As you can see in the above picture, Ed White Middle School in Huntsville, which sits across Sparkman Drive from the Alabama Women’s Wellness Center (AWWC), has had enough of anti-abortion activists using their parking lot to protest the presence of a nearby doctor who they wrongly believe is currently providing abortions.

As we told you a couple of weeks ago, anti-abortion activists in Huntsville have never been known for rational behavior. Many of their activities, such as recording the faces of women entering clinics and harassing the patients of OB-GYN doctors who provide abortions, seem more like stalking than protest.

Their enlarged photos of aborted fetuses were apparently not conducive to the learning environment, either.

Prochoice activists became concerned when they noticed that their counterparts were blocking and annoying parents who were trying to pick up and drop off their children at the school. After reaching out to the city council, police, school board, zoning board, and finally the community outreach officers, a response arrived in the form of three orange plastic nets used to keep the school’s entrances clear of protesters.

“While we have no proof abortions are being done at (the AWWC),” writes Alabama Christian Coalition president James Henderson, ” we do have reason to believe one of their doctors has been doing abortions at various locations, including in Huntsville.” That is completely false: the doctor in question used to provide abortion services at the Madison Street clinic when it was open, but has not provided one abortion since it shut down.

Oddly for a professed Christian, Henderson has made an entire career out of similar falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

The Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives (AWCRA) shut down a few months ago and has plans to reopen at the AWWC location, but has been waiting on a decision of the zoning board before moving forward. This Summer, Henderson began accusing the city of “not playing fair” towards his efforts to shut down the doctor’s business and prevent AWCRA from reopening.

Shameless, Henderson has made his group’s activities a primary justification for not allowing the clinic to open again in the new location.

This losing fight has apparently inspired Henderson to double-down on defamation. In recent months, he has begun making baseless accusations of violence against volunteer clinic escorts. He is also very proud of his group’s “success” at putting doctors out of business by harassing patients and staff, but none of his sermons or lectures ever express concern for the well-being of pregnant women who are trying to see their doctors and would just like to be left alone, thank you.

The result is that opponents of his patriarchal views have become even more active and determined. “We only started going to the Sparkman clinic when the antis started protesting there for real in May,” one of the escort volunteers told me.  “We’re there to make certain they stay off the clinic grounds and to protect the women coming into the clinic.”

Here is video of Mr. Henderson jaywalking in front of the school with one of the orange nets visible in the background. He and his friends apparently do this all the time to demonstrate their utter disregard for the laws of mankind, since they believe they serve a ‘higher law.’

[youtube]http://youtu.be/um7_PcD9XbU[/youtube]

6 thoughts on “Nets Keep Anti-Abortion Protesters Off Huntsville, AL School Grounds”
    1. What difference does that make? How could it possibly be a bad thing to have a medical clinic near a school?

    2. So let me get this straight. There’s no buffer zone for the clinic against creepy people like James Henderson, but you conversely want to enforce an unofficial buffer zone around schools where a woman can’t practice her reproductive rights?

      Because that’s literally the definition of a double standard.

  1. That man should be working, making a paycheck and adding something productive to the economy. He looks able bodied to me.

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