Sotomayor Protester: "What About The Unborn?" (VIDEO)

UDPATE: One of the anti-protesters arrested at Monday's confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor was none other than Jane Roe, real name Norma McCorvey, of the landmark Roe v. Wade case.

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police said McCorvey and Francis Mahoney, 68, of Florida were charged with unlawful conduct for disrupting Congress, the third and fourth such arrests the police made during the more than five-hour proceedings. McCorvey was part of the group of protesters outside the Hart Senate Office Building throughout the day, a gathering led by Randall Terry, the former head of Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to ending abortion.

* * * * *An anti-abortion protester briefly disrupted the opening of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination hearing.

The outburst came during Sen. Dianne Feinstein's opening statement Monday. A man in room interrupted her remarks by shouting: "Senator. What about the unborn!" He called abortion "genocide."

Security quickly took him out. Sotomayor turned her head briefly toward her family and friends seated in the front row as the man was taken away and his shouts faded.

The episode prompted a warning by committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy that no displays for or against the nominee would be tolerated from observers.

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Comments

[AParent]

I am not surprised that Frank Mahoney was arrested at the Sotomayor Hearings. He harrasses women as they enter the local Medical Clinic where abortions are performed every week. I always find it interesting when older, single, white men think that they can make better decisions for women than the women, who know all the facts of their situation, can. Maybe that's the real problem they have with Judge Sotomayor.

[KLordsha]

Who cares about these id10ts?? I was really glad that no one could hear what they were yelling...­.. Totally disrespect­ful..and they should change these charges for interrupting such events to felonies..­.

[Alarmist]

Maybe pro-lifers should stop focusing on the unborn and start focusing on the finally BORN.
Those are the ones who need our help.

[gditty]

What about healthcare for the "born"?

[Rangergirl]

The guy who yelled out at the Justice's hearing ...Will probablly be the next abortion clinic bomber, or Dr. Killer....­If we don't have abortion..­..Who will take care of the unwanted babies...A­re you going to adopt them? Are you going to vote more tax payer money to support them? More money for their growing up on welfare if the mom can't afford to take care of the child? Are you going to decide what is appropriate for a woman who's unborn Child is Ancephalic, or severely compromised where they will not survive?..­...Don't judge these wormen..

[getoffthecross]

If I've asked it once, I've asked it 1,000 times: How many abortions have we caused in Iraq? Where was all their screaming then? Or do they only care about "home grown?" Because I don't know that Jesus made national border distinctions.

[hangdogit]

What if environmentalists were as fanatical as the "pro-life" folks? They would demand an immediate halt to all industry and transportaion -- back to a hunting and gathering economy, if that. But instead they ask for sensible restictions on pollution.

The "pro-life movement," were it at all rational, would learn from the environmentalists, gladly working to reduce abortions -- through family planning, birth control and sex education (all proven methods) -- instead of abstinence-only "education­." Ask Palin's daughter how well that works.

[Tyler-Durden]

that would require "work" on their part. which they don't do. only whining.

[tom ellison]

"What if environmentalists were as fanatical as the "pro-life" folks?"

Are you joking? Environmen­talists/pr­o-animal rights people have burned down entire budding housing communities because the planned homes displaced animals or endangered certain species.

[tom ellison]

"were it at all rational"

Sometimes it takes a little passion/emotion, too. The civil rights fights were not all about Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches. Remember, people also marched and were beaten back with hoses and batons.

[OceanSize]

Here's an eye-opener for the Righties..­.MORE birth control equals LESS abortions!! If you are against one, then you must be for the other. So get on board with the birth control already!

ALL of us, pro-choice, pro-life, whatever..­.ALL of us hate abortion. I wish the Conservatives could understand this. We ALL hate it. We pro-Choicers merely recognize that abortion is going to happen regardless of its legal status, and want to keep it as safe as possible for the women involved.

