Lying NOW

The National Organization for Women is a radical Left, pro-death, anti-Bush group. It makes no attempt to disguise itself as moderate or reasonable. Its extremist agenda becomes evident with just a quick glance of the website.

There is a link to The Truth About George, a site that demonizes all things Bush.

An introduction to that site reads:

The Truth About George has diligently documented the misdeeds of Bush and his cronies since 2002, revealing the cold hard facts about an administration bent on rewarding big corporations and the rich, turning back the clock on women's rights and civil rights, and promoting a U.S. empire abroad. Bush's second term promises to be even worse — with an escalation of attacks on reproductive rights, the Constitution, the courts, civil rights, the economy, social security and global relations.

NOW is definitely not a non-partisan group.

Obviously, its mission is not purely to advocate for women. It has a set political agenda that goes beyond women's issues; but I digress.

In response to the Supreme Court's ruling regarding abortion protesters, Kim Gandy, president of NOW, released this statement.

Supreme Court Ends Protection Against Abortion Clinic Violence

What a stupid title! It's completely false. The Supreme Court did no such thing.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that could add to the increasing difficulty women face in obtaining reproductive health services. If the Court's 8-0 decision in Scheidler, et al., v. National Organization for Women (NOW), et al. and Operation Rescue v. NOW, et al. ushers in a return to clinic violence in the United States, NOW stands ready to fight in every jurisdiction.

You know the libs are going to scream that this is the result of Bush packing the Court with far Right ideologues trying to overturn Roe v. Wade.

That, of course, is ludicrous. In other words, exactly what you'd expect to get from Gandy.

The ruling was 8-0.

Justice Alito did not participate.

It was a unanimous decision.

Ultra-lib wacko Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the woman who recommended that the age of consent for purposes of statutory rape be lowered from 16 to 12, voted along with Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts.

For two decades, NOW has pursued every legal strategy, including three Supreme Court cases, to stave off the violent attacks that gripped this country from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. This case, brought under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, was one of the most successful long-term strategies. The federal jury found unanimously that these defendants had engaged in a nationwide criminal enterprise to close women's health clinics through extortion, violence and threats of violence, and specified over a hundred acts in furtherance of their efforts.

The filing of this case and the resulting injunction, which protected clinics nationwide, contributed to the dramatic reduction in clinic violence that we have witnessed in recent years, and we will continue to use every legal tool at our disposal to protect women's right to obtain abortion services.

This case was never about protests or pickets—it was about violence and extortion. But without strong protections against clinic assaults, the legal right to abortion could become meaningless. If women are too terrified to walk into clinics and healthcare providers are too terrified to keep their doors open, then we will have lost the fight for reproductive freedom even with Roe v. Wade still on the books.

Gandy doesn't know what this case is about.

The New York Times writes:

"Congress did not intend to create a free-standing physical violence offense in the Hobbs Act," Justice Breyer said in the opinion, Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, No. 04-1244.

He noted that the passage in 1994 of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a federal law "aimed directly at the type of abortion clinic violence and other activity at issue in this litigation," suggested that Congress did not believe the Hobbs Act was available for that purpose.


An Associated Press account further explains:

Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with abortion demonstrators in arguing that lawsuits and injunctions based on the federal extortion law could be used to thwart their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.

Gandy's attempt to mislead the public is unfortunate. She does nothing for her cause by misrepresenting the facts. She just serves to discredit herself with her silly distortions.

Her statement continues:

We will not let that happen. NOW helped to draft and enact the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in 1994, and we will use that law to its fullest extent in pursuing those who would use violent means to prevent women from making their own reproductive decisions. As Susan Hill (president of the National Women's Health Organization and owner of the two clinics that joined NOW in the lawsuit) said, "[w]e cannot allow anti-abortion extremists to take this decision as a signal to once again increase violent activity aimed at clinics and clinic staff."

How dramatic!

Hill warns that the decision means that anti-abortion activists are being invited to commit crimes against woman seeking abortions.

That's ridiculous!

I can't take her seriously.

In the coming weeks, our attorneys will make available a FACE kit that local clinics and lawyers can use to enforce the FACE act in their communities. We must do whatever is necessary to protect doctors and patients, or our legal right to abortion will be a hollow shell.

Here, Gandy really goes over the edge.

"[O]ur legal right to abortion will be a hollow shell."

This ruling has done nothing to alter the legal right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy, have a fetus removed, kill her baby -- define it any way you want.

The only thing that is hollow is Gandy's statement.

Joseph Scheidler, Randall Terry and other leaders of the self-described "pro-life mafia" had vowed to stop abortion "by any means necessary," and the ensuing attacks included arson, bombings, violent blockades, death threats and even murder. By vacating the injunction on narrow, technical grounds, the Supreme Court sided today with thugs and bullies, not peaceful protesters.

The Supreme Court did not side with "thugs." It correctly interpreted the law.

As Justice Breyer wrote, the Hobbs Act, an old law banning extortion, did not apply to abortion protesters.

Moreover, in 1994, Congress enacted the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to protect women seeking to terminate a pregnancy, destroy a growing fetus, kill a baby, end a life -- define it any way you wish.

Unlike what Gandy and the NOW extremists would like you to believe, the Supreme Court did not end "protection against abortion clinic violence."

That's a lie.

She and others echoing her views are lying.

The pro-abortion crowd is very good at it.

For instance, they like to call a developing fetus just a mass of tissue.

The BBC website has a page entitled, "In pictures: Watch me grow," that challenges that assertion.

Look at these images of "tissue."



In the United States, 88% of abortions are performed in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.

This fetus, at ten weeks gestation, "can move her arms and legs with a range of movements that are fluid and supple."

"Fetuses as young as eleven weeks have been seen with their thumbs in their mouths."

When I look at these photos, I wonder how the pro-abortion crowd manages to dismiss the facts about fetal development.

A fetus in the latter weeks of the first trimester is not a glob of formless cells nor is it a blob of tissue. It is a growing human being.

Nonetheless, Gandy claims, "the Supreme Court sided today with thugs and bullies."

I really don't see why she and other pro-abortion extremists are so bent out of shape about Tuesday's ruling.

The fact is there are measures in place to protect women wishing to abort their children. More importantly to NOW and its agenda, the right to end a life, the right that they hold so dear, remains untouched.

From that perspective, one could conclude that the Supreme Court did side with thugs and bullies -- on January 22, 1973.