[stargazer]

omg crazycatlady, you rock me like a hurricane! hilarious.

[crazyoldcatlady]

for my new england layyyydieeees:

M-V. Martha's Vinyard, Hollaback!

and, for mouse, 'cos she's repping the west coast:

if you're looking for Buffy, she's with me

[stargazer]

Happy Thanksgiving to all the NE Busties!!

I'm thankful for some of you taking the chance to meet up with a cook-y latina from the midwest!

Much Love!

Oh, and if you are in the NE area, and i haven't heard from ya....well, send a PM...

[anarch]

"House lawmakers have overwhelmingly approved a bill to expand protest-free zones around abortion clinics.

The bill would give Massachusetts among the strongest "buffer zone" laws in the nation, creating a hard 35-foot perimeter around a clinic's entrances and driveways."

/does the happy dance!

Take that, you puritanical judgmental control freaks!

[mermaidgirl13]

Thanks, Anarch!

[anarch]

"The Massachusetts House is expected to vote **tomorrow** (Thursday Nov. 1) on legislation that recently passed the State Senate to create a 35-foot fixed protest-free buffer zone around the entrances and exits of all reproductive health facilities in Massachusetts. Please take just one moment today to tell your State Representative that you support a stronger, more enforceable Buffer Zones Law!" (from Planned Parenthood)

Not sure who your State Representative is? Click here. Enter your zip code and click "find". The next page shows your elected federal officials (starting with Bush). Click on "state" (to the right of the "federal" button) to bring you to the "Elected State Officials" page. The person who needs to hear your voice is under "Massachusetts House" - "Representative xxxx". (The Senators already passed it, last week I think - though if yours voted for it, it doesn't hurt to send them a thank-you).

The PP example letter is here.

My letter is below (yours doesn't have to be this long - I just had things to say. The PP person I talked to yesterday said the legislators just want to know HOW MANY are for or against a bill, so emailing just a few lines would help, or phoning to say "I am a constituent of Rep. xxxx, my zip code is 00000, and I want him/her to vote for the Buffer Zone Bill tomorrow because the current law is unenforceable and enables harassment" or something):

Dear Representative xxxx,

As your constituent, I am writing to ask you to vote for the Buffer
Zone bill when it comes before the House tomorrow, Thursday November
1.

The current Buffer Zone law technically establishes an 18-foot space
around clinic entrances within which protestors are not allowed.
Protestors are allowed to be within six feet (the "bubble zone") of
clinic patients or employees if they have the individual's consent.

However, I know a woman who, in attempting to walk from her parked car
in front of the clinic to the clinic doors, had her shoulders grabbed
by a protestor. This understandably upset and frightened the woman and
angered the friend who accompanied her, so much so that the only thing
restraining the friend from, as she put it, "punch[ing] out" the
grabber was a clinic guard who advised her that punching would make
things worse.

When I have gone to my local clinics, protestors have come within
touching distance of me. I consider that I evaded protestors' hands-on
expression of their views only due to parking blocks away, walking
back to the clinic as if I were merely a regular pedestrian, and only
at the last second, darting into the cluster of clinic escorts at the
entrance. However, protestors, presuming that they knew exactly what I
was there for, have typically used those seconds to shout things like
"Don't go in there, they're evil!" and "Why are you murdering your
child?"

The protestors have at no time made any attempt to ask for my consent
to being within six feet of me, much less being within touching
distance of me. At no time have any of them cared to find out if my
purpose in entering the clinics was for an affordable pap smear, a
bladder infection treatment, an abortion, STD treatment, a birth
control prescription, the blood test I required to obtain a marriage
license (this was prior to January 28, 2005, when the blood test
requirement was dropped), or any of a number of women's reproductive
health issues. They simply tried stop me from going in.

Protestors do not demonstrate respect for the current Buffer Zone law
in any particular. The law's gradations of acceptable proximity to a
moving target *if* they have the moving target's consent, has proved
unenforceable: the only prosecution attempted under this law was
thrown out by the courts due to the law's confusing terms.

