Are the religious who harass women at abortion clinics, terrorists?

Some of my liberal friends say I go too far when I call religious fundamentalists who block and harrass women at abortion clinics terrorists. Others say, I hit the nail on head. What do you think?

Klansmen are terrorists as well as Neo-Nazis, but folks protesting abortion is nowhere near the level of folks with a bloodsoaked history of violence and murder.

with a bible in one hand and a faked bloody fetus picture in the other get in your face at a clinic.

They're terrorists. They just terrorize WOMEN, though, so I guess that must be OK.

Try living in Mississippi out in the countryside and try to work for progress. All I was "guilty" of was trying to represent Democrats on campus, and what do I get for my trouble? Arson! Not to mention the fact that people I know could've been seriously hurt had the house caught fire after they torched our parade float.

To be honest, I'd rather have hateful dumbasses screaming at me than to have my life or the lives of my friends and associates put in life-threatening jeopardy.

I think hateful dumb asses who incite destruction or violence should be confronted.

Don't you? :shrug:

The same variety of "hate" that led to your victimization led to the deaths of doctors who simply helped women to take control of their bodies and lives.

Are you protecting those who are advancing such hatred? If so, why would you, a victim of such hatred, do that? :shrug: I find your position very curious.

On edit: someday I will learn that "Check Spelling" is my friend *LOL*

Freedom of speech goes to everybody, including those who stand outside abortion clinics and call people murderers and whores and whatever junk they spew; however, if they break the law, I say get them. You simply cannot punish people who thought it was good that Eric Rudolph and others targeted clinics. What you can do to fight against that kind of hate though is use education. Education is the answer. Hate is something that is learned, and that must be fought.

If they are so against abortion, I ask them, "Why won't you adopt the kids who live at the orphanage?" if they are so "pro-life." I ask them why is it that they condemn people who are pro-choice yet turn a blind eye to the death penalty. Does that make them hypocrites? You damn straight it does!

For those people down at the abortion clinics who grab you and force you to see pictures of aborted fetuses and whatever else they have, they should and ought to be tried for laying a hand on you. That's assault, and that's against the law.

demonstrate. I come from a very red area (in CA) & the local family planning clinic here has been 'burned' & subjected to just @ every form of nasty expression of pro-life opinion you can name. It's not simple protest & picket, it's tracking down the doctors & nurses. It's picketing in front of their homes & families - holding up the most vile signs & posters they can. It's screaming at their kids 'your mom is a baby killer' on their way to school It's knocking on every door on the street, informing the neighbors that they are living next door to a murderer. It's blocking the doors to the clinic so that women have to push their way through to get inside, while being barraged w/catcalls & more of their 'famous' posters. I went w/a friend as moral support (this woman had lifelong kidney disease & subsequently a transplant - she was very much at risk if she didn't have an abortion) because she was terrified to walk through this crowd alone. They grabbed arms, shoved pictures, threatened hell, the whole show. When I asked the clinic people inside why they didn't call the cops on them for breaking the law (blocking the door, physical contact, distance from building, etc) they told me they had called before, many times. Nothing happened, other than clinic employees & patients getting hit w/extra tickets on leaving the parking lot for awhile. Since my area is all I have to judge by, I say that they are terrorists. To inspire the kind of fear in the faces of the women I've seen coming & going there, I can't call it anything else.

btw - I actually did ask one old bitch (after wrestling her claw from my friends arm & seeing her in the door) "Why won't you adopt the kids who are in the foster child system, they desperately need someone to proof they are loved & are worthy of a life?".

The old hag spat on me & ran for the next victim.

on edit: And no, I didn't punch the bitch's lights out. But I wanted to! :evilgrin:

The local police, especially here in Mississippi, can be unhelpful. In other cases, they're simply corrupt and don't give a damn. What did progressives like me do in the past down here? We got outside help when there was no local help.

What you're describing is nothing short of harrassment and assault. They broke the law. They should pay.

You response though has got me re-evaluating what is a terrorist. When I first responded, I automatically equated the term to folks like the Army of God or Al Qaeda or even folks like Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. People have died where these folks have left their mark. That's where I drew the line between haters and murderous terrorists, but I guess one only has to inflict fear and intimidation in order to qualify as a "terrorizer" or a "terrorist" if we used a broader, more basic definition of terrorism. One does not have to kill in order to instill fear in people.

kill the doctors or patients by blowing up clinics. Yep, right to life until you're born....dip shits.

