New Academy Teaches Anti-abortion advocacy...

[bliss_eternal]

New academy teaches anti-abortion advocacy

By: Aoife McCarthy
Sep 12, 2007 06:23 PM EST


Oliver Barbier grew up outside Boston and attended the University of Chicago, where he earned a political science degree. In both urban settings, Barbier managed to stand out from the mostly liberal culture that dominated the college crowd — he is opposed to abortion rights, a position that he says made him few friends along the way. But this summer, he found his niche.

Barbier, along with four other students, participated in the inaugural class of the National Right to Life Academy, an intensive six-week program that teaches students “all the critical information they need to effectively argue and defend the life issues on campuses and in the workplace, as well as the skills needed to organize and conduct pro-life groups.”

The goal of the academy is to give students the information and training they need to champion the anti-abortion cause on their college campuses and, later, to become the national leaders, lobbyists and activists for the movement.

--------------------------------snip---------------------------------



taken from:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5801.html


Dontcha' just love the way they are calling it "advocacy" instead of what it really is? ...a way to exercise control over others. ...a way to express their hatred of women. ...a way for them to teach their hatred of individuality and freedom of choice to future generations, to take women back to the stone age.

How do people like this sleep at night?

[lizerdbits]

1. Nice linguistics

"Pro abortion" because if you support reproductive freedom you think abortions are GREAT and every woman should have one just for fun! :eyes:

I don't know how these people sleep, I just don't understand the burning desire to control other people.

[bliss_eternal]

4. Exactly. As if we go out recruiting...

"Hey, are you pregnant--well, the clinic is offering a special today..."

:wtf:

I intensely resent the implication that pro-choice is the equivalent of anti-life, pro-abortion, anti-birth, anti-child. It's such bullshit!

[smokey nj]

2. Just what we need, a camp to prepare brainwashed idiots for leadership roles.

This "academy" probably picks up where Jesus Camp leaves off. I really wish these freaks would move somewhere else and leave the rest of us alone. :banghead:

[Control-Z]

3. This made me think of an article I read and saved a few years back

Being atheist I doubt I would have found or read this one on my own but my mom hooked me up and it's a good one. (Mom is still my greatest teacher.)

I don't have a link so I've posted the article in full.

<begin Article>

"NEVER SAY "NEVER!"

I can still remember that evening a number of years ago, when myself and a
woman who was a Christian Counselor were discussing abortion - she had just
shared with me about the compassion, love and concern she felt for women who
have had an abortion, and my reply to her was something along the lines
of...... "I could never feel that way for them! Never!". Looking back now, I
can almost picture God, with a twinkle in His eye, listening to me make that
statement, with Him knowing all that was to follow, and me knowing nothing,
absolutely nothing...............

You see, He knew the lessons that He wanted to teach me, He knew the path
that I would take a few years later, that would see me in a place where there
was plenty of room in my heart for those women who have had an abortion, but
very little room in my heart for those who are Pro-Life, who supposedly care
about these women only because they have been told to by leaders in the Pro-
Life movement. They have been taught that if they truly want abortion to
become illegal, then they must show compassion, mercy and love to those
women. Huh?? Did I miss something? Whatever happened to caring for them just
because you care? Not because they are a part of an Agenda, not because
you've been told to, but because you just care? This is just one of the
'doesn't make sense' traits of the Pro-Life Movement that have led me to
where I now state quite fervently and loudly "I am NOT Pro-Life!!!!".

The change in me began about 18 months ago, while I was participating in an
Abortion Discussion Board on the Internet. During my early times there, I was
a pretty typical Pro-Lifer - it was all about the baby, and to hell with the
women. Then, one day I was sitting in the Chat Room attached to this Board,
and a Christian women entered. She started sharing with me about the grief,
pain, remorse and unforgiveness that she was feeling over an abortion she had
years earlier, and as I listened to her, I felt something stirring in my
heart. I felt the desire to reach out to her, to hold her, to love her, and I
also did not want her to feel that way. I didn't want her to be hurting, I
didn't want her to be hating herself the way she was...........I did not want
her to feel condemned anymore. These feelings surprised me, and for a while I
kept them hidden from the other people who participated at the Debate Board.

