Andre Banks

Buying Out Abortions

As if the decision to have an abortion isn’t hard enough, women who choose to have the procedure must face public scrutiny, emotional distress, and harassment by anti-abortion protesters in front of clinics. Now they face a more frightening reality:  Clinics that can’t be blocked are being bought by anti-abortion extremists.
 
The new tactic of these activists is to buy-out abortion clinics and shut them down.  In the first case of its kind, a clinic in Chattanooga, Tennessee was bought by the Pro-Life Majority Coalition of Chattanooga and turned into the “National Memorial for the Unborn”. This facility was the only place in town where abortions were performed.

Such buy-outs have become a trend in states like Tennessee, Florida, Nebraska, and Kansas.

In past years, anti-abortion activists have focused most of their attention on state legislation in order to restrict access to abortions by creating waiting periods, and parental consent requirements. South Dakota led the anti-abortion fringe movement by outlawing all abortions unless a pregnancy endangers the pregnant woman’s life. Similar legislation has been proposed in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia.

The attacks on the reproductive rights of women show not only in anti-abortion legislation, but also in restricting access to contraception and enforcing abstinence-only sex education . Anti-abortion extremists continue to wage a dangerous war on women’s bodies by denying the sexual realities of life in the United States and challenging the rights of women to determine their own livelihood. 

Posted at 10:03 AM, Aug 23, 2006 in Health | Permalink | View Comments