Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
"Pro-Lifers" Protest Contraception
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
The End of American Capitalism? 5 Short Takes on Where the Financial Crisis Might Be Headed
Democracy and Elections:
Democratic Election Protection Strategy's Missing Link: Electronic Vote Counts
Steven Rosenfeld
DrugReporter:
Marijuana Is Real Medicine
Paul Krassner
Election 2008:
What I Learned at the Sarah Palin Rally Before They Threw Me out
Linda Milazzo
Environment:
How Local Governments Are Standing in the Way of Clean Energy
Kyle Rabin
ForeignPolicy:
Chomsky: "If the U.S. Carries Out Terrorism, It Did Not Happen"
Subrata Ghoshroy
Health and Wellness:
Will the Economic Meltdown Undermine Interest in Health Care Reform?
Niko Karvounis
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
Tuition Becomes Battleground in Immigration Fight
Annette Fuentes
Media and Technology:
The Growth of Talking Points Memo: A Case Study in Independent Media
Joshua Micah Marshall
Movie Mix:
The "Battle in Seattle" and Beyond
Stuart Townsend
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Our Next President Will Transform the Supreme Court
Ellen Goodman
Rights and Liberties:
Robert Fisk: For the Muslim World, It Will Make No Difference Who Wins the Election
Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez
Sex and Relationships:
Months After Boumediene, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
Aziz Huq
War on Iraq:
The End of Iraq's "Awakening"?
Robert Dreyfuss
Water:
New Information Shows How Climate Change Will Affect Water
Tired of the same-old lame protests outside of abortion clinics? Looking to impose your religious beliefs in other people's lives in a new and exciting way? The pro-life movement would like to expand your horizons.
On June 7th, the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that gave married people the right to use contraception, the American Life League, along with Pro-Life Wisconsin and Pharmacists for Life International Associate groups want you to join them in protesting in front of facilities that distribute birth control products. The national day against contraception, Protest the Pill Day '08: The Pill Kills Babies, was started to convince the American people of a simple and imaginative idea: attempting to prevent abortion is abortion too. These arguments have been confounded by diabolical scientists and experts who insistently point out there's no evidence to support that the birth control pill works the way these groups claim. As we all know, however, if ideology waited for science to prove scientific points, our ancestors would have never have spent all those years wandering the then-flat earth.
The campaign website is chock full of important information and you don't want to miss the informative "Talking Points" section. Here's a sampling:
Q: The Supreme Court has ruled that it's my right to privacy -- who do you think you are to say otherwise?
A: On June 7, 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Griswold v. Connecticut decision. The Supreme Court justices first presumed that previous Court decisions dealing with a citizen's right to liberty and security that prohibited invasion of one's home and acquisition of evidence that might later be used to convict him of a crime also addressed privacy within marriage. In fact, the justices argued, "The concept of liberty is not so restricted... it embraces the right of marital privacy though that right is not mentioned explicitly [emphasis added] in the Constitution" and is based on "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights [which] have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance."
This confusing language, which has no relationship whatsoever to what the Founding Fathers intended, gave married women permission to use the birth control pill. The Supreme Court literally created the "right to privacy" out of thin air.
We now know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that not only did the Supreme Court literally make up the right that you claim gives you permission to use birth control, but the most popular form of birth control, the pill, can kill innocent preborn children. If there is a chance that human beings are going to be murdered, I am going to do everything in my power to help prevent that from happening. If you knew there was a chance that someone might poison your neighbor, don't you think you would try to notify your neighbor and do as much as you could to help save a life?
And before you despair that your right to privacy is being lost, take comfort in the knowledge that once we all finally live in a country where ideology is valued over evidence and our government is run by and for those who subscribe, or succumb, to the exciting agenda of these groups ... privacy will no longer be needed. Your point of view and way of life will, conveniently, be decided for you. So what are you waiting for?! Sign up now!
See more stories tagged with: anti-choice, abortion, pro-life, pro-choice, contraception, birth control
Cristina Page is the author of 'How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America' (Perseus Books, 2006).
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »