Scientia Potentia Est.

                                         

     Sir Francis Bacon once wrote, “Knowledge itself is power.”  Keep that in mind as I continue. 

    What’s one thing all these abortion clinics have in common?  An apparent abhorrence of knowledge—or rather, knowledge in the hands of a client.  One of the biggest things that sidewalk counselors do at abortion clinics is provide information to enhance a potential client’s knowledge.  We tell them about their options, about the risks they take when getting an abortion, about the practice history of the abortionist who will see them, about the development of the fetus they carry within them, and about the many people who truly care about them and are ready to help.

    Nobody would argue with the fact that greater knowledge makes for a freer choice.  I mean, if I’m about to enter a building with five entrances but I only know about one, how in the world can I possibly make a free choice about which of the five doors to enter? 

    Abortion clinics are pro-choice...right?  (see my previous post on hypocrisy...)

    At a Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. I was attempting to sidewalk counsel when one of the guards began to yell “YOU DON”T HAVE TO LISTEN YOU DON”T HAVE TO LISTEN YOU DON”T HAVE TO LISTEN” over and over again.  You’d think any sane passerby would be thinking, “What the heck is she doing?” and if they did, I hope it would give them pause when they realized she was shouting over a fellow American doing nothing more than providing knowledge to an ignorant woman about to make a life-changing decision based on her ignorance.

    At a clinic in Detroit, there is a big sign on the door reading, “No literature beyond this point.”  On the porch sits a trash can.  Guards are literally instructed to take the literature out of the hands of the women entering or risk getting into trouble themselves.  After pointing out these facts to some of the people there, I returned to my post only to see a guard who had followed a woman into the clinic return holding the flyer she had taken.  He looked in my direction and very deliberately let it flutter down into the trash can.  Pro-choice indeed.

    All this makes you wonder: What are they afraid of?

    So back to that quote at the beginning.  If knowledge is power, then is all this effort to keep knowledge out of the hands of ignorant a way to keep them weak and helpless?  A way to maintain their own power over the underpriveleged, poor, and uneducated?  Um, yes.

    I think all abortion clinics should have a sign on them that reads in big bold letters something like this:

    Planned Parenthood: Empowerment. Choices.  Hypocrisy.  Guaranteed.