filed under Activism | Health | Politics
Follow up on Planned Parenthood
9:13AM ON
03/03/2008
BY
Dave Segal
A couple of weeks ago I posted about the harsh email Planned Parenthood sent out about me. I’m happy to get to direct your attention to their follow-up email, sent out on Friday. Ian covers it here.
We called on PPRI’s State Representative, David Segal, to sponsor and support this legislation for many reasons. Representative Segal has been a proven friend of the pro-choice movement and the clinic sits in his district. The email alert we sent to our members was intended as an opportunity for Rep. Segal, a Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island endorsed candidate, to hear from his constituents on this very important issue before he made a final decision on the legislation. The alert was not meant to disparage Rep. Segal’s performance as a legislator.
Rep. Segal is pro-choice and an advocate of women’s rights. PPRI depends on his unwavering dedication to protecting women’s health and safety. Please ask him to support this legislation.
As to the particular conversation about the buffer zone legislation — I continue to have strong concerns about the infringement on free speech that that legislation would represent. I cherish and frequently exercise my right to protest, and know just how fragile that right can be: I’ve been threatened with arrest for as little as handing out fliers downtown, and was involved in securing a restraining order against the police when they threatened to arrest janitors who were fasting peacefully outside of the Turks Head building a couple of years ago.
If we’re even going to seriously consider restricting speech, we need to do all we can between here and there first. I’m hopeful that we can ameliorate the situation outside of PPRI by enforcing existing laws around harassment and obstruction of public rights of way.
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