Anti-Abortion Protestors Causing Controversy with Graphic Pictures

[meganmonkey]

So for the last few weeks there has been a controversy brewing because of anti-abortion protestors with graphic pictures of partial-birth abortion demonstrating on a major public thoroughfare in Ypsilanti, Michigan, near the new office of a doctor who performs abortions.
They aren't making many friends...

Protest messages compete
Graphic anti-abortion images blocked by counterdemonstrators
Sunday, April 23, 2006
BY KHALIL E. HACHEM
News Staff Reporters
A battle of graphic abortion photos vs. bed sheets played out for several hours in downtown Ypsilanti on Saturday in the latest chapter of an anti-abortion protest that began a month ago.

Gaining territory seemed to be the main goal as about 20 people - about 10-12 from each side - jockeyed for position in the median along a busy three-block area of Michigan Avenue.

After the anti-abortion protesters said they would show up again Saturday to stand in the median with graphic photos, a group of counter-protesters vowed to bring sheets in an effort to shield the photos from passersby.

----snip----

Shawn Neal, 33, spokesman for the group of residents with sheets, said his group is nonviolent, and apolitical, taking neither side of the abortion issue. However, he calls the photo posters inaccurate because he said they depict a so-called partial-birth abortion, a practice that has essentially been banned since 2003.

much more at link...
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1145787115105440.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

Earlier Coverage:

Activist, dad disagree over abortion protest sign

Saturday, April 08, 2006
BY SUSAN L. OPPAT
News Staff Reporter
John Fleming was pulling his three young children home from the Ypsilanti library in a wagon Thursday afternoon, when he spotted an abortion protester up ahead.

The protester, 40-year-old Thomas Held of Ann Arbor, was carrying a 5-foot-by-4-foot poster with a photo of the severed head of a late-term female fetus aborted in 1987.

---snip---

"But I didn't turn the sign (away). I didn't feel I had to,'' Held said. He said he may have even shifted the sign toward Fleming, as Fleming alleges, because Fleming was confrontational.

---snip---

"I appreciate that he's out there doing something he believes in, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it,'' Fleming said. "I wouldn't mind holding a sign with him, if it had something else on it. But this is wrong. We were having a good day, coming home from the library. I don't want to see a picture of a dead baby on the way home.''

much more at link...
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1144491140202820.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

And then the police got involved...

Face-offs outside clinic heat up
Ypsilanti police called out twice to calm confrontations over anti-abortion signs
Thursday, April 20, 2006
BY SUSAN L. OPPAT
News Staff Reporter
Confrontations between abortion protesters in downtown Ypsilanti and people who don't like the signs they are carrying are heating up along with the weather.

Ypsilanti Police said they were called out twice Wednesday afternoon to Michigan Avenue at Washington Street, and spent well over an hour there calming the situation.

In one incident, a picket reported someone threw an egg that hit her 5-year-old son in the head as he was standing on the corner with a protest sign. He was not injured, and no suspect was identified.

---snip---

Pickets have been standing on the raised median in the roadway almost daily since a doctor who performs abortions moved into an office on South Washington Street several weeks ago. The protesters stand with 5-by-4-foot signs bearing the photograph of the severed head of an aborted late-term fetus.

more at link...
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-17/114554224954750.xml&coll=2

[BrklynLiberal]

1. To me THAT kind of stuff is pornography! These people should be arrested

for corrupting the morals of minors. If someone walked around naked they would be arrested, and that would be nowhere near as horrible as what these people are doing.

[rkc3]

2. I'm with you. I've seen large photos like this here in Pittsburgh

on several occasions - usually in the spring and always during rush hour traffic.

The worst was about two years ago while fishing with my son - who was 5 at the time. He really likes airplanes and when one came down the river towing a banner he got excited. I gave him the binoculars but he couldn't figure out what was on the banner.

To my horror, it was a series of photos of an aborted fetus - if someone can tell me how the hell I'm to explain these images to a 5YO, I'd love to hear it.

It still makes me mad.

[yellerpup]

4. I'm with you.

Exploitation. Sheer pornography.

[stellanoir]

3. I escorted a friend to an abortion clinic not too long ago

She has a condition, which I won't go into. It made even the first couple weeks of pregnancy excruciatingly painful. Her condition makes a viable pregnancy fairly unlikely.

The sidewalk outside the clinic was lined with all sorts of misguided self righteous people screaming horrific insults at myself and my friend with very large posters of aborted fetuses.

As these clinics tend to move slowly I was running errands while my friend was processed and waited.

So I was in and out of the place several times getting told that I was going directly to hell and all.

Finally I said, "Look I'm not even pregnant. Why don't you people go help some living children instead of harrassing desperate women." One of them said, "their children are living." I said "who died and made you God?" Sheesh.

[dogday]

5. Need a big ole stink bomb or can of stink

or a good fart would do it and let him smell what they are dishing out...