Anyone who breaks the law of the land to create political change not wanted by the majority is a terrorist. On edit-- let me clarify -- anyone who commits a crime of violence to create political change is a terrorist by definition. Harassing a pregnant woman on her way to the doctor's office is a crime of violence, especially when they touch or threaten her. It should be prosecuted for what it is, an act of terror. If I shoved or intimidated a pregnant woman or an ill woman in front of any other type of clinic or hospital, I would be arrested for the criminal I am.

I'm tired of religious terrorists getting special privilege. They all belong in jail, but it is hard to get even the bombers and the murderers properly arrested.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

Terrorism includes:

(1) activities which are illegal and involve the use of force (harassment and threat of physical harm are obviously illegal and many of these anti-privacy/choice folks do get in women's faces);

(2) The actions are intended to intimidate or coerce (their actions are obviously becoming increasingly intimidating and clearly coercive); and

(3) The actions are committed in support of political or social objectives.


I have no doubt that these three elements are present in many, MANY of the anti-privacy/choice "protests" at medical clinics assisting women in exercising choices over their bodies and lives. Moreover, there is certainly a link between these coercive and intimidating "protests" and the ensuing violence against both women and their doctors which should be classified as a "hate crime",...in my humble opinion.

seeking to do harm to others by harrassment. It is an immoral stance to think that by harrassing women going into a clinic, and other means of harrassment, will force those women to do their bidding.

Some of these people get quite violent. Some threaten to kill doctors. Some even use car bombs etc. The majority are sympathetic to these violent actions which are used to terrorize women and doctors. Therefore, according to BushCo's definitions, these people are terrorists.

That's just objectifying people who disagree with you. And that makes you different from them how?

And before anyone flames me for being insensitive to women or choice, I'm adamantly pro-choice. Have been at every repro-rights rally in DC since 1986, including last April:

I wish I had the statistics immediately at hand but I can tell you that these groups are responsible not only for a heavy percentage of violence in this country but also associated with domestic abuse.

They are extremists. They do a LOT of harm.

but the vast majority are not terrorists by any definition and do not support any kind of violence. Lumping them in with the few who kill staff and blow up buildings would be the same as confusing the progressive movement with the Red Army faction.

Upsetting those you disagree with is not a crime nor should it be. The fundies do not have a right not to be offended by our support of a womans right to choose. By the same token, be have no right not to be offended when they picket and demonstrate within the law.

They only demean you if you let them.

I am by no means using a double standard. It's simple. If the internationalists being called terrorists by the mainstream media and BushCo actually are terrorists, then so are anti-abortionists.

I am using BushCo logic and definitions. Logic and definitions must be objective. So they must come back to the extreme, militant fundamentalist Christians we have here, too.

So when you ask how this makes me different from them, it's because I am exposing the hypocrisy of it all.

I use the same reasoning, reversed, in my reply (#19) to the original message in this thread. One of my acts of definace of this government is to refuse to identity them as they would identify me. But I certainly understand where you're coming from.

The ones who just stand and picket are exercising their first-amendment rights. The others do qualify: They use the threat of violence and intimidation as a tool to goad another group into changing policy or behavior.

:hi:

The day a member of PETA threatens me to my face for visiting my doctor and tries to block me from entering my doctor's office is the day that person should be documented as a terrorist and, I would hope, properly arrested.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

I also agree with the right of PETA too protest against scientific research but not when they blow up scientists or set research animals free.

I think the point is the double standard that exists on the conservative side of the fence. He is merely using that definition of terrorism back at those conservatives.

They stalk them, record license plate numbers, call them murderers, post their names on the internet, try to block access, and, to the extreme, murder doctors and bomb clinics. Yes, they are absolutely terrorists.

hecklers no. Everybody has the right to peaceful protest, including heckling.

If a stranger in any other situation grabbed my arm and tried to make me look at something while I was on my way to the doctor's office, that person would be arrested for assault and battery, if only misdemeanor assault. And don't say they only heckle and don't make physical contact, because they touched and pushed ME.

To terrorize a tiny woman half your size is wrong and also a crime.

The crime should be prosecuted.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

no physical violence, I'm Ok withthem protesting

OK. What about physically blocking someone?

What about stalking?

What about threats of violence?

Don't forget about murders, threatening violence, physical assaults, and stalking, too.

forbidden. Waving a bible, or putting pictures of aborted fetuses on posters and waving them in your face is free speech.

