Abortion opponents like to say that they want to defend the sanctity of life. But it has been amply established that, at bottom, the anti-abortion movement has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. For instance, when an Alabama teenager sought and received permission to end her pregnancy after being raped, abortion opponents clutched their pearls and begged her not to become a murderer.
This only added to the voluminous evidence that the term “pro-life” is a fraud. As a number of my friends on Daily Kos put it, it’s better to say “forced-birth.” We got another example of this on Monday. One of Texas’ more prominent forced-birthers skipped and danced a jig when the back end of Hurricane Harvey knocked down a tree in an Austin neighborhood. As far as she was concerned, it was a good thing because an abortion clinic has been temporarily shut down.
Abby Johnson has been one of the darlings of the forced-birth movement since 2009, when she jumped from being director of Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Bryan, Texas to being an ardent abortion opponent. As Johnson tells it, she was so repelled by seeing a 13-week-old fetus being aborted on an ultrasound that she decided she couldn’t help women get abortions anymore. However, there is no evidence that an abortion took place on the day Johnson says it did.
Johnson says that even before then, she was uncomfortable with the pressure she faced to perform abortions. However, Fox News, of all places, reported shortly after Johnson hopped the fence that she was unable to provide any documentation to substantiate this.
Johnson once bristled at the ugly and nakedly aggressive tactics she saw from forced-birthers. But by 2014, she was positively giddy that Texas’ recent efforts to restrict abortion make abortion providers “feel like they’re on the run, and that’s how we want to keep it.” She added that abortion providers think they may be able to simply move to another location, but forced-birther protesters will be right there waiting for them.
Until Monday, this was the strongest evidence yet that Johnson’s conversion was not just total, but opportunistic as all hell. But on Monday afternoon, Johnson was driving through Austin when she saw something that made her take what amounted to a 140-character victory lap.
Well, here's one divine outcome from Harvey. A tree fell and blocked the road in front of one of our Austin abortion facilities. pic.twitter.com/13pWclwdIS
— Abby Johnson (@AbbyJohnson) August 28, 2017
So it doesn’t matter that people in this neighborhood are trapped in their homes, or that they can’t get to work or school. No, no–all that matters is that an abortion clinic is effectively shut down. In the face of criticism over this horribly callous tweet, Johnson and some of her followers went to great pains to get back to what they saw as the heart of the matter.
We mourn lives lost by this natural disaster. We pray for & aid the injured & displaced. Yet, amidst the pain, this tree may save some lives
— Anne Walter (@msannierose) August 28, 2017
"Pray"-only God ref in my post.
Both hurricanes & abortion harm & take human life.
Hurricanes do not intentionally take life.
Abortion does.— Anne Walter (@msannierose) August 29, 2017
Thank you Jesus
— Erin Reynoso (@BryanMidwife) August 28, 2017
@msannierose love how God works!
— Heather Morgan (@heather41495) August 29, 2017
That clinic has killed far more people than this hurricane will.
— Shelby minor (@shelbyiminor) August 28, 2017
They kill babies almost daily.
— Abby Johnson (@AbbyJohnson) August 28, 2017
She's not celebrating a disaster. She's celebrating the one good thing that came from it. The real disaster occurred long ago.
— Shelby minor (@shelbyiminor) August 29, 2017
Johnson expressed similar sentiments on Facebook.
According to a comment Johnson made on that picture, the tree fell in front of the Whole Woman’s Health clinic, located just off Interstate 35. That clinic wasn’t the only business that may be affected by that tree.
As you can see, there is a Veterans of Foreign Wars post, a funeral home, a Lumber Liquidators store, a Chinese restaurant, and a Chevrolet/Isuzu dealership within a short distance of that clinic. But all that matters to Johnson is that clinic.
Apparently Johnson’s followers are of the same mind, judging my some of the comments.
“Now if this is not a sign from above!?”
“Too bad it didn’t fall right on the building.”
“His will be done❤”
“If only it had fallen ON it…”
“Pray that place burns and floods in Jesus Name!”
“The rain made it difficult for sidewalk counselors to be there, so God sent in a replacement team.”
“love it that’s one way to stop abortions”
“Because of God’s love he went easy on them…He could of had it fall on the building!”
Did Johnson shut this down? Nope, far from it. She actually reacted to a comment wishing the tree had crashed on top of the building with a “Haha” emoji.
We need not imagine what would have happened if a prominent supporter of abortion rights had reacted in similar fashion to a tree falling in front of or on a crisis pregnancy center. That person would have been deservedly condemned. It would have been wrong and ghoulish then, just as what Johnson is doing is wrong and ghoulish now.
But then again, we should expect this from a movement that not only brands rape victims as murderers, but didn’t boot out Operation Rescue when it kept convicted clinic bomber Cheryl Sullenger on its payroll after she gave George Tiller’s court dates to Scott Roeder. And we should expect this from a movement that apparently thinks defending the sanctity of life means desecrating corpses, like they tried to do to Marlise Munoz.
I look at these posts from Johnson, and I’m reminded that as late as 2011, I was weakly pro-life. As many of you who know me from Daily Kos know, a raft of horribly invasive anti-abortion legislation enacted at several levels from 2009 and 2011 partially opened my eyes. It took the Marlise Munoz travesty to open them all the way.
For all their talk about respect for life, what passes for leadership in the forced-birth movement is utterly devoid of human dignity. These disgusting posts from Johnson prove it. How can anyone with a conscience rejoice in a road being blocked off? From where I’m sitting, this is yet another reminder that I didn’t leave the forced-birth movement. It left me. Frankly, I’m not sure anymore if I was ever really part of it. If skipping and dancing at a tree falling down just because it blocks an abortion clinic is required to be part of that movement, I’ll pass.
(featured image courtesy Johnson’s Facebook)
