Protest outside of abortion clinics. Does it go to far?

[Deathmageddon]

I'm against it. You can protest, at Parliament where laws can be changed, but protesting at clinics is attacking people, rather than a thing you disagree with. And that's wrong whatever you believe.

So if you witnessed someone getting mugged, and you had the power to stop it then and there, you would keep walking and file a complaint with city hall when it was convenient for you? Saving even one human life is more than worth making any number of mothers uncomfortable.

For the record, I'm personally pro choice.

Not surprising, you don't seem to have a solid grasp of why pro-lifers and abolitionists actually believe that abortion is wrong. Check this out: http://projectfrontlines.com/2014/02/we-are-abolitionists/

 

[Benpasko]

Not surprising, you don't seem to have a solid grasp of why pro-lifers and abolitionists actually believe that abortion is wrong. Check this out: http://projectfrontlines.com/2014/02/we-are-abolitionists/

Can you point out the relevant section on that page? I read through it, and it's mostly just "We're right because religion and abortion is the evil of our age!", and some really sinister shit.

Spoiler

PS: We?re not just a few crazy people in your city. We are all around you and steadily growing. You may beat us, slander us, ignore us, imprison us, and even take our lives. But you cannot stop us. You are fighting against Someone far greater than you know.

But in all seriousness, I don't see anything there that would convince anyone other than maybe a Christian fundamentalist who was pro-choice because they'd never thought about it from the perspective of their own religion?

Edit:

God forbid anyone outside of the US (or in the US, for that matter) should recognize the natural rights of a distinct, living human being. Bombs? Seriously? You think there's serious danger that someone protesting murder would murder people? No, these protests don't go too far and informing someone that they're about to commit infanticide does not constitute harassment. Humans have a right to life, not comfort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence

Forty-one bombings. Yes, they would go that far. And if you've seriously never heard of abortion clinic bombings, you aren't paying any attention (Or at least getting some awfully shoddy information).

 

[Gorrath]

Abortion clinics are medical facilities, people have the right to attend them with as much privacy and dignity as possible. Excluding protesters from or near them doesn't impinge on free speech, the public have plenty of public places or government buildings, including Westminster to protest outside/around.

It doesn't impinge on free speech but it may impinge on freedom of assembly, in the United States anyhow. I find the whole thing deplorable but people are allowed to be assholes even in protest. So long as the protesters aren't breaking any laws their right to assembly shouldn't be excluded and I would extend that to any group of people protesting anything they want to. I've been a part of demonstrations outside of a Church which raised money to help try and get gay marriage banned and people said the same things about us; that we should go somewhere else even though we were on public property, that we were "harassing" them just by being there with protest signs. I do not condone any illegal protest actions and you certainly see some of that at abortion protests. The offenders should be removed and charged if necessary but the protesters who aren't doing anything illegal should be allowed their rights.

I think it is important in a liberal democracy, to err on the side of the right to free expression. The filming though, that's intimidation, pure and simple.

It depends on the local laws really. In some places here filming people without their consent is illegal. In many more you can film just about anything; that's how the paparazzi aren't all in prison. When we were holding our demonstration, we filmed the responses of the people who attended the church and our own activities that way no one could accuse us of doing anything illegal. That's why I'm careful to say that, so long as they are in full accordance with the local laws, they should be able to hold their protest. There are members of that church that would have called our filing "harassment" and claimed that our slogans offended them. I want to make certain that, in our gut reaction to seeing something that seems wrong to us, we don't over react and punish everyone.

If one were to say, "Hey, protesting is fine but you can't film the people you're protesting." Then there goes my group's ability to film ourselves for legal protection. I think what those abortion protesters are doing is unconscionable, even though I am pro-life myself, but denying them their rights because we don't like what they are saying is a keen, double-edged sword that could cut off all sorts of protests at the knees.

I think the right to privacy for a medical procedure or consultation should outweigh your right to film the people you're protesting.

And people would say their right to private worship should outweigh my right to film on a public street outside of a church. And other people would say their right to privately associate with whomever they want should outweight my right to film them going into a KKK meeting. You may not agree with the examples but they can contextualize their privacy in the same way. So long as the protesters aren't breaking any laws by filming what they are filming, this sort of contextualization either ends up being special pleading or would have to be uniformly enforced to be just and fair.

I think it's fair to uniformly enforce a ban on filming people in the context of their medical treatment. I don't see a problem with that, and it doesn't conflict with your examples either.