You can no more call them terrorists than the people who protest bush at every stop. People than bomb abortion clinics(when's the last time that happened?) or kill doctors who perform abortions, however, could be called terrorists.

Freedom of speech most protect extreme conservatives as well as extreme liberals etc.

The people who block the woman's health clinc entrances and seem to believe that every woman going into the building is getting an abortion belive they're warriors of their God or something similar if they aren't that religious.
From their veiwpoint, they're actively involved in a process saving innocent lives - whether the woman going into the clinic is going because she's getting a pap smear, pre-natal care - or getting an abortion.
To the women (and families and friends) going into those clinics, and to the people working there - and to most sane people who understand that except for a very few places these are reproductive health clinics that provide far more services than just abortions, they're ignorant, misguided, excitable people who are terrorists when they plan or gather in mobs to intimidate, harrass and destroy people's health and livelihood.
To me, they're terrorists, misguided as they are. They're attacking a symptom (abortion) rather than working to actually get rid of the actual problem - an unwanted or unsustainable pregnancy.

What most of these fundies ignore in their activities is that there are three situations that will make abortion a rare, strictly medical procedure and help make almost all pregnancies wanted and sustainable are education, economics, and easy access to reproductive health care.

Haele

I don't count them as terrorists because I've met a number of them over the years as they have counter-protested at prochoice rallies. Almost without exception the women (I've never talked to any men) are either active because they regret their own decision to have an abortion or someone close to them regrets having made that decision. Im not defending them in any way--personally, I think if you make a decison you should live with the consequences and let give others the freedom to make their own decisions.

I'm just saying, as long as they aren't bombing clinics or physically hurting anyone, their protesting doesn't make them terrorists anymore than my protesting in favor of reproductive freedom makes me a terrorist. I refuse to label my enemies the way my enemies label me.

“{On the day of the march} Wolf Blitzer asked {Bush adviser Karen Hughes} whether abortion would be an issue in this election. ‘Well, Wolf, it's always an issue,’ she answered. ‘And I frankly think it's changing somewhat. I think after September 11th the American people are valuing life more and realizing that we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life.’

“Just in case anyone didn't get it, she added that ‘the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life.’”

-- Ellen Goodman

based on what they do, how obsessed they are over their cause, the fact that it is all done in the name of God, they still qualify as terrorists in my book.

Anyone who terrorizes and terrifies a woman who is about to submit to an invasive and emotionally charged medical procedure is a terrorist. They are forcefully trying to stop the woman from having an abortion because THEY are against it. Harassment, in my opinion, is force - power by negative persuasion. Oh yeah, not to mention the quacks that KILL or THREATEN doctors who preform abortions.

...in the irresponsible days of my youth - terrorists, without a doubt.

:hi:

Blowing up abortion clinics and killing doctors and mothers is indeed terrorism. The OP wasn't specific enough for me to answer anything but I don't know

I am not prepared to identify any speech itself as terrorism, no mattter the content of it. If it goes to harassment, it is just that, harassment. IF it is hate speech, it is hate speech.

The Right uses the same criteria to condemn those of us who protest the war. We cannot define define free speech in terms of it's content, or we are not truly advocates of free speech itself.

I'm asking if this behavior is "ok" with you as free speech, not if you think it should be made illegal.

I'ts 6:30 in the morning, still not quite light, and the client pulls into the parking lot in her car. It's a public parking lot at a large strip/shopping mall. There's a K-Mart at one end, a pizza place next to the WomanCare clinic near the other end, and a big Farmer Jack's grocery store on the other side of the clinic.

She parks her car, and it is swarmed by about 5 "peaceful protesters" with bibles, fetus-on-a-spork signs, and little plastic naked baby doll fetuses as big as a child's fist. As she get's out of her car, they offer her bibles and tracts, they push the fetus doll up close to her face, all the while saying various versions of don't kill your baby, don't punish it for your sins, you can have the baby and give it to a loving couple/a good couple/a christian couple. They keep moving in a circle around her as she tries to walk from her car to the clinic. They mostly don't touch her or grab her, but she is surrounded and accosted even when she tries to keep moving. The smart/lucky clients don't try to talk to them. The really smart/lucky clients bring their mothers with them ... who take no shit from "protesters."

Sometimes those cretins wait all morning, to accost and follow the clients as they come out of the clinic. And BTW, they don't care if you just came for your pap smear or pregnancy test; you still get the same treatment. One of the clients was followed from the clinic down the mall into K-Mart for fuck sake, with this nut case verbally harrassing her all the way.

