Right-Wing Protesters: Birth Control Will Kill You

Unable to turn the public against sex, the pro-life movement will be on the march Saturday trying to convince women that birth-control pills will kill them.

The right-wing American Life League and a handful of regional organizations will stand around outside U.S. pharmacies and Planned Parenthood chapters this weekend for the second annual "Protest the Pill Day." Dispatches from last year's protests, posted at thepillkills.com, offer a sense of what to expect.

"About two dozen prayerful witnesses testified to the facts of death about the pill," reads last year's ALL report from the protest at a Planned Parenthood in Napa, Calif. "For one hour the prayers were offered for the many uninformed patrons who come asking the staff of Planned Parenthood to provide chemicals, hormones, and sex-education as an answer to their problems with the natural consequences of abuse of sex."

"We experienced a lot of thumbs up and approving honks," gushed a protester who stood outside the Planned Parenthood of South Texas for an hour last year.

The American Life League blames birth control -- all birth control, conflating the pill with less time-tested contraceptives -- for abortions and a wide variety of deadly health problems. The group's Web site also helpfully provides a nationwide map to facilities and protests. More ominously in the wake of George Tiller's murder, it includes some ambiguous language about who should use it.

"As the national group focused on grassroots efforts to defeat Planned Parenthood, American Life League hopes the information presented will be helpful to all in this battle," the Web site reads.

Behind the scenes, ALL and other right-wing groups are pushing state and local governments to deny women access to birth control and emergency contraception, as well as "fetal personhood" laws begging for a Supreme Court challenge, said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. In the meantime, Gandy said, the grassroots are a critical battleground, and education is key.

"It's sad to say, they are targeting young women who, after eight years of 'abstinence only' sex mis-education, are particularly vulnerable to their propaganda," Gandy wrote in a letter. "We know that the greatest danger to women's lives comes from a lack of access to good reproductive health care, including birth control and abortion -- and scientifically accurate information."

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Comments

[MadeleineA]

06:46 PM on 06/11/2009

Heh, that's funny. The American Cancer Society says using the pill for 5 or more years cuts the risk of ovarian cancer by half.

[tsolii]

11:57 AM on 06/08/2009

"We're fighting abuse of sex."
"You're working to end sexual abuse? That's great."
"No no, abuse of sex. You know, consensual sex between two adults."
"...Oh."

[zanzig]

08:07 AM on 06/08/2009

Amazing. You'd hardly believe this is America in the 21st Century. Just what do they teach in your schools? Or am I to believe that all of these ignoramuse­s never learnt anything at school at all? The alternativ­e of course is to believe that they are all suffering mental disorders.

[callmemara]

04:59 AM on 06/08/2009

fear, fear, fear. these "crusaders­" make me sick!

[joyce628]

02:45 AM on 06/08/2009

So this is their next target to blow up pharmacies and kill pharmacist who despense birth control pills? These people need to be jailed ASAP to teach them a lesson and let them know that they have to abide by the law of the land. This is trouble waiting to happen.

[SimplyBkuz]

02:13 AM on 06/08/2009

I'm pretty sure ignorance might kill you before birth control will.

[callmemara]

04:58 AM on 06/08/2009

excellent comment!

[BlackDemfromNH]

01:55 AM on 06/08/2009

You know, I am still astounded by the staggering ignorance of so many people. What makes them so dangerous is that they want to force those "beliefs" on the rest of us, even by violent force, as we have witnessed. We must speak out against this hateful ignorance and, probably most importantl­y, EDUCATE our young people before it's too late. Don't let ignorance win the day.

[lifeOFgraditude]

06:58 PM on 06/07/2009

"Behind the scenes, ALL and other right-wing groups are pushing state and local government­s to deny women access to birth control and emergency contracept­ion, as well as "fetal personhood­""

Maybe the government should deny people access to other medication­s like for heart problems, etc.

What sense does that make?
Right wing !d!ots!!!

[NHGranite]

06:07 PM on 06/07/2009

Easy one. How many women in the world die in childbirth­? How many die from the pill?

[applescruff]

06:02 PM on 06/07/2009

What next? The Flat World defenders,­Anti-Gravi­ty league, Banish U.S. Witches Crusade.
Does this leave any doubt how badly we need an overhaul of education in this country and a second look at home schooling requiremen­ts.
This is embarrassi­ng for a once progressiv­e and respected nation to be forced to show what ignorance we have produced by letting religious zealots have a say in our government policies.
Shame on these people for not having the brains to know that this will only increase the liklihood of abortions. They don't worship a god. They worship ignorance.

[fscuttle]

07:42 PM on 06/07/2009

You nailed it!

[zanzig]

08:14 AM on 06/08/2009

"religious zealots have a say in our government policies" specifical­ly in your education policies. I just saw a documentar­y on some American school district that was waging a war against most of the school board and the town who wanted to teach "intellige­nt design" alongside science, or instead of science or something of the kind. Watching some of those troglodyte­s I could only believe that I was in Salem in 1692: their dress, demeanour, attitudes, fervour - everything indicated that these were people who had not advanced in their thinking for 400 years (collectiv­ely, I mean). It would seem that the entire world view of these people rests on the 2000 year old statements of people from half a world away. Almost exactly like the Taliban in fact.

[HPdevotee]

05:41 PM on 06/07/2009

The American Life League is the same group that supported the Brazilian Bishop in trying to stop a life-savin­g abortion on a 9 yr old rape victim in Brazil...w­here most of the country is Roman Catholic.

This group felt that forcing an 80 pound little girl to carry the twin fetus' (by her step-fathe­r) to term was the moral/bibl­ical thing to do according to Pope Pius xii. It didn't matter to them if they were told by doctors that this girl was too small to carry and deliver a set of twins at 9 yrs old and that she would die...it did not matter at ALL.

These are lunatics that we are dealing with here. These people are so blinded and anesthetiz­ed by their religion, the RCC specifical­ly, that they are no longer human. The sooner groups such as these are marginaliz­ed the better off all people will be.

[bigbluenat4]

05:29 PM on 06/07/2009

http://new­s.yahoo.co­m/s/ap/200­90607/ap_o­n_re_us/us­_abortion_­shooting

The man charged with m u rde r! n g a high-profi­le abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell that similar violence was planned around the nation

Go Right wing Extremists­. These people are as bad as ANY Tl!b@n.

[serena1313]

05:23 PM on 06/07/2009

If the pro-lifers really wanted to stop abortions this is not the way to go about it. Lying about birth control is not going to stop teenagers or anyone else for that matter from having sex. They won't use it. As a result the number of pregnancie­s will increase which lead to more abortions. Isn't that what they want to prevent in the first place? Or is it just sex?

But then again pro-lifers wouldn't have a cause to rally around if people stopped having sex. Since that is not going to happen the next best thing would be finding ways to lower the number of abortions. Otherwise they are fighting a losing battle.

[bigbluenat4]

05:30 PM on 06/07/2009

Pro-Fetus, lets call them what they are.

[HPdevotee]

05:52 PM on 06/07/2009

Not even.

From the:
2006 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriat­ions bill.

CUTS $24 million in grants that provide quality pre-natal care and health care services for low income mothers and infants and $5 million from the Healthy Start program targeted to communitie­s with high infant mortality.

Calling them what they are... Anti-choic­e.

[redsongia]

04:59 PM on 06/07/2009

Guys shooting at you in church is also sometimes fatal.

[zendem1]

04:55 PM on 06/07/2009

That's why Bristol didn't use a bag. She was afraid it would be fatal. Makes about as much sense as religion.