In a world of perverted moral values, evil not only becomes acceptable, but officially promoted, while good becomes a crime against the state. We see this in many areas, but certainly in the battle for life. All over the West the killing of babies has become legal and lauded by our elites, while those who dare to stand up for the unborn are treated as villains and criminals.
And part of the way we criminalise the behaviour of pro-lifers is to actually forbid them their basic right to peaceful protest near abortion mills. Many jurisdictions are setting up no-go zones, preventing their lawful right to free speech at the abortion clinics. The arrest of Graham Preston who challenged the recent Tasmanian law in this regard is a case in point: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/03/04/stand-up-for-babies-you-will-be-arrested/
Now Victoria seems to be moving in this direction. Just days ago a new law was passed giving the police greater powers to move along protestors. And as soon as that law was passed, one abortion mill sprung into action: “New anti-protest move-on laws will help remove anti-abortion protesters from the front of a clinic in the city, the Lord Mayor Robert Doyle says.
“The Melbourne City Council is being sued by the Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic to compel the council to enforce laws to move on anti-abortion protesters. Cr Doyle said up until now the council has been ‘impotent’ to deal fully with protesters who hound women seeking treatment at the clinic….
“Cr Doyle said he had a great deal of sympathy for the clinic and shared its frustration but said up until now it had been hard for the council to move the protesters on. ‘I have even more sympathy for the young women who from time to time get harassed as they enter that clinic at a very vulnerable time in their lives, and I think that is appalling behaviour,’ Cr Doyle said.”
As usual the lamestream media showed it is not reporting the news here, but simply editorialising. Not one pro-lifer was of course asked to comment in this article. The whole piece was written from the pro-death camp point of view. The same with other media reports.
Channel Nine news last night for example referred to the pro-lifers as “extremists”! Yet ironically when the various media outlets did show footage of the pro-lifers, we saw several elderly women silently and peacefully praying – nothing more.
Such prayerful grandmothers are extremists? And those inside butchering living babies are not extremists? Just how did our moral reasoning become so perverted and inverted? Those uttering peaceful prayers are the bad guys here, while those dissecting babies are the heroes. Go figure.
Even more ironic is the fact that in America where such bubble zones have been set up in many places for decades now, the US Supreme Court is actually looking at their legality. As we speak SCOTUS is deciding on whether or not to strike down such restrictive laws.
As one report states, “On Jan. 15, the high court will hear oral arguments in the case of McCullen v. Coakley, challenging Massachusetts’ ‘bubble zone,’ the most restrictive in the country. Under the law, pro-lifers may not speak to abortion clinic clients within 35 feet of the entrance. This prohibition effectively scuttles the life-saving outreach of pro-life sidewalk counselors while exempting clinic staff and ‘agents’ (a term which could apply to any abortion advocate).
“The pro-life plaintiffs are also asking the court to overturn its ruling in Hill v. Colorado, which upheld a less restrictive ‘bubble zone’ in 2000. Since that time, similar laws have been enacted in many jurisdictions across the country—including a 2009 ‘bubble zone’ in the city of Chicago, where the Pro-Life Action League is headquartered.”
America’s pro-life forces are of course hoping that some common sense will come forth from SCOTUS. Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League said this: “Three of the dissenters in the Hill v. Colorado ruling – Justices Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy – are still on the court. Only Justices Ginsberg and Breyer remain from the majority. If any two of the new justices on the court – Kagan, Sotomayor, Alito and Roberts – were to side with the Hill minority, all the ‘bubble zone’ laws in the country could be struck down.”
The lead counsel for the pro-life plaintiffs, Mark Rienzi, said, “The Court allowed the restriction because the law had several key safeguards, all of which have been eliminated by the Massachusetts law.” He stated that the Massachusetts law was “inescapably viewpoint-based” and therefore a violation of free speech because it applies “only when and where abortion is allowed.”
The law also lets staff promote abortion to potential patients in the buffer zone. Brian Gibson, executive director of Pro-Life Action Ministries, said: “These [laws] are being passed for one purpose: to shut down the speech of one opinion, which should be enough for the Supreme Court to reject them.”
Pro-Life League Vice President Ann Scheidler said this: “There’s no need to violate the First Amendment, take away free speech rights of the whole society, simply because of a viewpoint.” She pointed out the obvious discriminatory nature of the buffer zones: “If you’re for abortion, it’s perfectly OK to be inside. But if you’re against …”
And as Mathew Staver of the Liberty Counsel said about similar legislation in Florida: “The conspiracy to silence pro-life Americans continues unabated in West Palm Beach. This ordinance is not only overly broad but also viewpoint discriminatory and is, therefore, flatly unconstitutional. Liberty Counsel will not stand idly by while government officials – whether they be the attorney general or leaders in the city of West Palm Beach – harass these law-abiding Americans for their pro-life beliefs.”