This is OK free speech with you? This surrounding, chasing, verbally assaulting a woman? All she is doing is exercising her rights to control her body, and to move about in public and go about her business.

edit: typos and change one word and add two words

and that's frankly a ridiculous question. The post was whether or not I want to ban abortion. Obviously I do not. But to censor or label as speech as terrorism because you despise it is exactly what the Right does. The whole point of the Larry Flint case was that even the most odious kind of speech needs to be protected. It's easy to defend speech one agrees with. It takes a serious commitment to civil liberties to defend speech you despise. Either you value free speech or you don't. You decide.

The scenario you describe above is most certainly illegal, because most protest permits prevent that sort of harassment. The police should be called to apprehend the protesters, but it is not terrorism. When a group kills civilians, that's terrorism. When they bomb clinics, that's terrorism.

I think they have a right to politely ask women walking in if the would like to talk. The minute it goes into blocking their way or being even remotely pushy then it is harrassment.

I don't think most of these people fit the bill of "terrorist". They're more akin to "stalkers". But the ones who use violence, of course, are terrorists.

But shit like this cuts both ways. Laws that can be used on these people can also be used against people in an anti-war protest. Gotta be careful....

everyone has the right to protest anything. if they are just protesting and shouting, i consider it... <gulp> patriotic. i dont agree with the message, mind you, but to stand up for your beleifs is patriotic.

that said, those who block women from the door, strike women, encourage violent resistance, or bomb clinics are without a doubt domestic terrorists.

i assume i'll get some shit for this post, so i want to stress again that i am totally pro-choice.

Harassment is not terrorism. Those that BOMB abortion clinics are terrorists.

Fear,
Heavy handed Tactics,
Site 'Gawd' as their reason to stop the Abortions.
Employ Psychological 'torture' actions to force their viewpoint (Shock and awe)

Not everyone who feels Abortion is wrong is a terrorist, but a good portion of those who have chosen to act in these extreme fashions are nothing but low level terrorist operatives. Those who use those pictures that are meant to cause psycholigcal revulsion (The dead fetus) are guilty of psychological warfare. Those who actively grab people at college campuses and try to force them to listen to their rhetoric are terrorist recruiters and those who actively and physically arrest (Stop, not the police kind - Ed) those women who choose to have an abortion are directly terrorists.

I don't know how spread this is out here, in Denver there were also one other group of these terrorists who hid themselves under a more business-like image, listing themselves under 'abortion counceling' where in some cases they literally ended up haressing the unwitting mother to ensure she couldn't get to a real abortion clinic. When she's step from her apartment they'd prosteletize and guilt attack her, if she got on a bus, they would continue. (By the way, it is criminal in my opinion stalking a woman like that, no t the abortion, that's just something I disagree with)

There are a lot of things wqe're allowed to do in this country, but really, these actions seem to be going well beyond anything that should be legal and truly toes both terrorist and anti-stalking laws.


(Edited for clarification on reread)

I mean the metaphorical line, too. Not just the safe-zone line or whatever they call it.

What pisses me off though is if we picket their churches, we're anti-religious. In some states, it might even be considered a hate crime.

I know in Massachusetts it's a misdemeanor to disrupt a funeral or religious service. You have to stay something like 250 feet from a church.

In any case, I think I found a way to protect abortion clinics.

If the doctors hold a funeral service for the embryo or fetus, they'd be protect under MGL Chapter 272: 42A Disturbance of funeral services


GENERAL LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS
PART IV.
CRIMES, PUNISHMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS IN CRIMINAL CASES
TITLE I.
CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
CHAPTER 272. CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER

Chapter 272: Section 38 Disturbance of assembly for worship
Section 38. Whoever willfully interrupts or disturbs an assembly of people met for worship of God shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-38.htm

Chapter 272: Section 40 Disturbance of schools or assemblies
Section 40. Whoever willfully interrupts or disturbs a school or other assembly of people met for a lawful purpose shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one month or by a fine of not more than fifty dollars; provided, however, that whoever, within one year after being twice convicted of a violation of this section, again violates the provisions of this section shall be punished by imprisonment for one month, and the sentence imposing such imprisonment shall not be suspended.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20050311111030644C184089

Chapter 272: Section 42 Disturbance of funerals
Section 42. Whoever willfully interrupts or by fast driving or otherwise in any way disturbs a funeral assembly or procession shall be punished as provided in section forty.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-42.htm

Chapter 272: Section 42A Disturbance of funeral services
Section 42A. Whoever pickets, loiters or otherwise creates a disturbance within five hundred feet of a funeral home, church or temple or other building where funeral services are being held, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year in a house of correction, or both.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-42a.htm

If we hold a funeral service for the funerals the repugs will use that to state that it is solid proof that the fetus is a living viable entity and that it's murder.

