On September 26, 2023, I was invited by Abortion Forever Pittsburgh to attend and write about a protest they were organizing against a group called “Forty Days Of Life.” It was quite the coincidence that they had contacted me about an hour after I had put their action on my calendar.
“Forty Days Of Life” is a group of Christo-Fascists that make a point to stalk and harass employees and patients at healthcare clinics. And they really like to make a show of it. These are the kind of intellectual lightweights that make me wish that, The Great American, Bill Hicks was still alive. Although, his head would probably explode while railing against them at the top of his lungs thus robbing us of his genius once again.
It seems that they put on their dog and pony show about twice a year in Pittsburgh and they operate out of Epiphany Catholic Church which is the church next to the hockey arena.
I asked to be sent links and any other information about the situation so I could get up to speed. I was sent the link to the website for these “Forty Days Of Life” knuckleheads and boy howdy this group is quite the piece of work. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way down the home page before I started feeling lightheaded and nauseous.
When I sat down to start researching this group, I did not have nearly enough caffeine in my system to muster up the anger needed to counteract the stupidity of their propaganda so I put it aside and caught up on my other correspondence for a bit. It was a quadruple shot of espresso chased with a half a pot of the darkest dark roast type situation and it was a little late in the evening for that. It was a difficult task trying to maintain focus and actually read their bullshit instead of brushing it off as the lunacy it is.
This harassment group has ties to white nationalism and the insurrection attempt on January 6, 2021 because why wouldn’t they. I was less than shocked when I learned they dabbled in racism and participated in the biggest man-baby cryfest this country has seen in a while. Which is further evidence that their whole deal has nothing to do with “protecting life.” It’s all about control and white male dominance.
Epiphany being their chosen location is not surprising either. The Catholic Church does have a long history of giving cover to bigots. Their silent consent of the slave trade and their “neutrality” during World War II are just two examples. And while I’m at it, maybe the Catholic Church should sit this whole abortion argument out since they claim it’s about protecting children.
Protecting people that abused children in order to safeguard their own reputation and made up authority more than disqualifies any opinion they may have on anything whatsoever. And then following it up with the bullshit move of filing for bankruptcy in order to not pay damages to survivors is even worse.
I am of the opinion that every church should be converted into houses for the houseless or bulldozed and turned into public green spaces. I consider religion to be the same as any other recreational drug. Using is fine as long as it doesn’t have a negative impact on others.
Life is shitty enough as it is so if drugs or religion help someone get through their day that’s fine with me. I draw the line at forcing or pressuring other people to conform to your silly bullshit.
Life is shitty enough as it is, do we all need to adhere to arbitrary rules that were written in an old book and that are so wildly misinterpreted by everyone with a funny hat and a handful of followers? We may as well use Lord Of The Rings as a moral code. At least Tolkien knew who the bad guys were.
These pigfuckers use half of the first amendment as cover to justify harassing and stalking people seeking medical care. Using their freedoms of religion, speech and protest to fuck with people. The thing that gets lost in all of the court cases that allow them to protest outside of clinics with measurements down to the foot is that the first amendment also guarantees the rest of us the freedom from their religion and silly bullshit.
Belief in a storybook does not take precedence over medical science. Neither does “Eww, that’s icky” or “Aww, that makes me sad.” And it doesn’t mean that the rest of the population needs to bend that way to make you more comfortable.
Try minding your own business. I don’t need to know why a person would walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic and I don’t care. Maybe they’re there for a cancer screening or one of the myriad other services that clinics provide because their employer-run health insurance plan leaves a lot to be desired.
Reproductive healthcare is something that hits everyone at some point whether they want it to or not so having a large array of options would probably be the best approach for a modern society but this country has proven time and time again just how backward and stupid it likes things to be. And this is why we can’t have nice things like universal healthcare and education.
Instead we end up living in a country where children who are victims of abuse are forced to give birth to the children of their abusers. Sure, let's ruin a kid’s life twice because once wasn’t enough. That’s the American way.