While SCOTUS will certainly look at how such laws infringe upon the US First Amendment right to free speech, it should be noted that there is no direct or explicit expression of free speech in the Australian Constitution. But it is nonetheless of interest that while we are moving in a much more restrictive and oppressive direction in regards to the right to freedom of speech, the US may well be moving in the opposite direction.
Even though it looks like Melbourne mayor Doyle is onside with the baby killers on this one, we can still bring pressure to bear on him and the Council. Please let your voices be heard. You can contact them here as you stand for the unborn: https://eservices.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ePathway/Production/Web/CustomerService/DynamicPages.aspx?CustomerServiceId=141785&PageIndex=0&js=388228014
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…George Orwell.
I agree, grandmothers sitting and praying are not extremists! They should check their dictionary!!!!!
The people who encourage and merchandise abortion, along with the mainstream media who conceal the truth, are worse that Hitler, his eugenics program and his death camps.
Hitler, although largely responsible for a world war and for a large portion of the deaths of anywhere between 50-70 million people never reached anywhere near the depravity of what organisations such as Planned Parenthood, the political left, and the mainstream media have been able to contribute to and perpetrate:
The systematic extermination of well over one billion human beings.
And how many of them will frown and shake their heads when Hitler’s name gets mentioned, as though they were somehow nothing like him?
If anyone is extremist it’s those practising hideous partial birth abortions or killing unborn babies because they are not the gender wanted by the parents. The level of double-talk these social liberals engage in is mind boggling.
As for Christian ladies praying in public, the secular Left had better get used to it: the majority of human beings are religious and praying is what religious folk do.
Yes, Jo, that is why they call the laws allowing abortion “reproductive health” laws, nothing could be further from the truth. “vulnerable”, that’s right, these women are vulnerable, but they seem to think that it is okay that this state of their clients should be exploited in order to bring death rather than to bring life? Who can understand how they think?
Should there be A march for the babies TWICE A YEAR? Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
The law in itself is designed to move on the brain dead Marxists who are interfering with the construction of the East West link. The only think the law restricts is a protestor blocking safe travel and entrance into any site, and requires a person to be fined if the fail to move on when the police ask them to… The pro-life “protestors” (of which I and two friends participated on our own last night outside the Wellington Pde abortuary) don’t block anyone from going into the baby abattoir nor stop safe travel past the “clinic”, and if requested by the police pro-lifers move on… So suing the Melbourne council is pointless as it won’t achieve anything… The police can move on the protestors… but they’ll be back… and in greater numbers…,
The laughable thing about the reporting was, in a typical left-wing article in the Herald Sun, as Bill pointed out, they only interviewed staff from the abortuary, and a psychologist who works for the abortuary claimed that the women suffered psychological distress from the pro-lifers… Well, I think its safe to say the psychologist is suffering from the psychological distress of knowing her wallet will shrink if the pro-lifers are successful, and so will the Doctor who may have to sell up his Toorak mansion… But I’d like to point out that this “psychologist” doesn’t seem to give a rip about the post-abortion depression the lady is gonna suffer, something which quacks of her ilk conveniently claim doesn’t exist, not the other trauma resulting from damage to the uterine walls from the surgical procedure as the abortionist slices the baby apart inside its mothers womb, nor does the quack give a stuff about the psychological damage being caused to the baby as the abortionist slices it’s head open and sucks out its brain.. Go figure…
P.S. I also noticed in the Herald Sun article they threw in the story from 13 years ago about the recently released psych patient who shot some security guard outside the abortuary, despite no one from the pro-life movement even knowing the degenerate… Good old “guilt-by-association-even-though-there’s-no-association” fallacy thrown in to round out the congenitally retarded pro-death work of the Herald Sun… http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/melbourne-city-council-sued-in-bid-to-get-rid-of-protesters-outside-abortion-clinic/story-fni0fee2-1226851866326
“The wicked prowl on every side,
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.”
Psalm 12:8
As again Bill you are so right, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t at some later date escalate these righteous protest to crimes against humanity whereas true crimes against humanity and all other crimes against God and society become perfectly acceptable and the norm. That begs the question, how sick a society do we live in? A very sick Society indeed.