It could be made into a religious service more easily by saying that it is a pagan right of in(un?)fertalization. ;) Tongue in cheek but technically binding by law.

Red-blooded American males should organize posses with shotguns to kill them on sight.

Sarcasm off: I saw a "Terrorist Hunting Permit" sticker on a contractor's truck the other day, and I thought it was more amusing applied to Christianist terrorists.

And so are bombers and those who kill doctors.

Most protesters are just your garden variety peaceful protester. No problem, these are not terrorists. Let them protest all they want.

It's the time I was nearly killed that I consider the group that protested EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR TEN YEARS terrorists. They didn't as far as I know bomb anything or hoot a doctor. But they nearly killed me.

The clinic is a medical clinic that also offers abortions. It's not their main service, just one of many. I was there because I didn't see a woodtick on me for over a full day and I had a huge rash that looked like a target. I went to see if I had any kind of tick-borne disease.

NOTHING involving reproduction whatsoever. But I'm female and I'm of childbearing age. They first got in my face after I parked in the lot. They told me not to murder my baby. I yelled back "What baby! What makes you think I'm even pregnant?" (I'm not one to keep my mouth shut) One guy got right up close and personal, inches from my face. I saw the look in his eyes and I'll never forget that look as long as I live.

You really can see into someone's soul. You really can see when they think you're nothing more than a walking uterus.

You really can see that they're blinded to the fact that you are a human being with every bit the same rights and responsibilities they have and they you do go to the doctor for reasons other than abortions.

I refused to be intimidated. I walked, head held high, into the clinic.

After the blood test, I walked outside to my car and tried to leave the parking lot. Their van was parked to the left of me so close to the exit that there was no seeing around it. Maybe Superman could with his Xray vision, but I'm not Superman, or even Lois Lane.

On the right, there was a huge group of protestors, so close to the exit that they were just as hard to see through as the van. And they were yelling, and they were waving signs.

Busy street at rush hour. This would be tricky. I could only see what was directly in front of me. The protesters were blocking my line of sight in both directions.

I rolled down my window and stretched my neck out to get a better view. Many would say that was a huge mistake. Yes they called me a murderer, and yes they yelled at me that I shouldn't have killed my baby. They shoved literature at me and I still couldn't see squat.

I inched carefully out into the street and tried to get a line of sight. Eventually I had to take a chance or I'd be there all night with a bunch of rabid woman-haters trapping me in the exit/entrance.

I'm grateful that the driver coming from the left that I couldn't see was skilled enough and alert enough to have seen me coming and there was no one coming from the right so that he had somewhere to go. otherwise there'd have been one hell of an accident. Broadsided on the drive side and with the speed limit what it was there I don't expect I'd have survived.

I have looked into those eyes and I've seen death. They don't scare me and I will fight them to my dying day.

if not, then they need to shut the fuck up, as they know not of what they speak.

So seventy-something percent of you poll-voters think all assholes should be treated, legally, as terrorists?

God where is my home? It's certainly not the republican party. But these results are just as frightening.

Shameful.

Is DU just the mirror-image of Free Republic. I didn't think so.

ON EDIT: For all clear-thinking people: It's up to US to save the country. Those other extremists are clearly out of touch with reality. Help up real people help the country. Please.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=terrorism

If you read these, it is obvious that an individual or organized group who uses violence, or the threat of violence, or even intimidation against innocent civilians in order to control or change their behavior, usually for a political or ideological purpose, is a terrorist.

Does that mean they are same as people who blow other people up?

No, but that doesn't let them escape the definition, or the responsibility for what kind of other effects may follow from these acts.

PETA members who throw red paint on people who wear fur, or otherwise assualt them are also terrorists according to the definition.

It should just make it obvious that we as a society will tolerate a certain amount of terrorism. It doesn't mean that they should all recieve life prison sentences.

It does mean that they deserve the label and should be reminded of it.


A person grabbing at and yelling at a person entering a clinic and a person blowing up a civilian building or other target are both trying to intimidate others into bowing to their wishes. Both are, by definition, committing terrorist acts.

I'm sure that someone having a sandwich and someone else having a five course meal would both be considered to be eating, wouldn't they?