I don't think it's fair because it seems like special pleading. There are lots of things that people would prefer to remain private, including their medical choices, that they wouldn't want filmed. Why should we put a ban on filming that one private thing and not any other private thing, within the context of protests? Why should that one private matter obey a rule or rules that no otehr private matter obeys?

It's not special pleading, it's established law in many cases. In the USA for instance, there are broad protections for patients and their privacy at all level of the medical process. There is a recognition from psychology to surgery that confidentiality and privacy is critical to the functioning of the medical profession. That has been understood since at least the writing of Hippocrates.

This is not new, it's not special, it's how medicine has always worked. Folding a new technology into millennia of jurisprudence isn't special.

Those laws apply to confidential nature of doctors and patients with regard to very specific circumstances which do not include anything about protests. Indeed people's medical information can and is made public by news organizations when its relevant to a story. I am instantly reminded of a woman in the U.K. who made a whole slew of false claims about fighting cancer with holistic medicine and it turned out no medical records could be found to back up anything she said. While medical privacy does have some special privilege that privilege is not all-encompassing, nor should it be. This in mind, you'd need to demonstrate a compelling reason why medical facilities and/or patients of those facilities should not be the subject of protest with regard to filming. Simply stating that it's a private matter doesn't hold up because lots of things are private matters and do not have that privilege. Simply stating that doctor-patient privilege exists is also not compelling because that privilege is limited and specific.

From the AMA journal of ethics:

A substantial amount of legal and ethical attention focuses on physicians? duty to maintain the confidentiality of personal medical information. The necessary role of trust in fiduciary relationships, the personal and social consequences of medical practice, and the intrinsic value of medical privacy all justify upholding a patient?s interests in confidentiality. Society, on the other hand, has a legitimate interest in permitting, and sometimes legally requiring, breaches of confidentiality.

The AMA goes on to detail some of these legitimate interests but the point is that societal interest can and does in many cases trump medical privacy. I would say this is especially true when it comes to a conflict between people's privacy and the basic rights granted by our constitution, such as the right of protest, free speech, ect.

I'm not seeing how filming people in the context we're discussing wouldn't fall into that category, and I don't see anything about the right to film.

Your right to assemble and express is not the same as your right to record.

Wouldn't fall into what category? A crowd filming people at a protest is not in any way linked to a physician's duty to keep medical information confidential. That's why the AMA journal makes this clear. It is the duty of the physician to keep that info private not the duty of society at large when it has an interest in such information. That's why the media can freely film outside of clinics to report stories and why they can report on detailed information on people, like the woman who claimed to have been cured of cancer by holistic means alone. It's also why people at protests can film so long as they aren't breaking any local ordnance by doing so.

Again, the right to film is implicit unless otherwise restricted by law. Neither the fact that medical information is a private matter nor the existence of doctor-patient confidentiality over rides this. The first because lots of things are private that may come under a people's right to protest (religion, association, ect.) and the second because of how doctor-patient confidentiality works, in that it is the doctor, not society, that has the burden of confidentiality.

 

[Mazinger-Z]

As an advocate of photographer's rights, there is no expectation of privacy when you are in a public place. If you are in public, in plain sight, you can be filmed. Of course, this doesn't extend to 'creep' shots or whatever.

Spoiler: But yes, any harassment or shaming that stems from that stuff is bad form.

 

[Gorrath]

As an advocate of photographer's rights, there is no expectation of privacy when you are in a public place. If you are in public, in plain sight, you can be filmed. Of course, this doesn't extend to 'creep' shots or whatever.

But yes, any harassment or shaming that stems from that stuff is bad form.

Thank you for posting that! There seems to be some confusion over this point which I am trying my damnedest to rectify. Also though, please spoiler that image if you would.

 

[Gorrath]

Abortion clinics are medical facilities, people have the right to attend them with as much privacy and dignity as possible. Excluding protesters from or near them doesn't impinge on free speech, the public have plenty of public places or government buildings, including Westminster to protest outside/around.

It doesn't impinge on free speech but it may impinge on freedom of assembly, in the United States anyhow. I find the whole thing deplorable but people are allowed to be assholes even in protest. So long as the protesters aren't breaking any laws their right to assembly shouldn't be excluded and I would extend that to any group of people protesting anything they want to. I've been a part of demonstrations outside of a Church which raised money to help try and get gay marriage banned and people said the same things about us; that we should go somewhere else even though we were on public property, that we were "harassing" them just by being there with protest signs. I do not condone any illegal protest actions and you certainly see some of that at abortion protests. The offenders should be removed and charged if necessary but the protesters who aren't doing anything illegal should be allowed their rights.

