As you no doubt heard on the latest GrodsThink and read at teh hottest formerly anonymous barrister in Australia’s blog, the GrodsTeam and a handful of like-minded Leftists picketed East Melbourne’s Fertility Control Clinic to prevent anti-abortion terrorists from occupying their usual position out the front, where they harass patients of the clinic and passers-by with their passive-aggressive bigotry and propaganda.

Though the police kept the two groups separated for the duration of the protest, our presence in front of the clinic was a complete success: the bigots left, defeated, after about half an hour of non-violent confrontation and fiendishly clever chants. (I particularly enjoyed the subversive “we demand free 24-hour child care” one: take that, whichever side of the child-care debate you stand on … whoever you are!)

Anyway, that’s enough of my blathering. Pictures, after all, speak louder than words. But since no one took any particularly good photos of the event, we’ll have to make do with the next best thing: The Editor’s brilliant documentary.

Anyone not moved by this remarkable film is dead inside. And a git.

PS: Special thanks to GrodsCorp’s own General Bron, who did an outstanding job rallying the troops for this protest. Getting a ragtag bunch of booze-soaked Lefties out of bed and into the bitter Melbourne air before 10am on a Saturday — with nary a latte-stand in sight — is quite an achievement, but doing it all via email from Sydney is another matter. Awesome, awesome work.

So thanks again, Bron! And we’ll all see you down here for the next one.

The Editor, John Surname, Ant Rogenous, Jeremy Sear, Keri and Craig discuss:

* Petrol, petrol, petrol
* Cult of entitlement: Alexander Downer and Mal Brough
* GrodsCorp’s anti-anti-abortion rally
* Bill Henson: art or pr0n?
* John Laws vs. Carson Kressley in the GrodsThink naked cagefight to the death

** Because Jeremy Sear and Chuck A. Spear are using all of Australia’s bandwidth to play Call Of Duty 4, use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 18 (27 May 08) [33:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Bron has been doing an awesome job organising GrodsCorp’s anti-emotional terrorism protest at the East Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic on May 24 and I totally intended to plug it in this week’s GrodsThink but totally forgot. Here’s the photo I emailed to her last night to prove that I had it written in the rundown.

So as part of my penance here are the details of the protest.

Where: Fertility Control Clinic, 118 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne

When: Saturday 24 May, 10am-12pm

Enemy: Helpers of God’s Precious Infants (who emotionally terrorise women seeking treatment with religious propaganda and disgusting signs)

There will be a boozy debrief after the protest at a local pub.

Remember Ant’s post about pamphlets being distributed to letterboxes around Melbourne’s suburbs? Well, the author of a letter to the editor of The Melbourne Times has totally pwned Mr Rogenous.

What’s the real problem?

I am writing regarding a recent article about the pro-life pamphlets being distributed to residents “MLA condemns abortion pamphlets”, TMT, March 19). (sic)

The fact that disturbs me most about the pamphlet drop and subsequent media coverage is that all the outrage was focused on a letter drop. Yes, it is disgusting. Yes, it is graphic. This is happening every single day in our country.

And what is horrifying people the most is that they are exposed to these images? Where is the outrage that babies are being destroyed? What was actually disturbing about the pamphlet distribution? Pictures on a piece of paper, or the fact that this kind of dismemberment, destruction and torture is a condoned daily practice in our country?

Madeleine Tope / Bundoora

Your turn, Ant.

Every time I’m riding a tram down Wellington Parade in East Melbourne, I have to stop myself from alighting at the Fertility Control Clinic and breaking the necks of the anti-abortion protesters who stand at the gate terrorising passers-by and patients with graphic posters of maimed foetuses.

I am neither pro nor anti-abortion, but I virulently oppose this kind of wanton emotional violence.

Contrary to what these zealots seem to believe, the decision to have an abortion is not undertaken lightly. The overwhelming number of people who use abortion clinics do so under extreme stress, and arrive there having made the most excruciating decision of their lives.

Do these (mostly Christian) crusaders honestly believe their god would condone their judgemental bullying, or even reward them for it in the hereafter? The god I learned about in 15-odd years of Catholic catechism would take a particularly dim view of such despicable passive-aggression.

Anyway, my contempt for these people was thrown into sharp relief today when I received an email from my wife, E. She’d returned home from a walk with Baby Rogenous to find an anti-abortion leaflet in the letterbox, containing several bloody photographs of aborted foetuses.

E and I suffered the pain of a miscarriage two years ago. It hasn’t gone away; I suspect it never will. She was, understandably, distraught upon seeing the pictures.

Do the people who peddle this kind of indiscriminate emotional terrorism give a fuck? Does the elderly woman next door to us, who in her youth suffered years of failed attempts at pregnancy, have anything to gain by seeing these images?

What of the people who receive this leaflet who have had abortions, and who might be battling the demons of regret — as many do for the rest of their lives? Does it persuade them any more than the residual torment of their procedure already has that abortion is a course of action not to be taken lightly? That it’s morally wrong?

