Speaking Loud With Silence

[midnight]

Over 1,000 protesters silently lining the walkway to the Virginia House helped delay votes on an anti-choice bill requiring pre-abortion vaginal ultrasounds that critics call state-sanctioned rape. More actions today as the legislature reconvenes. http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/02/21-2

Photo at link



As state lawmakers prepared to vote on a bill to require women to undergo an ultrasound exam before having an abortion, several hundred people gathered at the state Capitol on Monday to protest that and other anti-abortion proposals from Republican legislators.

Many of those at the morning protest made their point without speaking.

"Shame" blared the hand-drawn yellow letters on the front of one protester's shirt. "If you can cut off my reproductive choice, can I cut off yours??" read the back.

Other demonstrators used more blunt metaphors.http://www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/305157

[H2O Man]

1. "Silence is

the true sound of cosmic adoration." -- Gandhi

[UrbanKhoja]

2. Right to decide?

By my very own admission I'm not entirely au fait with the whole story, but morals and beliefs aside for a second; surely in this day and age people ought to have the right to decide?

As someone who's CofE I believe every life is important, and no one has the right to take life away. But that's my personal belief and I'm no fanatic, and as much as we'd like to firmly stand for what we believe in it's also important that people are allowed that choice and afforded the chance to make an informed decision.

Regulation, of the right things used in the right way; can be beneficial, and no one can deny that. But I feel it's dangerous to try and so heavily regulate someone's belief, so long as they've made an informed decision and had the right information and support available to them - what does it matter to us what they decide to do?

[catbyte]

3. The problem with that line of thinking

is that the GOP thinks that women don't know what they're doing and therefore are compelled to "inform" them about abortion. It's misogynistic, condescending, and frankly, very insulting. No one understands better than the woman herself the implications of her reproductive choices. Men just need to worry about their prostates and penises and leave those of us with vaginas and uteri alone.

[UrbanKhoja]

4. Couldn't agree more

[noiretextatique]

5. it is beyond insulting

and it's not just men...a women sponsored the bill. hard to believe we are still dealing with misogynistic idiocy like this in 2012.

[noiretextatique]

6. more god-playing by the authoritarians

i accept people's religious beliefs...as long as they don't impose them on me. however, i do no "respect" the beliefs of people who think women are innately incapable of making decisions. i don't think those beliefs have anything to do with god or jesus or even christianity. those beliefs are learned and perpetuated to affirm male domination, and female subordination. the men who are obsessed with controlling women, and their choices, are pathetic cowards, even more pathetic for hiding behind religion.

[truedelphi]

7. The fact is- it is not about "deciding" anything. Nor is it about morality.

The abortion issue is instead about a woman's right to survive should she become pregnant. Once the anti-abortion crowd gets its way, no woman is safe at all, if she is of child-bearing age.

She is not even safe from her body's own biological processes.

Take that from me. As a very naive 20 year old, back in the early 1970's in Illinois, I became pregnant. I found out on Feb 15th of that year. Before my husband and I could "decide" anything, my body rejected the pregnancy. I started bleeding while I was walking home from work..

The local hospital refused to admit me as a patient, when I arrived by ambulance at 2Am. Even though I was hemorrhaging.

The doctors examining me seemed more interested in interrogating my husband about what I "had done" prior to the start of my bleeding, than in handling my situation.

So they sent me home. Later on, I found out that the hospital might have lost its license if they admitted a pregnant woman who has self-aborted.

I would have died, if not for the strange fact that my mother called our house at 6Am that day. (She calls me evenings or afternoons, not Am's.) When she found out from Jim what was happening, she showed up at my house, and got me to the hospital where my pediatrician practiced. Within 45 minutes of my arrival, I was undergoing a D & C.

If that had not happened, I would not currently be occupying my office chair, but pushing up daisies in a cematery somewhere in Illinois.

.

[cat09tails]

8. Speak Loud With Silence

Please put the word out that we will be back at the capitol this Saturday, March 3 from 12-4. Come out and join us! https://www.facebook.com/events/184467261656818

[midnight]

9. Thank you for speaking loudly with Silence, and for going back out there March 3.....