I think it is important in a liberal democracy, to err on the side of the right to free expression. The filming though, that's intimidation, pure and simple.

It depends on the local laws really. In some places here filming people without their consent is illegal. In many more you can film just about anything; that's how the paparazzi aren't all in prison. When we were holding our demonstration, we filmed the responses of the people who attended the church and our own activities that way no one could accuse us of doing anything illegal. That's why I'm careful to say that, so long as they are in full accordance with the local laws, they should be able to hold their protest. There are members of that church that would have called our filing "harassment" and claimed that our slogans offended them. I want to make certain that, in our gut reaction to seeing something that seems wrong to us, we don't over react and punish everyone.

If one were to say, "Hey, protesting is fine but you can't film the people you're protesting." Then there goes my group's ability to film ourselves for legal protection. I think what those abortion protesters are doing is unconscionable, even though I am pro-life myself, but denying them their rights because we don't like what they are saying is a keen, double-edged sword that could cut off all sorts of protests at the knees.

I think the right to privacy for a medical procedure or consultation should outweigh your right to film the people you're protesting.

And people would say their right to private worship should outweigh my right to film on a public street outside of a church. And other people would say their right to privately associate with whomever they want should outweight my right to film them going into a KKK meeting. You may not agree with the examples but they can contextualize their privacy in the same way. So long as the protesters aren't breaking any laws by filming what they are filming, this sort of contextualization either ends up being special pleading or would have to be uniformly enforced to be just and fair.

I think it's fair to uniformly enforce a ban on filming people in the context of their medical treatment. I don't see a problem with that, and it doesn't conflict with your examples either.

I don't think it's fair because it seems like special pleading. There are lots of things that people would prefer to remain private, including their medical choices, that they wouldn't want filmed. Why should we put a ban on filming that one private thing and not any other private thing, within the context of protests? Why should that one private matter obey a rule or rules that no otehr private matter obeys?

It's not special pleading, it's established law in many cases. In the USA for instance, there are broad protections for patients and their privacy at all level of the medical process. There is a recognition from psychology to surgery that confidentiality and privacy is critical to the functioning of the medical profession. That has been understood since at least the writing of Hippocrates.

This is not new, it's not special, it's how medicine has always worked. Folding a new technology into millennia of jurisprudence isn't special.

Those laws apply to confidential nature of doctors and patients with regard to very specific circumstances which do not include anything about protests. Indeed people's medical information can and is made public by news organizations when its relevant to a story. I am instantly reminded of a woman in the U.K. who made a whole slew of false claims about fighting cancer with holistic medicine and it turned out no medical records could be found to back up anything she said. While medical privacy does have some special privilege that privilege is not all-encompassing, nor should it be. This in mind, you'd need to demonstrate a compelling reason why medical facilities and/or patients of those facilities should not be the subject of protest with regard to filming. Simply stating that it's a private matter doesn't hold up because lots of things are private matters and do not have that privilege. Simply stating that doctor-patient privilege exists is also not compelling because that privilege is limited and specific.

From the AMA journal of ethics:

A substantial amount of legal and ethical attention focuses on physicians? duty to maintain the confidentiality of personal medical information. The necessary role of trust in fiduciary relationships, the personal and social consequences of medical practice, and the intrinsic value of medical privacy all justify upholding a patient?s interests in confidentiality. Society, on the other hand, has a legitimate interest in permitting, and sometimes legally requiring, breaches of confidentiality.

The AMA goes on to detail some of these legitimate interests but the point is that societal interest can and does in many cases trump medical privacy. I would say this is especially true when it comes to a conflict between people's privacy and the basic rights granted by our constitution, such as the right of protest, free speech, ect.

I'm not seeing how filming people in the context we're discussing wouldn't fall into that category, and I don't see anything about the right to film.

Your right to assemble and express is not the same as your right to record.

Wouldn't fall into what category? A crowd filming people at a protest is not in any way linked to a physician's duty to keep medical information confidential. That's why the AMA journal makes this clear. It is the duty of the physician to keep that info private not the duty of society at large when it has an interest in such information. That's why the media can freely film outside of clinics to report stories and why they can report on detailed information on people, like the woman who claimed to have been cured of cancer by holistic means alone. It's also why people at protests can film so long as they aren't breaking any local ordnance by doing so.

Again, the right to film is implicit unless otherwise restricted by law. Neither the fact that medical information is a private matter nor the existence of doctor-patient confidentiality over rides this. The first because lots of things are private that may come under a people's right to protest (religion, association, ect.) and the second because of how doctor-patient confidentiality works, in that it is the doctor, not society, that has the burden of confidentiality.

