After the buffer zone-protected U.S. Supreme Court
struck down buffer zones for abortion providers, there was no shortage of voices pointing out ... problems and questions about the decision. Perhaps most egregiously, the court took seriously the notion that self-dubbed "sidewalk counselors" want to "engage in personal, caring, consensual conversations with women about various alternatives." On Twitter,
ClinicEscort gave a few examples of how "sidewalk counselors" really engage women going into clinics:
Clinic bullies hollering to black patients "Your baby could be the next basketball star!" Really really reallyyyyyy #notcounseling
— @ClinicEscort
Clinic bullies chalking colorful drawings of guns on the sidewalk outside the clinic. #notcounseling
— @ClinicEscort
As a clinic escort in the 1990s myself, the thing I most remember is an elderly man who'd scream at every woman going into the clinic, "They'll rip your organs out!" and "Just a few months ago, they carried a woman out of here bleeding on a stretcher." It was "just a few months" for the entire five years I escorted at that clinic, and apparently had been "just a few months" for quite some time before I arrived. Personal, caring and consensual, right?
Twitter had some other thoughts about the decision, like when and where this logic of total access to scream at people on public sidewalks isn't applied:
#occupy should have claimed they were just counseling wall street. #notcounseling
— @NatashaChart
There's more below the fold.
I'm not electioneering in a polling place, I'm offering sidewalk counseling.
— @KagroX
I def remember how during Occupy cops were like, "Yo, sorry, Bank of America. We can't kick these people off your sidewalk b/c Free Speech."
— @Katie_Speak
Has anyone thought about building an abortion clinic inside of SCOTUS
— @sarahjeong
And here's a sobering thought:
It gets easier and easier to target abortion clinics when there are so few of them. #protectthezone
— @WentRogue
Which is probably the point.