Hudson's Election Guide, Part 3: Referred Law 6
A few weeks ago, a mysterious beat-up old pickup truck suddenly appeared in Sioux Falls. Similar trucks had made appearances in our fine city over the past few years, but this one drew the ire of our daily paper when it positioned itself in front of their offices. After a story or two (and reportedly a call to police for a charge of illegal parking), this clem moved his truck a couple of blocks to the south.
After a few days of idling on the corner of 14th and Minnesota, the truck must have finally received some gas money because all of a sudden he was everywhere. There were sighting all over the city on seemingly every major street, angering people with eight-foot signs supposedly picturing aborted fetuses and propaganda messages. One of these signs carried the dubious sign that “Planned Parenthood Supports Pedophilia”. For some reason, I don’t get that one.
In recent days, he’s found some friends. There’s a whole squadron of these trucks, and they’re spreading their propaganda to the suburbs. This past Sunday, I had to follow a caravan of these broke-down beasts on Bahnson Avenue, traveling at a top speed of 15 mph. From what I’ve been told, they begin their day at a warehouse near the airport that Leslie Unruh and her goons use as their home base. They then go off to spread their lies to whoever is unfortunate enough to get close to their trucks, concentrating their efforts on the Planned Parenthood offices. According to a recent Argus article, they track the license plates of anybody entering the building.
That’s a scary prospect, and not just because of privacy issues. Let’s get back to the O.P., the original propagandist. Reportedly, his name is Ronald Brock, and he has a long history of run-ins with law enforcement. He has supposedly been arrested over 80 times, and brags that he has spent three of the last six years in jail. He also is an advocate of murdering doctors who perform abortions, and was one of the individuals arrested at a Mississippi church when ant-abortion protesters hit an abortion rights advocate with a car.
These are the kinds of people that Leslie Unruh and Roger Hunt have brought to our state, and there’s plenty more people acting behind the scenes providing tons of money to spread their lies. And no matter what you’ve read, they are lying. There is no provision for rape and incest. According to the Food and Drug Administration, the so-called morning after pill does nothing to an egg that’s already been fertilized. Even if it was a true option, many doctors will not prescribe it and many pharmacies will not fill it. Just try getting this drug if you live in a rural town miles and miles from a real city. This is not even taking into consideration the emotional trauma from these acts that cause many women to wait too long to report the violent act, if they do it at all. (In a moment we’ll get to another problem with the Unruh camp claiming that this is a true exception to the law.)
Most people also aren’t getting a clear picture of the exception to “protect the life of the mother”. A woman has to be in extreme dire health, supposedly near-death, to be allowed to abort the child. Many argue that even then the mother’s health is secondary to the child she is carrying. And even if the baby dies before birth, the mother must carry the child to term. How cruel is that?
No matter what these people claim in their talk show call-ins and newspaper letter-writing campaigns, nobody is truly in favor of abortion. Nobody. The best way to stop the practice, though, is not through this overly-restrictive and unneeded ban. We already have the toughest anti-abortion laws in the country. The best way to do away with abortion is through education. A friend told me recently that despite the rhetoric, Planned Parenthood has probably stopped more abortions than they have performed. I believe that through their educational programs and their distribution of contraceptives that this is the case.
But we all know that the Unruh’s and other people of their ilk have no place for sex education. Besides their abstinence programs (which the government is expanding to everybody under 30), they were behind last year’s witch hunt on our school system’s sex-ed program.
And they’re not done yet. I’ve been told from a reliable source connected to the South Dakota legislature that if this bill passes next week they’re ready for an even more extreme piece of legislation. They have a bill already written up that will ban all contraception. Like the abortion ban, they want us to be a test case that will inevitably end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. While there seems to be little to no chance that this would pass, you can never tell what will happen…particularly as the makeup of the Supreme Court edges more conservative every year.
I can’t rant and rave enough that despite your personal feelings about abortion rights, this bill goes too far and is another step towards a certain group of people forcing their religious beliefs on us all. Like most serious topics, abortion is not a black or white issue. There’s too much grey area that can only be eliminated, or at least narrowed, through education, not legislation.
After a few days of idling on the corner of 14th and Minnesota, the truck must have finally received some gas money because all of a sudden he was everywhere. There were sighting all over the city on seemingly every major street, angering people with eight-foot signs supposedly picturing aborted fetuses and propaganda messages. One of these signs carried the dubious sign that “Planned Parenthood Supports Pedophilia”. For some reason, I don’t get that one.
In recent days, he’s found some friends. There’s a whole squadron of these trucks, and they’re spreading their propaganda to the suburbs. This past Sunday, I had to follow a caravan of these broke-down beasts on Bahnson Avenue, traveling at a top speed of 15 mph. From what I’ve been told, they begin their day at a warehouse near the airport that Leslie Unruh and her goons use as their home base. They then go off to spread their lies to whoever is unfortunate enough to get close to their trucks, concentrating their efforts on the Planned Parenthood offices. According to a recent Argus article, they track the license plates of anybody entering the building.
That’s a scary prospect, and not just because of privacy issues. Let’s get back to the O.P., the original propagandist. Reportedly, his name is Ronald Brock, and he has a long history of run-ins with law enforcement. He has supposedly been arrested over 80 times, and brags that he has spent three of the last six years in jail. He also is an advocate of murdering doctors who perform abortions, and was one of the individuals arrested at a Mississippi church when ant-abortion protesters hit an abortion rights advocate with a car.
These are the kinds of people that Leslie Unruh and Roger Hunt have brought to our state, and there’s plenty more people acting behind the scenes providing tons of money to spread their lies. And no matter what you’ve read, they are lying. There is no provision for rape and incest. According to the Food and Drug Administration, the so-called morning after pill does nothing to an egg that’s already been fertilized. Even if it was a true option, many doctors will not prescribe it and many pharmacies will not fill it. Just try getting this drug if you live in a rural town miles and miles from a real city. This is not even taking into consideration the emotional trauma from these acts that cause many women to wait too long to report the violent act, if they do it at all. (In a moment we’ll get to another problem with the Unruh camp claiming that this is a true exception to the law.)
Most people also aren’t getting a clear picture of the exception to “protect the life of the mother”. A woman has to be in extreme dire health, supposedly near-death, to be allowed to abort the child. Many argue that even then the mother’s health is secondary to the child she is carrying. And even if the baby dies before birth, the mother must carry the child to term. How cruel is that?
No matter what these people claim in their talk show call-ins and newspaper letter-writing campaigns, nobody is truly in favor of abortion. Nobody. The best way to stop the practice, though, is not through this overly-restrictive and unneeded ban. We already have the toughest anti-abortion laws in the country. The best way to do away with abortion is through education. A friend told me recently that despite the rhetoric, Planned Parenthood has probably stopped more abortions than they have performed. I believe that through their educational programs and their distribution of contraceptives that this is the case.
But we all know that the Unruh’s and other people of their ilk have no place for sex education. Besides their abstinence programs (which the government is expanding to everybody under 30), they were behind last year’s witch hunt on our school system’s sex-ed program.
And they’re not done yet. I’ve been told from a reliable source connected to the South Dakota legislature that if this bill passes next week they’re ready for an even more extreme piece of legislation. They have a bill already written up that will ban all contraception. Like the abortion ban, they want us to be a test case that will inevitably end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. While there seems to be little to no chance that this would pass, you can never tell what will happen…particularly as the makeup of the Supreme Court edges more conservative every year.
I can’t rant and rave enough that despite your personal feelings about abortion rights, this bill goes too far and is another step towards a certain group of people forcing their religious beliefs on us all. Like most serious topics, abortion is not a black or white issue. There’s too much grey area that can only be eliminated, or at least narrowed, through education, not legislation.
Comments
That says it all right there... and I am so fucking sick of it.