I understand that, and I'm suggesting that while it is not, it SHOULD be restricted by law.

Right but what I'm driving at is the "why." Your argument so far has been composed of two parts that I can see.

1. Medical information is private and therefore honoring that privacy means we should restrict the right to film at protests.

I reject this reasoning because lots of information is private that is worthy of protest and should not be protected in the way you describe. If you just want to ban it in this one instance and not any other then you appear to be engaged in special pleading.

2. You counter the special pleading assertion with an appeal to medical confidentiality setting it apart from other private information.

I reject this because it is a red herring, medical confidentiality does not work that way since it is a duty of physicians not the public at large. There's nothing special about medical information as opposed to information about private association or private worship that should require additional protection from public scrutiny by way of banning filming at clinics and not say, also banning it at churches or other private institutions.

I am asserting that filming at protests is not just a right we have, it's a right we should have because it serves to protect the protesters and the people being protested against from violence or providing evidence of what happened if violence or other activity does erupt. Since there is no presumed right to privacy on public property and medical information is not special in regards to this matter, I see no reason to make a special exemption of it.

And just for clarification, I do not condone the way these people do their protesting. I think they are assholes for what they are doing. But putting legal restrictions on this because some people are assholes has consequences I, as an activist, would find constricting and even dangerous with little to no benefit.

 

[laggyteabag]

I imagine that women have to go through a lot mentally even considering whether or not to get an abortion, let alone going to a clinic and having a mob of people there shouting at you, and telling you that you are a murderer and you are killing your child.

If a mother is pregnant, and doesn't want a baby, that is on her to decide. If you want to protest, then protest, but dont be an asshole about it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I imagine that women have to go through a lot mentally even considering whether or not to get an abortion, let alone going to a clinic and having a mob of people there shouting at you, and telling you that you are a murderer and you are killing your child.

If a mother is pregnant, and doesn't want a baby, that is on her to decide. If you want to protest, then protest, but dont be an asshole about it.

Not to mention, a lot of the anti-abortion stuff seems to be around forcing women to think about what they are doing, on the presumption that they obviously haven't and are doing it on a whim.

 

[Someone Depressing]

These protesters are harassing and shaming women by getting abortions, therefore impeding their ability to get one - which they have a right to.

So yes, they have gone too far, and what they're doing should be stopped. If we're going to keep funeral picketers away from the funerals, we need to keep pro-life protesters away from abortion clinics.

 

[RaikuFA]

I wonder how'd they look if they filmed and shamed someone who turned out to be a rape victim or someone who was gonna die from childbirth or the child would after it was born effectively making it a mercy killing.

Context, people.

 

[RaikuFA]

I wonder how'd they look if they filmed and shamed someone who turned out to be a rape victim or someone who was gonna die from childbirth or the child would after it was born effectively making it a mercy killing.

Context, people.

They wouldn't care, they'd just pretend to care. The "we care about babies" seems to turn into hatred of the mothers pretty quickly in that type.

Yeah. Pretty much. I was thinking how it'd blow up in the protesters faces. I'd just laugh in those protesters faces.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

I saw a pro-life protest along a main street in a neighboring town, nowhere near any clinic whatsoever. I'm not sure what Canadian law says about this, but I have to assume it play some role. The people did not appear reasonable or thoughtful in any manner at all judging by the slogans on their signs and the fact they were using young children to sling their hate.

If law did play a role, I'm glad that it did. If I had seen something like that outside any sort of medical practitioners office I might have thrown a fucking fit

 

[Fox12]

Well, it's complicated, but as a pro lifer, this is my view.

Personally, I don't think they should protest outside a clinic. It's generally ineffective, insensitive, and makes them look bad. That said, they certainly have the right, so long as they aren't actually on the private property of the clinic. I don't like it when Westboro Baptist protests outside a soldiers funeral. However, I would argue for their rights to do so. The same goes for the KKK. Having the right to free speech sometimes means having to bare with worst aspects of human nature.

That said, good God people, find a better place to protest.

Thanks America. Now the UK has a growing rise of pro-life/anti-abortion protest.

I see this as a positive, so you're welcome I guess? I'm not sure what America has to do with it : /

Edit: I'm also not sure if I would classify abortion as a human right.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah. Pretty much. I was thinking how it'd blow up in the protesters faces. I'd just laugh in those protesters faces.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. This sort of thing happens every so often, and for the most part, the people that think badly of the protestors because of it think badly of them to begin with.

