Lies my father told me

Further to this, the murder of James L. Pouillon, about which the anti-choicers continue to harass me, claiming that I have never even written about it while accusing me of lionizing Dr. George Tiller, who was assassinated in May after years of being targeted by right-wing media blowhards and pro-forced pregnancy terrorists:

(What, do I sound irritated?)

Here's yet another exchange on this, edited only to remove the writer's email address, my signature and stuff relating to another column:

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Steele
Sent: Mon 9/21/2009 4:08 PM
To: Zerbisias, Antonia
Cc: Opinion and Editorial Board
Subject: Re: bryant
 
You live in a bubble. You really believe that pro-life demonstrators are not constantly harassed by foaming at the mouth pro-choicers? Get out more!
 It doesn't matter if the deceased was a "martyr or saint." Who really is? His background which I am blissfully unaware of is, is no more interesting than the dead cyclists background. Both were violently killed.
Point being, you scream to the rooftops over one murder and then gloss over another murder. Lovely. Murder is murder.Whether one is killed for pro-life or pro-choice beliefs.
 Maybe someday you could write on the emotional pain and suffering that women experience for the rest of their life after having an aborion. I've met a  few of them which is why I switched from pro-choice to pro-life. To be pro-choice is to live in a comfortable state of denial. The braver struggle is to protest the killing, not only for the sake of the unborn but also for the women and everyone else who pay the price.
Maybe some day you will see the light.

________________________________
From: "Zerbisias, Antonia"
To: Sean Steele
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 3:18:35 PM
Subject: RE: bryant

Oh please.

http://thestar.blogs.com/broadsides/2009/09/full-of-holes.html
And by the way, while I regret his murder, he was no martyr or saint.
In fact, thanks for reminding me.
I think i will update this post with the goods.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Steele
Sent: Mon 9/21/2009 3:17 PM
To: Zerbisias, Antonia
Cc: Opinion and Editorial Board
Subject: Re: bryant

You made a big fuss over the abortion doctor that was murdered a while back. Well, a pro-life demonstrator was gunned down less than two weeks ago in a drive-by shooting in front of a school. Might be worthy of equal noise from your corner. But so far not a peep.In your world is it  only news when a pro-choicer is murdered?

http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/3/4/report_antiabortion_activist_gunned_down_outside_michigan_high_school/

Well, let's begin with the murder. Via Dammit Janet! comes the latest here and here.

Dr. James M. Pouillon, a Grand Rapids podiatrist who had not spoken to his father since 2001, criticized him and the attention he's getting in a post on a story about Harlan Drake, the man accused of killing Pouillon's father, James L. Pouillon, on Sept. 11.

The whole nation is debating if Pouillon was a martyr. Here is what the younger Pouillon had to say in an mlive.com post on mlive.com on Sept. 13:

 "It will be impossible for some to believe, but my dad really didn't care about aborton.

He did this to stalk, harass, terrorize, scream at, threaten, frighten, and verbally abuse women. He had a pathologic hatred of women: his mom, my mom, everyone.

 After my mom finally left him and he lost his favorite punching bag the violence and abuse that was always contained within our 4 walls was unleased on the people of Owosso.

My dad used the pro-life movement and 1st Amendments foundations to defend him, support him, and enable him. He fooled them all.

He was at the high shool because my niece was there, and female family members were always his favorite targets.

Again, my dad didn't care about abortion. He wanted to hurt people, upset people. He enjoyed making people suffer.

Okay, the dead can't speak for themselves. So we can either take the son's word for this, or not. However I am more inclined to believe a professional rather than somebody who spent all his time terrorizing teen-aged girls. I mean, if he had a message, maybe he should have taken it to a women's clinic, no?

But what also makes this different from the Tiller case is that the accused killer Harlan Drake apparently was not a pro-choicer. He just seemed to be, authorities allege, out to ''settle scores.''

Drake was apparently upset with the graphic placards he would see the 63-year-old Pouillon carrying outside the school when Drake dropped students off at the high school, Owosso Police Chief Mike Compeau said.

"He didn't think kids should have to look at that," Compeau said.

The Owosso activist was hit by multiple bullets, falling to the grass near his portable oxygen tank and a large poster with the photo of a baby and the word "Life."

From there, authorities say Drake drove six miles to an Owosso Township gravel pit and shot Fuoss Gravel owner Mike Fuoss, 61, multiple times at close range in the office and went home.

A worker at the Buscha Road gravel pit found Fuoss' body about 8:15 a.m. and called 911.