. . .
I had some very frank discussions with my mother when I was going through my family court kerfuffle back in 2008-09. They were the very blunt kind of conversations that are had in times of trouble and she was trying to impart some wisdom and family history upon me.
In no uncertain terms, I was clearly an accident. Which most of us are. She was ready to launch the ejector seat on her marriage just before she found out she was pregnant with me. This was in the late 1970s so she didn’t know of any other way to proceed other than toughing it out for thirteen more years while I was growing up. That’s when her situation became untenable and something much better and life changing came along for her.
Given how stupid and difficult the past forty-five years have been for me, if I were able to back then, I would have gladly laid on the proverbial grenade in order to give her an extra thirteen years of freedom from a controlling and loveless marriage. Without a doubt.
That’s why it drives me nuts when I see these assholes trying to impose their will on other people. They have no idea what’s going on in a person’s life that would lead them to terminate a pregnancy. It’s no one else’s business to interfere with that decision and there doesn’t need to be a “good” or “acceptable” reason behind seeking an abortion.
. . .
I have lived in Pittsburgh my entire life and this town has never felt like a bastion of intellectualism or critical thinking. Most of the time it feels like being a thinker is frowned upon by the vast majority of the population. I get the sense that people around here put more thought into which football jersey they want to wear on Sunday than how their actions impact other people.
Much like other midsize to large cities, Pittsburgh has a strange relationship with the Catholic Church. The local media always asks the bishop or the diocese for an opinion on things even if the topic has nothing to do with religion. And I could hear the reluctance on the local news broadcasts when they had to report on a bunch of priests from the Pittsburgh area that were outed as horrible monsters.
With the obscene amount of willful ignorance in this town, I was not surprised when I learned that one of the smaller groups associated with “Forty Days Of Life” had a location in the Brookline neighborhood where they hold training classes on how to properly harass and follow people seeking medical attention. Any time there’s something dumb or hateful on the news, the odds of it having happened in Brookline are always worth putting money on.
It’s also not shocking to me that there is a violent cop on the payroll of “Forty Days Of Life.” They hired an armed rent-a-cop to work a security detail to protect them while they’re out hassling people on the street. He’s already assaulted and injured at least one person and gets in the faces of anyone that tries to interact with these cowards. Jackbooted thugs are always on the wrong side of every issue.
. . .
A few days before the action, I attempted to spread the word amongst my meager internet following. I figured it was once again time to put those Punk Rock ethos into action and do what The Clash taught us to do. When we get aggression, we give it two times back. My hopes of filling the street with punks from across the city were not very high since I vividly remembered the lack of participation during the uprising in the summer of 2020.
This is where I diverge from the usual apathy and nihilism of Punk Rock and especially the massive indifference on display by the majority of the punks in Pittsburgh. Don’t get me wrong. I have tons of my own apathy and nihilism but they seem to be pointed in different directions than other punks. I was under the impression that punks were supposed to be smarter and actually give a fuck when it mattered. Witnessing assholes try to intimidate people seeking healthcare is some bullshit of the highest order and cannot go unchallenged.
I will never forget a show in the late 90s that I went to where the singer from a shitty hardcore band that is now revered for some reason was making an ill informed “pro-life” diatribe from the stage. I am so glad that I was never a fan of the band because it spared me the disappointment of learning how dumb that guy was.
. . .
The point of Abortion Forever Pittsburgh’s action was to protest outside of the church and make as much noise as possible while the opening mass for “Forty Days Of Life” was going on inside. If these hateful assholes want to disturb people seeking medical attention, it’s okay if their church service is interrupted. It’s the least the rest of society can do for having to put up with these shitheads.
I arrived about ten minutes before the appointed time of 6:30 and took a walk around the church to get the lay of the land and to keep an eye out for any possible sticking points that might lead to protestors getting pinned in a corner when the cops would eventually show up.