Hell, you have people outright saying that abortion is worse than rape, that the victim should see the fetus as a gift from god or whatever as it is.

 

[RaikuFA]

Yeah. Pretty much. I was thinking how it'd blow up in the protesters faces. I'd just laugh in those protesters faces.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. This sort of thing happens every so often, and for the most part, the people that think badly of the protestors because of it think badly of them to begin with.

Hell, you have people outright saying that abortion is worse than rape, that the victim should see the fetus as a gift from god or whatever as it is.

Ugh... just ugh. If they want it alive so badly then they should take it in.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Ugh... just ugh. If they want it alive so badly then they should take it in.

I once read an interesting take on this, that fetuses, not being people yet, are pure and unsullied, free of the complications real people have. Any living person is messy and imperfect, there's always some reason to scorn them. That's why people can passionately try to protect fetuses, but then abandon people who, after all, were once fetuses. Also why many people like seeing disabled animals being helped, but aren't so keen on helping people with disabilities.

Or so goes the idea, not sure how much truth there is, but seems like there is at least some.

 

[asinann]

Here's the trick with protests like these. Feel free to protest, but the instant you step on the grounds operated by the clinic be aware that they can and should call the police to haul you off. Video taping people who are going in to get a medical procedure is something that should be a crime if it already isn't.

Sitting off the grounds with signs chanting is fine: the instant these groups begin to do things that could endanger the safety or privacy of the patients police need to start making arrests.

Well, it's complicated, but as a pro lifer, this is my view.

Personally, I don't think they should protest outside a clinic. It's generally ineffective, insensitive, and makes them look bad. That said, they certainly have the right, so long as they aren't actually on the private property of the clinic. I don't like it when Westboro Baptist protests outside a soldiers funeral. However, I would argue for their rights to do so. The same goes for the KKK. Having the right to free speech sometimes means having to bare with worst aspects of human nature.

That said, good God people, find a better place to protest.

Thanks America. Now the UK has a growing rise of pro-life/anti-abortion protest.

I see this as a positive, so you're welcome I guess? I'm not sure what America has to do with it : /

Edit: I'm also not sure if I would classify abortion as a human right.

America is the nation that is exporting extremist conservative christian theology. They have finally realized that the current crop of the nation isn't going to put up with their crap any more and are now sending it to other places that WILL put up with it.

 

[asinann]

double post

 

[Gorrath]

snipity snap

I just want to make a few small clarifications for anyone else who reads what we've both written and elaborate in a concise (ish?) way on a few points you bring up here.

- When I mention making up new definitions for arguments and being taken seriously, I mean in an academic sense. Sure people do this all the time but they basically get laughed at in most scientific disciplines if they try to pull those kinds of shenanigans.

- The egg and sperm are alive but aren't human so there is no reason to extend rights their way. I find it silly when anti-abortion people try to do that.

- The baby is alive and human before it attains consciousness, it's just a question of when we extend rights to the person. If a person wants to say that the unborn have rights when consciousness is achieved, that presents a problem because we don't really understand consciousness all that well and cannot really pinpoint that moment. In any case, I'd still find that a rather arbitrary marker.

- I don't bring up slavery as a red herring here; it is a very valid comparison. I know many people have the same reaction you did here but I don't see why. It's a case of personal rights/liberties of one vs. the socio-econmic concerns of another. This is the exact issue when arguing abortion rights from a socio-economic standpoint vs. the right of life and liberty for the unborn. The comparison to slavery in this context is not a fallacy. Scocio-economic concerns were at the very core of the debate on slavery in this country and, as you rightly point out, are at the very heart of the abortion debate.

- I don't argue anything about "potential life." The baby is human and is alive in every scientific sense upon conception. I see no reason not to extend the typical rights we extend to every living human at that point. To say that a baby is only human once it has developed a functioning brain is to set a definition for this context that isn't used in any other. To say that it isn't alive, isn't human or isn't a baby until 14 weeks is to invent definitions for all of these things that are only applicable in this one context. As mentioned before, if someone stabs the mother and kills the baby before 14 weeks, none of those definitions would apply. It would be alive, human and a baby if a murderer kills it just not if the mother does. That is so severely inconsistent that I can't see any way to accept it.

Anywho, that was all a bit longer than I meant it to be, and again, no need to respond; I make these comments only to be sure my communication is as clear as possible for the sake of anyone reading our conversation. Thanks for being a stand-up person to converse with, especially considering the subject matter.