Sacramento Considers "No Protest Zone" Near Abortion Businesses

Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Prompted by some local leaders, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors is considering a proposal that would place "no protest zones" around area abortion businesses.

One local abortion facility, Women's Health Specialists, already has a 20-foot zone in place thanks to an order issued by a local judge. Now county officials are considering extending similar anti-protest zones around all local abortion centers.

Three members of the board staged a press conference at the state capitol to announce their support for the idea.

"Those who wish to offer a different opinion are able to do so, but they are not going to be permitted -- under this ordinance -- to do so in a way that interferes with the legitimate exercise of an equally important right," Supervisor Roger Dickinson told KRCA-TV.

Since the late 1980's there have been no major protests in California, such as those groups like Operation Rescue organized in the past. In addition, none of the five protesters that were involved in the original lawsuit that led to the original 20-foot zone around Women's Health Specialists have protested abortions in two years and three of the five haven't participated in a protest in more than a decade.

That prompts pro-life attorneys to say there is no need for the protest free area.

"The buffer zone is useless due to the non-participation of those enjoined and [abortion] clinic employees are desperate," says Dana Cody, Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation.

"Enter three pandering county supervisors beholding to abortion zealots," Cody added. "Now we will waste county resources debating a dead issue."

Another pro-life attorney, Cyrus Zal, argues such a law would limit the free speech rights of pro-life protesters and would cost the county because of expected lawsuits against it.

The supervisors will vote on the issue next Tuesday. San Diego and San Francisco have similar no-protest zones in place.

You do lay on the tough stuff rather thickly. Methinks you just might be more delicate than I.

I doubt it.

My own epiphany came with the quickening--that's all I meant. Then there was the heartbeat, and the sense that I was charged with the responsibility of something important.

Good for you. A friend of mine recently had a baby. I was there for her, whatever she needed. Last Friday (which I took as a holiday) she called me, overwhelmed and sobbing. I immediately went to her house knowing full well that both she and her baby were sick and I might pick up what they had. I ended up picking up gastric flu from her son, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for my friend.

OTOH, my sister-in-law had an abortion a few years ago. She's a responsible woman with a good career and was engaged to the father. She chose to have an abortion because she didn't want to have the baby. It's not that it was inconvenient at that time...she never wants to be a mother. Ever. She made the decision and does not regret it. I support her, too. I support a woman's right to make their own decisions. My friend got pregnant and kept her baby. My sister-in-law got pregnant and didn't. I don't think more or less of either of them for the decisions that they made.

I am not exactly sure that all unborn life is ensouled, citizenized, whatever you'd like to call it. That is a metaphysical question that will forever be unanswerable.

That's your opinion. Me, I don't believe in the concept of a "soul."

But the argument that unborn life MIGHT be fully human is unassailable. The pro-choicers can't make the case that unborn life is completely without humanity. That means, beyond question, that abortion at its very best MIGHT be murder.

It's not murder. Murder is the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice. Legally speaking, abortion is not now murder. Now, if you want to get into semantics, you might be able to hook them with homicide, which is the killing of one person by another...but you would have to be able to demonstrate that an embryo or fetus is a person. The legal definition of "person" is "a human or organization with legal rights and duties." Currently an embryo or a fetus is not legally a person, but that may change someday.

Legally speaking, we are required to behave in such a way that we avoid the possiblity of murder, whether we are positive it is really taking place, or not.

See above...abortion is not murder in the legal sense.

This is something Reagan spoke about--his discussion of it compelled me at the time. That we don't know, so we had better be careful of what we do.

You'll have to refresh my memory...I was 13 when Reagan left office.

re: Now, if you want to get into semantics, you might be able to hook them with homicide, which is the killing of one person by another...but you would have to be able to demonstrate that an embryo or fetus is a person. )))

You cavil at "soul", so let us use citzen? I attempted this same, earlier. I assume even athiests know human from non-human. Perhaps you'd care to define "person"--since it does at least connote that indefinable spark of something that makes the human unique from a disposable, inanimate object.

At some point along the gestational line, a fetus must become a person, must transcend from unprotected tissue to protected citizen. It is that point where things become tricky. Are you really so cynical as to suggest that a developed fetus only assumes the rights of citizen (to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness) if he manages to escape the delivery room on his own two feet?

Prolifers have their own inconsistencies. They claim to support life from conception, but often make exceptions for rape or incest. To be truly prolife, the life itself is innocent of crime and rape or incest ought to be irrelevant. Yet many prolifers cannot bear to not to draw a line somewhere.

The legal definition of person is very shifty--soon to murder a pregnant woman will be tantamount to murdering two people. It already is in many places.

How many times I've heard the pregnant prochoicers ask, with delight, "Did you feel the baby move?" The heart knows things that the law does not. To have supported others in their decision to abort makes one a stakes-holder in the question. I have stood where you have--I supported others long, long ago. From the sound of it, perhaps before you were born and grew so much tougher than I. I could try to justify that old attitude, or publicly regret it. I publicly regret it.. Just because you held one attitude in the past, doesn't mean you have to continue to defend it.

But what does proof of feeling matter? Animals feel, and we can legally kill them when it's useful to do so.

Exactly. We kill animals when it's useful to us...and not even because we require them to survive, but because they taste good. It is entirely possible to receive good nutrition on a diet lacking meat (though you should discuss it with a dietician), yet we kill and eat animals. If you're going to be against killing, shouldn't you be against all unnecessary killing? Go vegetarian, don't wear leather, etc?

p.s. I am NOT a vegetarian. Meat tastes GOOD.

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