Fifteen minutes later, police arrested Drake at his Owosso home after tracing his license plate from the truck witnesses said shots were fired from in the Pouillon slaying.

Drake allegedly told police he had just shot Fuoss and that he had planned to leave later that morning and shoot Owosso real estate agent James Howe.

Drake apparently felt that Howe had wronged his mother on a business deal, said Compeau.

So yes, while Pouillion was apparently targeted because he waved gory signs in front of schoolkids, he was no pro-choice martyr or saint.

As for Sean Steele's contention -- one made all the time by the pro-forced pregnancy people who constantly try to curtail women's rights -- that abortion causes mental and emotional stress and damage, it's simply not true.

Just another anti-choice lie.

Comments

[Cold North Wind]

My at home in private comment would be unprintable. It concerns the apparent high esteem in which some males (not men) seem to hold their sperm.
To these - types therefore, an abortion must represent a sort of- extended (yuck yuck) fathers' rights agenda- each spermatazoan representing a child- owned by the sperm donor ?

or is it simply- some throwbacks-happens in evolution

[SUZANNE]

The point is not whether Harlan Drake was a hero of the abortion movement. The point is that Jim Pouillon was gunned down for showing the truth.

Jim Pouillon's daughter thought highly of him.

And abortion does cause mental and emotional damage. Millions of women will testify to that fact. Even feminists.

And "forced pregnancy" sounds a lot better than "forced murder" which is what abortion is. Only in a small number of cases is a woman "forced" to get pregnant. But an unborn child is forced to die at the whim of another.

The right to control one's body is not a license to kill another human being. Freedom entails responsibility.

[deBeauxOs]

Very well said. You've taken all the connected strands and tied them up in one coherent bundle.

[fern hill]

Thanks for the linkies, Antonia.

This story just keeps getting sadder.

Whatever else is true, there was no decades-long campaign of lies, hate, and harassment against James Pouillon, as there was against Dr. Tiller.

Totally bogus equivalency argument from the Forced Pregnancy Gang.

They sooooo want this to somehow cancel Dr. Tiller's assassination.

Ain't gonna happen.

[kc]

Just wanted to let you all know that while my unwanted pregnancy and abortion were certainly no picnic, seven years on, I'm doing just fine. Because you care so much, and everything... And thanks for asking!

[Antonia]

Really Suzanne?

Would you care to back that up with data -- and evidence of that testimony from ''millions of women?''

And I wonder how you know what the alleged killer's motive was, since it appears that accused had anger and mental health issues not connected at all with reproductive freedoms.

[neko]

Antonia, your patience in responding to these people blows my mind.

"The right to control one's body is not a license to kill another human being." Seriously?

Because

a) A bundle of cells isn't a human being. If that is your criteria, you are killing potential clones every time you exfoliate. Those cells could have been human beings!

b) If my child that I actually want within me is going to kill me on it's way out or die shortly after birth I would rather live to reproduce another day rather than sacrifice myself on your alter. My body, my choice.

c) The right to control my body DOES give me a license to kill another human being. If you try to take things from my body that I don't want to give you (anything from my sex to my life), I will fight back and that means I get to kill you. It's simple evolution; I want to survive and if you oppose me, then you've got to go.

I've probably read way too much Sci/Fi, but I always think of it in terms of tumors and aliens. I mean; My tumor was forced to die at the whim of medical professionals. Those bastards killed the life that was growing inside of me. I suffer emotionally because of the loss of life my body was nuturing.

Insanity, right?

[Jim M]

After reading this post, I'm having trouble imagining anything much worse than a rebel without a cause, by which of course I mean an honest cause, if not a very intelligent or carefully considered cause. At the same time, though, I cannot think of anything more desirable to imagine after reading this post — dare I say even to hope for — than an honest rebel or two to start a giant rebellion with a great cause.

Anyone could write a long list of histories greatest rebels by drawing names either from world history or one's own life history. But I believe every person alive in the world today has plenty of rebel potential, and I mean the great kind. So, of course, I see no need to wait for the next James Dean idol or any other type of Messiah to come along just to save us all from ourselves and each other, and especially of course from allowing more of the same kinds of tragedies as highlighted in this post to continue to happen.

Like most people who are pro-choice (guessing about the "most" part, though) I am not pro-abortion, but cannot imagine changing my mind about abortion remaining a woman's choice, at least until we find ourselves living in a perfect world. Then I will be anti-abortion, pro-life (as defined today), or whatever anyone may want to call me then.