Under the Buffer Zone bill which I am asking you to support tomorrow,
protestors would be free to express their freedom of speech from
across the street (it is unclear to me why protestors' right to
"freedom of speech" requires hands-on proximity). At the same time,
the crystal clear terms of this bill would not only be easier to
enforce; they would contribute much more to public safety than the
current law, by minimizing occurrences of high tension situations with
rapid escalation potential in the first place (such as that involving
the grabbed woman and her angered friend).

I urge you to vote for it. Either way, please let me know your response.

Thank you for your time.

anarch
Street Address
City, State Zipcode (they need the street address because that's what makes your their constituent, I gather)

[stargazer]

hey gumby, yeah i'm here!!

thanks for checking in!

i don't know what's goin' on around here. do you know? i still feel like i'm learning about the boston area.

[gumby_cc]

Stargazer, are you here yet?

Anything exciting going on around here lately?

[anarch]

fyi

Join us [Planned Parenthood] at the State House in Boston on Tuesday, October 30, as we gather to talk to our legislators about the need for a stronger buffer zone law, comprehensive health education in the public schools, and the repeal of unconstitutional abortion and contraception restrictions in Massachusetts.

[laurenann]

i heard about that. guess he ran it into a pole outside of twin donuts. allston is in mourning!

[gumby_cc]

Mr. Butch freakin died yesterday in a scooter accident in Allston and I am really really really really sad about it.

[anarch]

I hear Belmont's a beautiful area. It'll be cool to have you out here, stargazer.

crazyoldcatlady: they asked for your name and address? Hmm. I've only ever had to give my zip code, but then I haven't done it very often. Maybe I'll ask them next time. Actually I should probably ask if it's even legal for me to be calling since I'm Canadian and technically am not their constituent (can't vote). The thought crossed my mind before, but then they just asked for my zip code so... /shrug

[stargazer]

oh thanks gumby!

i'm moving to belmont. i'm gonna be doing my internship for the next year out there. i'm getting antsy to move out there!

[gumby_cc]

Woo hoo!

Where are you moving to? What are you gonna be doing? Exciting!

[stargazer]

Hello Busties!

I'm movin' to the Boston area in early Sept.! I already got a place. Very excited. Perhaps some of us can meet up later in the year. I just thought I would let some of you know.

[crazyoldcatlady]

yeah, the last time i did it, they asked for my name and address. when i asked why, they said something along the lines of the congressperson likes to send out a letter acknowledging the call, although as i spit out my apt # i could almost feel them doing a background check. am i paranoid, or is this standard practice? i didn't sound like a crazy old cat lady!

oh, and no letter yet.

[anarch]

I feel like a schmuck too, crazyoldcatlady! Glad to know I'm not alone.

[crazyoldcatlady]

anarch, thanks for the link to the "how to call your legislator" link. i always feel like a schmuck when i call...

[anarch]

Personal stories changed minds:
"Some constituents wrote saying that they had changed their minds, like the elderly woman who said she previously asked Candaras to support the ban.
"But since then, Gale," the woman wrote, as Candaras told it, "this lovely couple, these two men, moved in next door to me, and they have a couple of children and they're married, and they help me with my lawn. And if they can't be married in Massachusetts, they're going to leave -- and then who would help me with my lawn?"

Yeah, they're just ordinary folks, folks. Not Evil Incarnate.

I wonder if personal stories could make a measurable difference with peoples' attitudes toward abortion? We'd need a whole lot of stories out there to combat the "pro-life" attitude demonizing women who get abortions as "using abortion for birth control! getting a late-term abortion because she can't fit into her prom dress!" crap. Like I_am_jan's "Tell Me About Your Abortion" thread in OBOH, but more of them, everywhere, so it stops being a taboo subject.

Speaking of abortion, there's a bill being considered now in the MA legislature, to force anti-choicers to harass people from across the street instead of right in front of clinics. To help the bill pass, write your legislator (scroll down to "Massachusetts" to find out who your legislators are) to tell her/him to support the bill, which would improve on the current, completely unenforceable Buffer Zone law. Under the current Buffer Zone law, protestors aren't legally allowed to come within 6 feet of people entering the clinic, but they violate the law anyway in their zeal to harass patients and clinic employees.

Planned Parenthood's list of who's pro-choice and who isn't.

Latest info on the progress of the bill.

Tips on how to express your views when you contact your legislator, if you've never done it before.

[mermaidgirl13]

Hahaha -- that's awesome.