Thanks Bill
What about a high court challenge is Australia against these laws? Surely there would be many who would be willing to financially help such a challenge. Each challenge would provide grounds to demonstrate also and draw the matter the the attention of the public. Supporting Christians in Tasmania make an appeal to the Supreme Court presents as a logical place to start. Of course there has been most encouraging news in Tasmania just yesterday. Perhaps this calls for a parade to celebrate the rights of the unborn in Tasmania. Is there any chance that this new draconian law in Tasmania may be struck down or at least seriously modified because of the defeat of the Greens / Labor government and the election of a new Liberal government after 16 years in the wilderness?
Perhaps it’s time for key people in Australia to start working on a collective class civil action against a government or agency for damages to women due to needless mental and emotional suffering. This is not something to be entered into lightly. But if God lets one door close, I think He would have us look for other doors to open.
However, surely travailing prayer is needed to find a strategy to be developed to better deal with and neutralize the negative effects of the media. But I remind everyone, and myself included, we need to keep applying verses like James 1 v 2 and Philippians 1 v 27 – 30. And I remind myself and everyone of the saying of Athanasius: “If a battle is worth fighting; it’s worth out rejoicing our enemies in.” I think we already know this one is.
Greetings. I live in Albury NSW & have been with the protest at the clinic in town. We do not harass or violate anyone, but pray & offer information. Recently an action was begun buy the pro-squad to remove protesters (defenders!) from the clinic through a signed petition submitted to council (when/if they have enough signatures). This petition is led by the Anglican Archdeacon (Albury)! What is this man doing?! We all must pray.
The Archbishop is leading the petition?? That’s crazy and unconscionable…so sad that he is vigourously opposing a Biblical truth and even leading others astray.
Yes Jo, it is crazy, but true! The Archdeacon of St Mathew’s in Albury, Peter Macleod-Miller, is pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality & pro-same-marrage, having proudly conducted some! A brother in Christ? NO! A priest of the Apostacy? YES! He is very vocal here & the only defence is prayer!
I cannot believe he has that position with those views. It’s like Satan has placed him into the role specifically to cause as much confusion and damage as he can.
“The Melbourne City Council is being sued by the Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic to compel the council to enforce laws to move on anti-abortion protesters. Cr Doyle said up until now the council has been ‘impotent’ to deal fully with protesters who hound women seeking treatment at the clinic….
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…George Orwell.
I agree, grandmothers sitting and praying are not extremists! They should check their dictionary!!!!!
The people who encourage and merchandise abortion, along with the mainstream media who conceal the truth, are worse that Hitler, his eugenics program and his death camps.
Hitler, although largely responsible for a world war and for a large portion of the deaths of anywhere between 50-70 million people never reached anywhere near the depravity of what organisations such as Planned Parenthood, the political left, and the mainstream media have been able to contribute to and perpetrate:
The systematic extermination of well over one billion human beings.
And how many of them will frown and shake their heads when Hitler’s name gets mentioned, as though they were somehow nothing like him?
If anyone is extremist it’s those practising hideous partial birth abortions or killing unborn babies because they are not the gender wanted by the parents. The level of double-talk these social liberals engage in is mind boggling.
As for Christian ladies praying in public, the secular Left had better get used to it: the majority of human beings are religious and praying is what religious folk do.
Yes, Jo, that is why they call the laws allowing abortion “reproductive health” laws, nothing could be further from the truth. “vulnerable”, that’s right, these women are vulnerable, but they seem to think that it is okay that this state of their clients should be exploited in order to bring death rather than to bring life? Who can understand how they think?
Should there be A march for the babies TWICE A YEAR? Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Hansard shows who voted for the law:
Atkinson, Mr
Kronberg, Mrs (Teller)
Coote, Mrs
Lovell, Ms
Crozier, Ms
Millar, Mrs
Dalla-Riva, Mr
O’Brien, Mr
Davis, Mr D.
O’Donohue, Mr
Drum, Mr
Ondarchie, Mr
Elsbury, Mr (Teller)
Peulich, Mrs
Finn, Mr
Ramsay, Mr
Guy, Mr
Rich-Phillips, Mr
Koch, Mr
Ronalds, Mr
Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?