There is no Pro-Life or Pro-Choice. Only Pro-Coat Hanger or Anti-Coat Hanger.

[mattwin]

I find it interresting that those that are pro-life also support war, the death penalty and torture. The last time I looked, prisoners, soldiers and captive were all alive.

[Clownbaby]

I'm pro-life and I'm against virtually all war and unequivocally opposed to torture. And in regards to the death penalty: a baby is innocent, a murderer isn't.

[Tyler-Durden]

you may be pro-life, but are you anti-choice?

[Icantbelieveher]

They are also against the programs that help these babies once they are here -- and health care reform that will give these babies and the mothers that carry them access to adequate health care. I'm not seeing a line with these pro-lifers to adopt the special needs children they want to force women to carry -- or the minority babies.

[solopico]

Nice sweeping generalization.

[jozzie]

Not as nice as the pro-lifers'.

[hangdogit]

Sweeping -- but accurate.

[OceanSize]

And against programs that would reduce the numbers of unwanted fetuses in the first place, like birth control, sex ed, etc

[steveinohio]

I am an Obama voter and volunteer, I think war should be a last resort and that our military policy should be less intrusive and more isolationist. I think the death penalty should be banned. We should never torture.

I also think abortion should be heavily restricted, if not illegal. People on this board are consistently going after the supporters rather than the position itself. Less personal, more policy.

[Clownbaby]

Pro-Life Activist briefly interrupts Senate hearings: news on progressive blogs.

Leftists repeatedly interrupt hearings for the better part of the past 8 years: *crickets*

Just be consistent and show that there are nutjobs of all affiliations, please.

[jozzie]

No. Progressives have the REAL pro-life agenda. We are concerned about the sustainability of our place on this planet.

And we consistently defend quality of life and life itself. The rightwingnuts are just hysterically venting their Freudian fears.

[Heavy]

RED-STATE / BLUE-STATE ABORTION RATES COMPARED:

All but one of the ten states with the LOWEST rates of abortion are considered “LIBERAL” :

Liberal 1 Massachusetts 2.4
Liberal 2 Connecticut 2.8
Liberal 3 New Jersey 3.0
Liberal 4 Rhode Island 3.2
Liberal 5 New York 3.3
Liberal 6 Pennsylvania 3.3
Liberal 7 Wisconsin 3.4
Conservative 8 North Dakota 3.4
Liberal 9 Maryland 3.5
Liberal 10 Minnesota 3.6

All but one of the Sixteen states with the HIGHEST rates of abortion are considered “CONSERVATIVE” :

Conservative 35 Texas 5.4
Conservative 36 Alaska 5.5
Liberal 37 Washington 5.6
Conservative 38 Mississippi 5.7
Conservative 39 Kentucky 5.8
Conservative 40 Arizona 5.8
Conservative 41 Florida 5.9
Conservative 42 New Mexico 6.0
Conservative 43 Idaho 6.2
Conservative 44 Alabama 6.2
Conservative 45 Indiana 6.6
Conservative 46 Wyoming 6.5
Conservative 47 Tennessee 6.6
Conservative 48 Oklahoma 6.7
Conservative 49 Arkansas 7.1
Conservative 50 Nevada 9.0

[Compiled from Center for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics; and Election Results from CNN.]

[CR46]

Hmmm....by these statistics I conclude that sex ed. and available affordable birth control would be the way to go in the red states to lower unwanted pregnancies, I do believe I have also seen a similar read out where the highest teen births follow very closely to this.

[Icantbelieveher]

Can you give us the link? I'd like to have that and bookmark it! Coincidentally the states on your list with high abortion rates also rank at the bottom of the list in education, income and health care and the top for poverty and families living in poverty.

Coincidence? I think not!

[scjk67]

he just gave you a hint where to look it up ....ijit!

[Tyler-Durden]

excellent post.

[PoliticalJunkie65]

What the heck is going on in Nevada?? Oh yeah, Vegas.

