I was reminded of a joke recently that goes something like this:

Q: What do you call that fleshy thing that surrounds a fetus?
A: A woman.

Get it, cause you start thinking uterus, womb, etc. and I think sometimes that’s where the antis stop. They forget all about that other thing surrounding the fetus, but until science takes a few steps forward, you can’t have a womb without a woman.

Why was I thinking of this, you ask? The other day on the sidewalk a protestor and escort standing beside me were having a conversation. The protestor was saying he had four questions that would change the escort’s mind about abortion. Question #1: Do you think it’s ok to remove an elderly person from life support? Because if you don’t think it’s morally alright to do that then you can’t abort the fetus because, and I quote, “it’s the exact same thing, they’re both on life support, it’s exactly the same!”

The most charitable thought I can possibly give is that he doesn’t have a good grasp on the English language and confused exactly with not even f*#^ing close to. But then I thought of that joke and realized that he just didn’t see any difference between a life-support MACHINE and a female BODY. So for anyone else out there who might think his was a slam-dunk question, let me help you out with the subtle differences that make the situations so different as to not be in the same hemisphere.

Really I believe I could have stopped at the photos. I think most people would look at those and go “Yeah that’s not the same thing at all,” but we’re not dealing with most people here. We’re dealing with people who focus solely on the fetus; the woman, if she enters into it at all, is just the means to an end. They have to throw in a few “we understand, we’re not judging you”s for the sake of appearance but in the end it’s statements like the one above that lay bare the true point of their mission.

I have no idea what questions #2 through 4 were because I had to walk away. I figure the protestor was so far off the mark with the first question (and that’s what he was leading with) the only thing that was going to change was my blood pressure number.

For the protestor, if you’re reading, you didn’t change my mind on abortion, but you had a huge affect on my view of your intelligence, compassion and understanding of the English language.

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REMINDER: It’s time for Pledge-A-Picketer!

You know how it works, right? You pledge so much for each protester who shows up, we count the protesters, and the more of them there are, the more money we raise for escorts {vests, training costs, and other miscellany} and abortion access.

Make your pledge here. Donate.

The escorts and clients hear lies coming from the anti’s all the time. The breast cancer link that doesn’t exist, the “fact” that 20% of all women who have abortions attempt suicide, the curious item about how the equipment the clinic uses is 27 times more powerful than your home vacuum cleaner (although the anti recently upped that to 29 times, I guess people weren’t being properly scared at the lower number). The list goes on and on. These are all attempts to scare and unnerve the clients but are easily dispelled with a little Google-fu. Lately though there have been a couple of examples of the antis lying to their own flock.

In a recent article by Matt Damico in the Southern Seminary Magazine he said “There are a number of Catholics and other individuals who also do sidewalk counseling – although the number of escorts usually outnumbers the pro-life volunteers . . .” (emphasis mine). I admit I was shocked to learn this, because I’ve been doing this for a while now and I could only remember a handful of times that the escorts weren’t outnumbered. Were my eyes deceiving me? I’ve been able to count for a long time now and am usually pretty adept at it, but why would this christian, who is so adamant that we follow God’s laws, bear false witness about what’s happening on the sidewalk.

Another escort noticed a Facebook post on the Abolitionist Society of Louisville, KY on Feb 1 that said “S4U [Speak for the Unborn] sidewalk counselors outnumbered deathscorts this morning at the child sacrifice center (a very rare thing).” (emphasis mine). This person nicely loopholed their way to get the numbers the way he or she wanted by counting only a specific group of anti while counting all of the escorts. This, of course, is a meaningless distinction to the clients. I doubt they arrive and notice the specific differences between the protestor factions. Like “wow, thank goodness the catholics/abolitionists/whatever group wasn’t protesting today or that would have been tough. Luckily all these other people yelling at me are like fluffy bunnies.”

Maybe this was a case of observational bias on my part though. Maybe I see more antis than escorts because of how it feels personally. So I decided to check the claims of these righteous people. Luckily for me the escorts keep a count of the number of escorts and the number of protestors that show up each day, so the information was readily available. I jumped in and started inputting the numbers and was unsurprised to learn that the opposite of what is being promoted here is true. I have gone through each month in 2013 (charts provided*) and found that out of 261 days that the clinic was open the escorts outnumbered the antis a whopping 11 days. Even when you add in the days when there were even numbers or when I didn’t have data to input (N/A) the difference is 205 to 56 days. So the “usually” and “rare thing” is actually the exact opposite of what was being put forth to the people reading these posts.

 I think the reason for the lies still comes down to the same thing though – fear. Just like they try to get the clients to fear the procedure, fear the doctor, fear the “consequences” of the abortion, these people are lying to their own to get them to fear the scary evil deathscorts and give an impression of an oppressed, outnumbered, intimidated “sidewalk counselor”. To rally the troops and have a revival meeting on the sidewalk. After all, as I heard one protestor say, it’s not harassment if you’re doing it for Jesus. If you can harass with impunity it’s not a huge leap to justifying lying for Jesus.

*Monthly Charts