The Battles Won, and Those Ongoing

First of all, thank you so, so much, those of you who voted for me in the Canadian F-Word Blog Awards!! I won my category (Reproductive Liberty), so hoorah, and better yet I have discovered a lot of awesome feminist blogs in the process. Everybody wins! Go here to see the other winners (and runners up), and read the awesome message from none other than Heather Mallick, the love of my intellectual life.

On Saturday we had another stare-off with the kids from Bound 4 Life, who came to "siege" (their word) the clinic with...prayer. We were all pretty scared. Wink. Strangely enough I didn't get nearly as large a turnout of counter protesters as I did last time, even though it was much more planned out this time (ie a Facebook event was made), but I think this was mainly due to the hippie-friendly film festival ("Boost Your Eco") going on at the same time.

Regardless, we stood outside with our signs and faced them. This time their leader, KT, was not wearing the life tape - she was wearing tape across her stomach that said "spokesperson". However, when we tried to ask her questions, she told us that she was there to answer the questions of random passers by, and was not interested in debating with us. Boo.

I believe they are going to be doing this monthly. So we will do it monthly, too. I don't want their protests to go unanswered, and here's why: on their Facebook event this time, they put a little disclaimer about how they are not "against women's rights or people who are pro-choice", but that they are instead "for life". I don't know what their motivation would be for writing this, but they are wrong. They are against abortion, and the right to choose abortion is a woman's right - thus, against a woman's right. I believe that you can pray all you want to end abortion, you can pray and pray and pray, but as soon as you step outside and slap tape over your mouth and start "sieging" an abortion clinic, THEN you are making a political statement. And I sure as hell won't leave you alone just because you're "praying silently". Bullshit. You could pray silently at home. You want to be seen, for whatever reason, and if that's the case, I want to be seen opposing you. You make a political statement, I'll make one right back. The right of a woman to choose abortion is not one that we are just going to sit back and let you pray away.

That said, feast your eyes on the lovely picture below. I hope you all had a good weekend.