Does enforced guilt serve any purpose other than to compound remorse or suffering? Has guilt ever helped anyone make a resolution for the right reasons?

I don’t think I’ve ever been more appalled than I am today. For the safety of the ever-present East Melbourne protesters, I think I’ll catch the train home tonight.

Following on from Ed’s Gloria Jeans revelation, fundamentalist nutjobs certainly seem to be thick on the ground at the moment. One called Brita Stream (is it just me or does that sound like a water filtration product?) is doing the rounds as a guest speaker, peddling the claim that abortion causes breast cancer. Just like evolutionary science causes brain tumours and not donating to Hillsong causes leprosy. Brita is eminently qualified on matters scientific: she was Miss Oregon 2002, after all.

A loosely-connected bit of weirdness… News Limited reports that Queensland is the UFO-sighting hub of Australia, with more than 100 of last year’s 128 sightings coming from there. The Glasshouse Mountains is listed as an alien ‘hotspot’ so I’m curious about whether authorities have received information about any “U;F;O;s”. Good to see also from the online story that News is recruiting its picture subs from the Chaser.

There is much to be condemned about Tony Abbott’s conflict of interest between his religion and his job, just as there is much to be condemned about the government’s blatant bias in excluding pro-choice organisations from its pregnancy counselling service’s advisory council. But one thing you can’t accuse the government of being is backward in declaring its bias. GrodsCorp can exclusively reveal the design of government advertisements for the anti-abortion pregnancy counselling service and it shows that women who contact the service will be under no illusions as to the nature of the advice they are likely to receive:

The Democratic Labor Party sez: Put 1 in the DLP box

GrodsCorp sez: Why bother? Put 1 in the ALP box above the line and let dirty Labor preferences elect unrepresentative nutcases from loopy organisations such as Family First and the DLP.

The Democratic Labor Party sez:

GrodsCorp sez: Not even the DLP webmaster would’ve believed that claim when he typed it into Microsoft Frontpage.

Blissfully ignorant of any DLP policy before 4pm this afternoon I have spent some time navigating through their Lachlan Connor style website. I’ve now come to suspect that the DLP is actually a front for the Extreme Family First and may be directly connected to Steve Fielding and the Pentecostal Church. Check out these DLP policies:

* An end to radical-feminist affirmative action policies whose primary social and economic effect is the disemployment of male breadwinners and the youth. Freedom of occupational choice for full-time homemakers and removal of the tax penalty on one-wage families that virtually conscripts the homemakers into outside employment, consigns their infants to be minded by strangers and deprives their school-age children of the parental care and supervision they need in the after-school hours. (Women belong in the kitchen. End of story.)

* Abolition of the dishonestly named Family Court of Australia, exposure of its destructive ideology and its harm done to children through easy divorce and the court-instigated break-up of their families and recision of all court rulings that serve to undermine marriage or degrade it by conferring on homosexual, lesbian and transsexual pairings equivalent standing with marriage. (Poofs aren’t allowed to belong to families.)

* Statutory recognition of the principle that no child should be conceived to be borne and reared deliberately deprived of a father as in the cases of single women and lesbians accessing artificial reproduction technologies including IVF. (And they’re not allowed to start one either.)

* An acknowledgement in all legislation affecting families of the need to preserve and protect the institution of marriage and of the need to maintain the moral, social, legal and economic support of the traditional family unit as the most effective (including cost-effective) means to safeguard children from the harm of exploitation, violence, pornography, drugs and crime. (Because no child raised in a nuclear family has ever been in a fistfight, read Playboy, smoked a joint, or burgled a store.)

* Establishment of an Australian Family Theatre Company to promote alternative avenues for artistic training and expression and provide opportunity for sponsorship and promotion of quality family entertainment. (There’ll be queues around the block for that.)

* All free-to-air television programming until 10.30pm to come within classifications suited for family viewing. (I belong to a family and I want to watch South Park at 8:30pm. I will defend this right to my death.)

What about these DLP principles:

* The sacredness of human life, from its inception until natural death, as the fundamental basis for all human rights. (Anti-abortion.)

* The historical indispensability of the family as the primary guardian of personal freedoms. (Family, family, family. Blah, blah, blah.)

And these DLP objectives:

* To establish, under Almighty God, the political, legal, social and economic foundations for a just, free and democratic society and for a self-reliant and secure Australia. (But we’re not a religious party, we promise. Oh, and that bit about freedom only applies to people who want to do things we plan to let them do. Forget the freedom to be in charge of one’s own body by having an abortion.)

* To advance the rights, welfare and status of the natural family, founded in traditional marriage, as the primary provider in the nurturing, rearing and educating of the young and in the care of the infirm and the aged. (Pay particular to that bit about “natural” families. That means none of you filthy poofs.)

And finally, this small policy snippet is particularly ironic right now:

* Fair elections with proportional representation at all levels of government.

Of course they support proportional representation. It’s the only way they could possibly have been elected. Oh, and with the help of the ALP, of course.