Then, a woman posted at the Debate Board who was considering having an
abortion, and naturally she received a number of posts from Pro-Lifers
attempting to dissuade her. I honestly do not remember if I was one of those
Pro-Lifers, but what I do remember is that she continued to post there, even
after she had gone through with the abortion. Yet again, I felt concern for a
woman who had an abortion, and I emailed her and let her know that if she
needed someone to talk to, I was there. She replied, albeit somewhat wearily
- after all, all she really knew of me was what she had witnessed on the
Debate Board! And so began my relationship with a person whom I now consider
a dear Friend, and so also began my "path of learning".

Since that time and the present, there have been a number of things that I
have learned, and to learn these things, I first had to un-learn all that the
Pro-Life movement had taught me. I became a person who actively reached out
to Post-Abortive women through pages on my website, as well as a Yahoo Club
that I founded. I became a person who no longer spoke out as vehemently
against abortion, because I was no longer certain that the Pro-Life movement
was 'right'. Things just weren't sitting right in my spirit, things just
weren't adding up anymore, so I allowed myself to really think about things.
To not just accept things that I was being told, but to actually THINK about
them. Those changes were gradual - they didn't happen overnight, but they DID
happen. I cannot remember the time frame for them, or each precise change,
but the following are probably the main 'bits':

1. The Pro-Life movement did not support the use of either the Morning After
Pills or the IUD, yet I saw them as the ONLY post-intercourse option to
prevent pregnancy, and if we can prevent pregnancy, then we can decrease the
need for abortion. Nope! Their stance on the use contraception didn't make
sense to me......

2. The Pro-Life movement believed that making abortion illegal would solve
the problem. But would making abortion illegal solve the problem of
unplanned/unwanted pregnancies? Ummmm, no. They spend their time, money and
efforts in fighting to make abortion illegal, not realising that what one
government may make illegal, another can just make legal again. I saw that it
would become like a game of ping-pong, and whilst I don't mind ping-pong, I
object strongly when the ping-pong balls being used are women!

3. After reading a book called Making Abortion Rare, by David Reardon, I saw
something that I really did not like, at all. That book was kind of an eye-
opener into the Pro-Life movement for me, as it showed me the real reason a
number of Pro-Lifers expressed 'compassion and concern' for women who have
had an abortion. It was solely to further their agenda, nothing more, nothing
less. The Pro-Life voice had thus far fallen on deaf ears where the public at
large was concerned, so a new tactic was needed. That new tactic was to reach
out to post abortive women, in the hopes that they would one day be the
voices speaking out against abortion, that their voices would bring about the
illegalising of abortion. This just seemed so very wrong to me. Whilst it is
a good thing to care about the women, that caring should be genuine, brought
forth from the heart, not brought forth from an agenda.

4. I had been taught that Pro-Choicers were the enemy, but as I dialogued
with them, and even became friends with some of them, I could see that they
were not my enemies! They were women like me, women with their own thoughts,
beliefs and ideas, and some of them just happened to differ from mine. That
didn't make them evil, or hard-hearted, or any of the other labels that the
Pro-Life movement likes to throw at them. Now, I am proud to call a number of
Pro-Choicers my close Friends!

The 'straw that broke the camels back' for me was when I saw a disturbing
picture - a photo of a woman, lying dead on a motel room floor, after having
an illegal abortion. It wasn't just the photo itself that disturbed me, it
was the desperation and utter aloneness of Gerri Santoro that disturbed me,
and stuck at the core of my being. I don't even think the person who posted
the link to that photo at the Abortion Debate Board knows the affect that it
had on me, so thanks, "V", you know who you are.

I was now no longer Pro-Life, and had no desire to even be called Pro-Life,
or associated with "Pro-Life"............

I am just me, a woman with her own thoughts and ideas that she has actually
thought through, a women who really does care about other women, and who
desires to reach out to those who are hurting.

I me, and I am free to be me!

'Martha2Mary'

<End Article>

[Justitia]

5. I wouldn't be surprised if they taught them Bombmaking 101 also. -eom

[MountainLaurel]

6. University of Chicago, now there's a surprise

Do you have to pass an "I'm a fascist" test to get in there?

[ismnotwasm]

7. This is total perversion

I can't think of any other word that suits.

My body, my choice.