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After all if Jay Nordlinger can be so insulted what’s to stop him? And will his listeners be ready to believe? After all he is appearing at a teaparty and appearing for a Republican!
Then again a man who has faced down actual evil and repression is unlikely to be intimidated by the likes of a MSNBC host.
..against Planned Parenthood and had a quote from city counselor Rosemary Reynolds that every pol who claims Catholicism should memorize:
Reynolds said she was protesting as a resident, and a member of the City Council, against Planned Parenthood coming to Fitchburg.
“I’m one person. I don’t divide myself,” Reynolds said.
As Emily Devlin reports there were quite a few people beeping in support of the protesters. I noticed one driver in particular who showed more enthusiasm than sense giving two thumbs up while taking his hands off the wheel in a snowstorm.
Devlin like Stacy and myself, quotes Fr. Bruso:
Bruso said a Main Street location, just down the street from Longsjo Middle School, makes the prospect of a Planned Parenthood office in Fitchburg even less palpable. Planned Parenthood is trying to depict itself as an agency that is only planning to educate the community about sexual health, Bruso said, but he believes that’s not the case.
“They don’t make money by giving out literature. They make money by performing abortions,” Bruso said.
And it would appear that for the second time this month events in Fitchburg are drawing more notice than usual. National notice.
If yesterday was any indication then the Battle of Fitchburg as Stacy put it will not be a silent one. Tuesday’s counsel meeting will be rather interesting.
My complements to Emily Devlin. The story is a pretty accurate one, the Sentinel has does good work covering this story thus far.
Update: Haemet links and states a basic truth:
it is entirely hypocritical for Planned Parenthood to advocate for treating sexual health like any other health issue; after all, this is the group that fights parental notification and parental consent laws
Meanwhile Creative Minority report is as impressed with Rosemary Reynolds as I am.
…when they saw American Glob’s post in response to Stacy McCain’s and Smitty’s pleas to send me to CPAC. If they were anywhere near my laptop it would be shorted out and finally give up the ghost as it’s been threatening to do for months.
I’m flattered by the attention, but Made of Awesomeness? It’s almost as big a complement as being called a terrific gentlemen by the charming Roxeanne.
When I put up the “I’ll do it myself Tucker fund” it was an experiment to see if I could support myself though readership, basically a card to play as the countdown continues. CPAC was not on my mind When Stacy suggested it while I was here I confess I didn’t take it very seriously.
But a few people have already hit the jar with the express purpose of sending me to CPAC so what can I say?
I don’t do much traveling, Stacy does. He says $1600 will do the trick. If that can happen (and my wife is rolling her eyes at the possibility) then I will certainly go and do my best to be worthy of your support.
If enough is not raised I will of course refund any person who gave with the intent of sending me.
Either way I thank all of you for your support of the blog, financial or otherwise.
Update: American Gobs’ link to the “I’ll do it myself Tucker Fund” produces an error as did the link above which I have pulled.
However the links from the “Tucker” Page continues to work. I have tested it with the following browsers and versions:
Firefox 3.0.17, Internet Explorer 7.0.6000 16945, Safari 4.0.4 531.21.10,
Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.5, Maxthon 1.5.07 (build 82) and Mozilla 1.7.3
Until I can resolve the issue go here and follow the links there.
This is a good time to mention that you should ALWAYS have a least two different browsers on your system as a simple control. Is a web site failing? Is your connection failing? A secondary browser helps determine these things. I’m also a big fan of the idea that you can assign different functions to different browsers to make things easier.
The snow was falling steadily but for the 6 dozen or so protesters (not counting children) it didn’t matter. What mattered was Planned parenthood was planning to come to Fitchburg.
“We are here for the children” said one man standing in front of the parking lot, the crowd around him nodded their heads in agreement. When asked if the reports that abortions would not take place at this location due to the nature of their federal grant, they answered referrals would still be provided and who’s to say that the laws wouldn’t be changed in the future?
The general consensus was that Planned Parenthood choose Fitchburg due to a combination of a large teenage pregnancy rate and a large minority population. When I asked one protester if she thought that was a miscalculation, after all the Spanish population is very Catholic, she shook her head, “Look around you, do you see any Spanish faces out here?”
She would have been much more reassured if she had walked into the Barber Shop two doors down from where she was standing. At the Dream Team Barber shop with it’s very Spanish clientele I asked one of the barbers what they thought of the protest and planned parenthood.
He didn’t think their presence would affect his business one way or the other but Planned Parenthood was mistaken if he thought that the Spanish population would be behind them. “We love our children” he declared as he stood before the Crucifix next to the chair where he was lathering the head of a customer.
City Counselor Rosemary Reynolds spoke in even blunter terms concerning the relationship between Planned Parenthood and the minority community. She stressed its origins and Margaret Sanger’s involvement in the eugenics movement, maintaining that Planned Parenthood had been a disaster to the black community in particular.
Although no protesters showed up for the other side, this sentiment was not unanimous among Fitchburg residents. A customer in a variety store in front of the protest asked why people weren’t protesting the mayor or Unitil instead. The store owner was neutral on the subject of Abortion but not Unitil, one it was mentioned he spoke at length on how Unitil’s high prices do more damage to business in Fitchburg than anything Planned Parenthood could ever do. (If there was one thing everyone I talked to agreed on; it was they hated Unitil, A man making a delivery to the shop said that only Unitil would have drawn a bigger crowd against them here.)
Another business owner was certainly not neutral when it came to either Planned Parenthood or protesters. She commented that protesters in front of the office in Worcester that she visited as a teenager decades ago has some very unkind words for her. (That certainly wasn’t the case today. Local police at the scene stated the protesters where calm, respectful and orderly) As for Planned Parenthood: “When I was a teenager and pregnant they were there.” noting that they had provided birth control and advice to her in the 80’s when she needed it. She had her first child at 16 and her second at 21 saying Planned Parenthood provides advice for girls who feel they can’t talk to their parents. Ironically while her first two pregnancies were carried to term she did get an Abortion at 26 not wanting to bring a child into what was an abusive relationship. Although she deeply regrets the decision now, she doesn’t lay any blame on Planned Parenthood and stresses although they performed the abortion they didn’t push her to that choice: “I made the decision. It’s not their fault it’s mine.” Though she considers it now the wrong choice for her; she maintains that’s not true for everyone.
Fr. Robert Bruso (full disclosure, my parish priest) would disagree. The pastor of Saint Anthony di Padua Church talked about how the issue isn’t a Catholic or a Protestant or even a religious issue. It’s all a question of respect for life and it’s potential. “President Obama’s book is called The Audacity of Hope. Abortion is the abandonment of hope. When a person chooses abortion they are saying they don’t have hope for the future, not for their child or for themselves.”
When it came to hope the protesters had plenty that they could keep planned parenthood out. Counselor Reynolds mentioned the location they wanted to open in was not zoned for any sort of medical office. When asked if the city counsel could keep them out if they choose an area that was zoned for their presence, she seemed less confident but no less dedicated. The protesters thought the same, stressing that it was important for landlords in Fitchburg to understand that wherever Planned Parenthood went, the protests would follow not stopping until they were gone.
Considering that a protest organized on the fly drew dozens of people in a snowstorm, it appears that’s one promise they will certainly be kept.
Update: Camp of the Saints links: thanks muchly.
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