contradiction, or at least a moral inconsistency.


Adding: apologies for my lack of attention here lately. I've been busy.

NIGHT OF THE UNRELENTING DEADHEADS

Somewhere in cyberspace last night, I was egregiously misquoted. My words were twisted, turned upside down, pulled inside out. You guessed it: It came from the fringes. How or why or who did this, I shall spare you the details. Perhaps I should say nothing from this day forward, leave behind nothing that can be misread or miscarried, nothing to haunt or incriminate me later. Today, I shall sit back and just let others do the talking:

Randall Terry: “Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... Our goal is a Christian Nation … we have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I’ve got a hot flash. God rules.”

Randall Terry: “When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed.”

My lips are sealed. So far, so good. Now lets run the video (from a town hall meeting in Reston Virginia earlier this week):



If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a photomontage worth?



Did I say anything? Consider this an open thread.

WHEN “PRO-LIFE” MEANS PRO DEATH

By (O)CT(O)PUS

The title of this post is borrowed from an article originally written in 1998 by Mary Lou Greenberg , who reports on assaults by pro-life extremists. She describes this bomb attack on the All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham Alabama that killed a security guard and severely injured a nurse:

“As I held in my hand the sharp slivers of glass that were now the only remains of the shattered windows, my eye was drawn to a metal object in the debris. It was a nail, a small, sharp spike two inches long (…) Just as this anti-personnel bomb at the clinic was intended to rip apart bodies, so too was it meant to penetrate people's minds and emotions with a chilling message: If you provide abortions, if you work at clinics or go to them as clients, you will be a target!”

This court case, Fargo Women's Health Organization v. Lambs of Christ, tells another aspect of the story. Established in 1981, the clinic offered routine gynecological services including first trimester abortions. For years, anti-abortion protestors held peaceful demonstrations in the vicinity of the clinic but conditions changed in 1991 when protestors stormed the clinic and occupied the building.

In the ensuing months, demonstrators jostled patients at the front door, struck and pushed escorts, confronted patients in the parking lot, vandalized cars, and blocked public roadway access. As a result, the clinic was effectively blockaded, preventing patients and staff from entering or leaving the building. Protestors called these blockades "rescues" and vowed to close the clinic outright.

Away from the clinic, the situation turned nastier when protestors followed staffers to their homes, to stores, even to the airport. For five months, protesters stalked a doctor at her home. Before dawn, “as many as 30 protesters” gathered on the front lawn, shouted, honked car horns, and blocked the driveway to prevent the doctor and her family from leaving. Protestors vandalized the doctor’s property and picketed the school where her daughter attended. Other staffers were similarly harassed; a car full of protestors stalked the daughter of a clinic volunteer.

Similar incidents spawned more litigation. In another noteworthy case, Bray V. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, several abortion clinics sued in District Court. In hindering women as a class from seeking an abortion, they argued, anti-abortion protesters had violated their equal protection rights. Although a District Court ruled in favor of the clinics, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling in a 5 to 4 decision that defied logic:

“Opposition to abortion cannot reasonably be presumed to reflect gender-based intent, Justice Scalia wrote [my bold], because there are common and respectable reasons for opposing abortion other than a derogatory view of women.”

In other words, a protestor’s right to free speech trumps a woman’s right to free and unfettered access to reproductive health services.  In Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo v. Williams, Joshua Wilson describes the "ideological dilemma" when two legal concepts come into conflict forcing both sides of the argument to decide which rights deserve priority over others. For pro-choice liberals, the strategy is to protect abortion rights by limiting disruptive demonstrations near reproductive health facilities. For pro-life conservatives, their strategy is the reverse: To obstruct access to abortions by expanding their traditionally narrow views regarding freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Depending upon on the issue, it seems, civil liberties are in the eyes of the beholder.

On January 13, 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Bray V. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic.  Two months later, on March 10, 1993 to be exact, Dr. David Gunn was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist in Pensacola Florida :

David Gunn, 47, was shot three times in the back after he got out of his car at the Pensacola Women's Medical Services clinic, according to Pensacola police (…)

Last summer in Montgomery, Ala., an old-fashioned "wanted" poster of Gunn was distributed at a rally for Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry, AP said. The poster included a picture of Gunn, his home phone number and other identifying information.

Eight months later, on August 19, 1993, a pro-life extremist shot Dr. George Tiller in both arms. It was the first attempt on his life and the first of many threats throughout his career. Not only did Dr. Tiller survive the attack, he returned to the clinic the next day to administer to his patients.

In response to a pattern of arson, bombings, murder, and intimidation at abortion clinics, the U.S. Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) on May 26, 1994. More than a dozen states followed suit by imposing buffer zones around clinics and homes, prohibiting threats to personnel, banning telephone harassment, and imposing noise regulations. On March 17, 1997, the case of Planned Parenthood Shasta-Diablo v. Williams reached the U.S. Supreme Court. This time, the Justices voted 6-3 to uphold the buffer zones.

Despite legislative initiatives to date to stop the violence, there have been:

8 assassinations and over a dozen shootings,

180 arson and 37 bomb attacks,

100 butyric acid attacks including multiple attacks on the same clinic on the same day,

654 letters threatening anthrax attacks.

These are not the actions of a mere handful of lone extremists within the pro-life movement. These statistics imply the existence of a pervasive and organized network of accomplices working underground and nationwide. Scott Roeder, the man charged with the murder of Dr. George Tiller, agrees. From his jail cell last week, Roeder said: "I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal ..."

Meanwhile, what about our vaunted rights of free speech and free assembly? How can we claim these civil liberties as hallmarks of freedom when thousands of reproductive health professionals and their clients are forced to endure bullying, harassment, intimidation, and threats of personal injury every day? Which is worse: The threat of international terrorism from abroad, or the threat of pro-life terrorism at home that can strike at any moment.