[MamaBird62]

You've got over half the states there, so you were bound to bump the median, which explains the presence of liberal Washington state in your "bad" list. I'm not sure these stats are as meaningful as you suggest, as the demographics of those states with identical abortion rates vary dramatically. What are the real differences between Nevada and Massachusetts? Is it really as simple as red/blue political ideology?

[CR46]

Easier access to birth control, sex ed in publc schools.

[CitizenRob]

What if tomorrow medical science announced they had a way to transplant the unborn child into an artificial womb that would bring it to "birth" with a procedure that resembles an abortion in everyway.

Would you support a father's right to veto the termination of pregnancy in favor of the transplant?

[CR46]

I would like to see the father carry the artifical womb.

[rottnkid]

LOL

[CitizenRob]

I imagine the machine would be very heavy. ;-)

[sinope]

Of course, but we don't live in your magical fantasy land.

[CitizenRob]

Honestly I doubt we're very far from this sort of medical ability. So, how does that alter the argument?

[veteran1964]

Was that JOE THE PLUMBER in the audience screaming? Guess he lost another job and thought he was at a PALIN RALLY.

[CR46]

I think that it IS a good idea, and maybe very possible, this way all the anti-choicers can have and carry any unwanted fetus's that otherwise would be aborted. And this way it could be Both men and women, maybe this is something the anti-choice side should fund research on.

[CitizenRob]

Well really the sort of procedure I described would allow a woman to make the choice to not carry the child, while allowing the father to maintain a right to having a child he fathered.

The real issue in this scenario is how would women react to having the shoe on the other foot... forced into parenthood by a father that exerted his right to continue the gestation of the child.

As it is today men don't get a choice, if the condom fails and the woman gets pregnant all decision making is made by her.

In this scenario the father could also put the artificially birthed child up for adoption.

[Quaoar]

Would you support having such a procedure federally funded if the mother had no insurance and couldn't afford it?

[Tyler-Durden]

excellent retort. i'd like a response from the O.P.

[CitizenRob]

Oh my god, I love the idea of a federal health insurance program, not just for this sort of thing, but for everything.

I'm merely posing a question for something that is actually probably very likely possible in the near future.

But, ultimately under the current system, if a father did over ride the mothers decision to abort the child I would expect him to pay for the gestation.

On the other hand, under our current legal system, can't the mom have the unwilling father pay for medical costs of birthing a child?

[LorettaSingbiel]

HA, HA, HA! If it raises the "right-to-lifers" taxes ... NO WAY!!!

[amdezurik]

as long as she also paid child support too.

[Eraser]

Under the logic of the right wing, burning my hand on the stove (killing more living cells than a newly developing Zygote when a doctor performs an abortion) is destroying human life and would be considered murder. Wouldn't that make for an awkward jail cell conversation?

The abortion debate is very simple to me. It's a matter of applying the same standards of human life and death at all points in time. Generally two things determine whether a living person has died: a heartbeat and brain activity. Doctors don't wait until every single cell in a person has died. Under the same standard, you can't just call a few cells a living human being anymore than the last cells of a person who's already been pronounced dead. Once there's an independant heartbeat and brain activity in the fetus and can survive independant of the mother, then you can claim you're protecting life. Oddly enough, these tend to occur at the third trimester where the line tends to be drawn now for abortions.

[raker]

Funny, I don't recall seeing these people who value life so dearly interrupt other proceedings with screams of "torture is immoral!," or "genocide is...genoc­ide!" They're pro-life only if there's s*e*x involved. (I imagine lots of Republicans got aroused over torture, but that's another matter.)

[marleysghost]

I'm tellin' ya these people are unhinged. It's too bad men can't have babies. I think the perception might change just a wee bit if that were the case.

[jozzie]

Ya got a great point, pup.

[CR46]

There would then be more clinics than Starbucks!!

[crackedbeak]

If men had babies there would be a clinic on every corner, it would make Starbucks look like they were out of business.