The most visible and prime spot to occupy was on the corner of Centre Ave. and Washington Pl. but we couldn’t post up there since it was a giant hole in the ground. The never ending cycle of Pittsburgh construction had the corner closed off because of the replacement of gas lines. I’m sure the construction workers weren’t planning on getting caught in the crossfire of an abortion protest while working in a hole in the ground but shit happens.
The protest gathered a crowd of about thirty people. I couldn’t help but think that the lack of numbers felt like a punk show that everybody said they’d go to but didn’t. I had to keep reminding myself that I was walking in a different world and the circumstances were different than the logistics of live music. This was the world where the age old adage of small groups of thoughtful committed citizens creating change heavily applied. Fuck the numbers. It’s the intent and the push back that mattered and that were very necessary.
It was mostly younger college students that showed up so I had one of those “The youth are alright” moments. I couldn’t help but notice the anger of the younger people and how well deserved their anger was. It felt like that type of very justifiable generational anger over still having to litigate things that should have been settled decades ago but previous generations fucked up and, as always, kicked the can down the road to the youths.
Witnessing shouting matches between college students and old white suburbanites was par for the course. It was disheartening to see that this was the level of discourse but when dealing with the self-righteous that have disappeared up their own assholes there really isn’t much of a choice other than to take as loud of a stand as possible. We were dealing with a level of stupid that should have been snuffed out years ago in this country but was allowed to fester and infect society as a whole. It’s the kind of mentality that has them so entrenched in their own delusions that there is no talking to or convincing them otherwise and they get offended when they’re met with the slightest resistance to their bullshit.
Part of me wanted the protest to take the solemn and quiet approach to demonstrate that we were capable of taking a more respectful highroad of sorts but we are way past that at this point. The obstinate jackassery put forth by these assholes can only be confronted loudly and with as heavy a hand as possible. Dave Trenga said it best when he said, “Don’t give them freedom because they’re not gonna give you yours.” These hate groups don’t deserve a moment's peace. There can be no more backing down if we want to regain the rights already lost.
It was about 7:15 when the cops showed up. At least a half dozen motorcycle cops rolled into the Marriott parking lot across the street from the church and I was fairly certain that they weren’t there for the cocaine/pig orgy on the twelfth floor.
A couple of middle aged white guys came out of the church and did the talking with the cops. Needless to say they both had very strong “get off my lawn” energy so I’m sure they didn’t like the noise the protest was generating. The cops were going to show up anyway to block off the streets since these dipshits were about to fuck up traffic by parading their harassment party down the street in the direction of Planned Parenthood. I was interested to see how the cops were going to handle the protest outside of the church. They were either going to clamp down on us or not want to be bothered. It all depended on what mood the cop in charge was in and lucky for us he didn’t want to be bothered with any post-clamp down paperwork. The cops went back to their bikes and waited until it was time to stop traffic.
Shortly after the cops waddled back across the street, the slow procession out of the church began. It was like a Christ-ified renaissance fair parade with costumes and everything. They were carrying around various statues and idols over their shoulders as if the statues were the pharaohs of old. It was such a surreal and Python-esque thing to witness that I thought Eric Idle or John Cleese were going to come stumbling out of the church making fools of themselves.
With Pittsburgh being a very large small town that is steeped in Catholicism and ignorance, I was expecting to see at least one familiar face walking out of the church but I was pleasantly surprised when I didn’t recognize anyone.
This entire situation is the end result of insisting that we have to be polite and respectful of everyone’s beliefs. No, we don’t. We reserve the right to say that someone is wrong and they are batshit crazy when called upon. Our society would be able to address actual problems by now if we didn’t have to stop and coddle these fools every five minutes. They should have been laughed out of the room long ago so the rest of us could get on with making progress.
Abortion Forever Pittsburgh will be having actions throughout the next forty days to counter these dickheads in an effort to disturb their comfort and to let it be known that their hate is not welcome in our city. I’ll be sure to start prioritizing my schedule around these actions. See you in the streets.
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