The law in itself is designed to move on the brain dead Marxists who are interfering with the construction of the East West link. The only think the law restricts is a protestor blocking safe travel and entrance into any site, and requires a person to be fined if the fail to move on when the police ask them to… The pro-life “protestors” (of which I and two friends participated on our own last night outside the Wellington Pde abortuary) don’t block anyone from going into the baby abattoir nor stop safe travel past the “clinic”, and if requested by the police pro-lifers move on… So suing the Melbourne council is pointless as it won’t achieve anything… The police can move on the protestors… but they’ll be back… and in greater numbers…,
The laughable thing about the reporting was, in a typical left-wing article in the Herald Sun, as Bill pointed out, they only interviewed staff from the abortuary, and a psychologist who works for the abortuary claimed that the women suffered psychological distress from the pro-lifers… Well, I think its safe to say the psychologist is suffering from the psychological distress of knowing her wallet will shrink if the pro-lifers are successful, and so will the Doctor who may have to sell up his Toorak mansion… But I’d like to point out that this “psychologist” doesn’t seem to give a rip about the post-abortion depression the lady is gonna suffer, something which quacks of her ilk conveniently claim doesn’t exist, not the other trauma resulting from damage to the uterine walls from the surgical procedure as the abortionist slices the baby apart inside its mothers womb, nor does the quack give a stuff about the psychological damage being caused to the baby as the abortionist slices it’s head open and sucks out its brain.. Go figure…
P.S. I also noticed in the Herald Sun article they threw in the story from 13 years ago about the recently released psych patient who shot some security guard outside the abortuary, despite no one from the pro-life movement even knowing the degenerate… Good old “guilt-by-association-even-though-there’s-no-association” fallacy thrown in to round out the congenitally retarded pro-death work of the Herald Sun… http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/melbourne-city-council-sued-in-bid-to-get-rid-of-protesters-outside-abortion-clinic/story-fni0fee2-1226851866326
If the City of Melbourne link is having problems, try this:
https://eservices.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ePathway/Production/Web/CustomerService/DynamicPages.aspx?CustomerServiceId=142107&PageIndex=0
Sorry, go here https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/AboutCouncil/ContactUs/Pages/ContactUs.aspx
and use their online form.
“The wicked prowl on every side,
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.”
Psalm 12:8
As again Bill you are so right, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t at some later date escalate these righteous protest to crimes against humanity whereas true crimes against humanity and all other crimes against God and society become perfectly acceptable and the norm. That begs the question, how sick a society do we live in? A very sick Society indeed.
Thanks Bill
What about a high court challenge is Australia against these laws? Surely there would be many who would be willing to financially help such a challenge. Each challenge would provide grounds to demonstrate also and draw the matter the the attention of the public. Supporting Christians in Tasmania make an appeal to the Supreme Court presents as a logical place to start. Of course there has been most encouraging news in Tasmania just yesterday. Perhaps this calls for a parade to celebrate the rights of the unborn in Tasmania. Is there any chance that this new draconian law in Tasmania may be struck down or at least seriously modified because of the defeat of the Greens / Labor government and the election of a new Liberal government after 16 years in the wilderness?
Perhaps it’s time for key people in Australia to start working on a collective class civil action against a government or agency for damages to women due to needless mental and emotional suffering. This is not something to be entered into lightly. But if God lets one door close, I think He would have us look for other doors to open.
However, surely travailing prayer is needed to find a strategy to be developed to better deal with and neutralize the negative effects of the media. But I remind everyone, and myself included, we need to keep applying verses like James 1 v 2 and Philippians 1 v 27 – 30. And I remind myself and everyone of the saying of Athanasius: “If a battle is worth fighting; it’s worth out rejoicing our enemies in.” I think we already know this one is.
[If you don’t know who Athanasius was, I strongly commend to you the following talk by Pr John Piper, which can be listened to here: http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/contending-for-our-all It is outstanding.]
Greetings. I live in Albury NSW & have been with the protest at the clinic in town. We do not harass or violate anyone, but pray & offer information. Recently an action was begun buy the pro-squad to remove protesters (defenders!) from the clinic through a signed petition submitted to council (when/if they have enough signatures). This petition is led by the Anglican Archdeacon (Albury)! What is this man doing?! We all must pray.
The Archbishop is leading the petition?? That’s crazy and unconscionable…so sad that he is vigourously opposing a Biblical truth and even leading others astray.
Yes Jo, it is crazy, but true! The Archdeacon of St Mathew’s in Albury, Peter Macleod-Miller, is pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality & pro-same-marrage, having proudly conducted some! A brother in Christ? NO! A priest of the Apostacy? YES! He is very vocal here & the only defence is prayer!
I cannot believe he has that position with those views. It’s like Satan has placed him into the role specifically to cause as much confusion and damage as he can.