The definition of terrorism depends on who is doing the defining. A highly political act indeed. Our own government cannot agree on a definition, between the different departments and agencies. Often when we apply the label terrorist to a movement where that label is in question, we both weaken the power of the language and create a self-fulfilling prophecy, imho

The dictionary definition is what I am referring to.

I don't see how those definitions are in question.

Look, I'm not suggesting that people who perform these acts need to be rounded up and sent to gitmo, but I believe that many of them need to be made aware that there is a line between advocating for your beliefs and direct action that would fall under the definition of terrorism.

This is not to say that they necessarily should, if the definition fits, be charged with a "terrorist" labeled crime. They may be guilty of assault, or harassment, or stalking, etc., or nothing currently considered a crime, but I think that people should know that those actions, in the course of advocacy for or against other individuals does meet the definition of terrorism.

Terrorism in some cases is a crime, and in others is a descriptive word to describe an event. To determine if something meets the definition, one must just look at the event and then at the definition, and see if it applies.

The NEA being called terrorists does not meet the definition because those who advocate on their behalf were not using threats of violence, or actual violence against civilians in order to promote their position.

For example,those who assault people who just enter a building, including anti-choice protestors AND union picketers, are both committing terrorist acts.

Both are within their rights to state their beliefs to those that pass their way, but when advocacy becomes an attack, or a threat of an attack, it then meets the definition.

Once again, that does not mean that they should be arrested for terrorism, or any other crime that they have not, under current law, been shown to be in violation of, but I think that people need to know what the word means.

They can then choose, or not choose to modify their behavior with that knowledge.

I imagine a lot of advocates for many different positions feel they can justify their behavior because they believe that terrorists always blow stuff up and kill.

Many who have a deep passion for a cause they support may be less inclined to resort to violence or intimidation if they understood what the word terrorism means.

Religious people are allowed to protest like anyone else.

Bombing clinics and threatening or assaulting doctors and patients are the acts of terrorists.

:scared:

I am scared they will shoot, bomb, or rip to pieces innocent women exorcising their right to choose. They, the obdurate collective of religious fanatics, have already demonstrated that screaming, harassing, and stalking leads to murder and acts of terrorism. It does not matter if it is a small percentage of lunatics that act out violently. The fact is, they are always there, lurking in the shadows... waiting to strike. :scared:

Thus, they terrify me with their never-ending threat of imminent death to anyone that doesn't believe in their deity or personal ideology.

They are terrorists, just like the Taliban.:scared:

They try to reach their goals by scaring people away, or terrorizing people. That's what a terrorist is.

I do not want to become like the Republicans -- maligning language to excite opposition to those I disagree with. And I say this as a woman who held a crying young adult just last year, who was harassed in just such a situation. I won't let THEM make me like THEM.
peace

Therefore, every one of them has the potential to harm. We simply cannot tell the difference between the violence ones and the non-violent ones. Hence, we feel terror from their actions, because they broadcast an implicit threat.

My place of work has two of these terrorists protesting out front once or twice a week, when the weather is nice. (I guess fetuses aren't worth fighting for when it' rains or snows.) I am terrified that, as I walk into my office one day, one of them will pull out a gun and shoot me. That's terror, and it's designed to make me change my behavior, to make me submit to the anti-choicers' point of view.

Women and the caregivers who dare to cross these fanatics risk their lives. DUers dismissing that threat, and the denial of these women's civil and human rights, are morally repugnant.

Just because you (and I) consider them personally abhorrent and potentially dangerous does not make them terrorists.

The Right tries to suppress anti-War/anti-Bush/anti-globalizations demonstrations by using the same reasoning - that they find a bunch of anarchists to be disgusting, and that they see them as a potential threat.

Terrorism is justly illegal; if we start saying that words are equal to terrorist activities, then words become illegal, and then the 1st amendment ceases to exist.

all hate groups are terrorists IMO. PATRIOT ACT the bastards!

It ain't right.

The groups that bomb clinics, send them anthrax threats, individuals who shoot abortion clinic employees, like John Eric Rudolph, are definitely terrorists.

The people from the baptist church who stand outside the clinics protesting something they think is wrong are not terrorists. They are practicing their first amendment rights, however annoying it may be. When the groups infiltrate the clinic and get the names of the women who have appointments, then make signs with those women's names on them like "Jane Smith, don't kill your baby", then they are committing criminal acts, but are not terrorists because they are not violent acts.