Promoting Peaceful Protests

This is a guest post by Francesca Acocella, outreach intern at the National Women’s Law Center:

On the second anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, we must reflect on civility (or, indeed, the lack of it) in the fight for reproductive rights for women.

Disagreement, debate, and discourse are all valuable. They can even be productive. Violence is neither valuable nor productive. Those who are anti-choice and deplore what they consider the taking of unborn lives fail to see the irony that violence against abortion providers is also the taking of a life — and a life of someone well-established in a community, someone who has friends and relatives who will mourn him and who will miss him. This irony evokes the now immortalized and perhaps clichéd words of Mahatma Gandhi that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind (and reminds us of the cruel and gruesome manner in which Dr. Tiller was shot and killed through the eye). Surely the ability to defend an issue passionately without fear of violence from the opposition should not exist only in a utopia.

On a much smaller scale, several weeks ago I struggled with finding the balance between strong advocacy and physical safety. Upon discovering anti-choice protestors outside the city hall of our college town, some friends and I decided to disassociate ourselves from the apathy we worry about in our generation and organize a rebuttal protest. A handful of us stood with colorful signs made from construction paper and sharpies across the street from several dozen anti-choice protestors, all holding huge, uniform signs. They approached us and started shouting that we were killing women. They tried to shove us into traffic, they tried to corner each of us individually, and they tried to get us to fight back. We ignored them and chanted “Our bodies! Our choices! Ourselves!” They continued to heckle us, throwing into our faces what can only be fabricated images of bloody babies. Remaining calm, we did not engage with them. We had realized that this strategy was more effective because after a little over an hour, the anti-choice protestors seemed to get bored with our lack of response and left.

This experience was the first time I realized the constant courage of abortion providers and all proponents of reproductive rights. I hope for a world that will one day be free of violence; that views discussion stemming from disagreement as the means to a solution and not as the abandonment of ideals. I feel more optimistic for that world knowing that the National Women’s Law Center is fighting diligently every day to bring down the barriers that prevent women from exercising their rights to control their own bodies.

Orginally posted at WomenStake, the offical blog of NWLC. You can also check there for more blogs related to Dr. Tiller.

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