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Alpha Center Hindering SF Coffee Commerce, Handing out Gift Bags to Make Pregnant Women Feel Beautiful

Women going to Scooter’s for coffee on West 41st run the risk of being accosted by protestors from Leslee Unruh’s Alpha Center. An eager reader says she was headed there with her sister when some radical anti-abortion activists blocked her car in the Scooter’s driveway and asked if she and her female companion were going to Planned Parenthood, which shares that driveway.

I won’t quote my reader’s four-letter-flavored response. I will offer mine to all such strangers blocking traffic:

  1. Unless you’re law enforcement, don’t stop my car (or my bike).
  2. Even if you’re law enforcement, where I’m going is none of your business.
  3. Unless you’re my doctor, don’t ask me if I’m going to a clinic, hospital, pharmacy, or any other health care facility.

But ladies, if you can tolerate such invasion of your privacy and impedance of your public movement, you may get a nice present from Unruh’s crusaders, whose idea of helping women is to hand them cheap sundries and a cross:

Alpha Center handouts, near Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls, SD, 2018.08.07.
Alpha Center handouts, near Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls, SD, 2018.08.07.

“You are a Beessing [er, blessing] +++ We Love you ♥ : ),” says the note on the gift pack. If you’re pregnant, scared, or confused, what you need is an eyeshadow brush (no eyeshadow included), lotion, chocolates, and a cross that says “Jesus Saves,” courtesy of the Alpha Center, whose traffic blockers said they want pregnant women to feel beautiful.

Thoughts, prayers, and chocolates—sure, that’ll help a woman pay for prenatal care, and baby clothes, and daycare….

54 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2018-08-08 07:18

    Jesus saves. Gretzky steals. He scores! Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaal!

    Why don’t these in yer face busy bodies tell women the truth- childbirth is more dangerous than abortion?

    And why don’ they mind their own business?

  2. jerry 2018-08-08 07:45

    Someone must have beaten them with an ugly stick. The first thing to show these homily zealots are pictures of the children being separated from their birth mothers by these same ugly zealots. These sexually frustrated people seem to share a kind of disgust you actually had sex. Maybe what these abusers need is a hooker, male or female, doesn’t matter. Paging Comrade Dusty for the phone number of Butina or other Russian sex kittens or Tom Cats.

    The second thing to inform these women are the chances of safely delivering a child in the third world called South Dakota. Show them a lottery ticket and tell them they have as much of a chance at winning that as either of them surviving at full term. Then tell them the bad news, it ain’t gonna get any better unless we vote the bums out.

  3. Anne Beal 2018-08-08 07:57

    Actually they should be told how much money they can make carrying a child to term for a couple who wants to adopt.
    A friend of mine wants to adopt but was told the birth mom needs $40,000 up front because she’s homeless.
    Apparently the agency they are going through requires the adoptive parents to cover the birth mother’s living expenses. Other agencies base the fees on the adoptive parents’ incomes, but this one bases it on the birth mothers’ needs.

    Anybody care to discuss this? Is this a way for healthy young women to make extra money, or put themselves through college?

  4. Porter Lansing 2018-08-08 08:26

    You have a lesbian friend, Anne? Let’s discuss that and your newfound tolerance. Text me.

  5. jerry 2018-08-08 08:37

    There are already kids born that could be adopted. What you are talkin bout is a surrogate mother. This is allowed in South Dakota. The mother carries the kid to term under a contract for the foreign parents. The American citizen is born while being paid for with either Sanford or Avera health insurance. In many instances, twins are born, so the costs go up. Then they go back to Europe with an anchor baby, like trump’s kids. Happens all the time in a third world location like South Dakota.

    Bonus points, it there is something wrong with the kid or kids, the contact stipulates that the donor’s are not responsible, so that kid would then be a ward of South Dakota taxpayers. Fun fact.

  6. Alex 2018-08-08 10:16

    My wife and sister-in-law were stopped by these people pulled in to get coffee. While talking to them one of the pro-lifers told them PP sells baby body parts. This was proven to be a lie how many years ago? They are truly doing great for their cause.

  7. Chuck Point 2018-08-08 11:29

    Is Anne Beal’s comment above Sarcasm? Thanks.

  8. mike from iowa 2018-08-08 12:17

    Actually they should be told how much money they can make carrying a child to term for a couple who wants to adopt.

    And wingnuts lied about Planned Parenthood selling baby parts and now they want to traffic in human babies. Double standards, much?

    Alex. there are still rumblings out there about the edited O’ Keefe tapes. What will these poor whiny saps have to accuse Planned Parenthood of if/when abortion is outlawed?

  9. Ryan 2018-08-08 16:20

    I think the phrase is “Jesus saves, but Esposito scores on the rebound!”

    But I think we all know that is just a joke, right?

    Jesus doesn’t save, and Phil Esposito scores on first chances, not rebounds. Go Bruins!

  10. Debbo 2018-08-09 00:25

    “Thoughts, prayers, and chocolates—sure, that’ll help a woman pay for prenatal care, and baby clothes, and daycare….”

    Well said Cory. Wingnuts really love the old Thoughts and Prayers meme. Meanwhile, they lie about reproduction and another Congresscritter gets thrown in jail for fraud, or something equally crooked. They want to control women’s bodies but they can’t even control themselves.

    What was it they called themselves? The party of god or values, morals, something like that. Now its simpler and more accurate to call them Russpublicans. All one word. Pootie’s Party works too and has that alliteration thing going on.

  11. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-08-09 22:32

    Anne raises an interesting issue that I don’t think I’ve explored much. The adoption fees she’s talking about are different from surrogacy, either traditional (surrogate carries to term child produced from her own egg and the contracting male’s sperm) or gestational (fertilized embryo from contracting man and woman implanted in surrogate’s womb to carry to term), since the folks paying the money have cells in the game. Anne is talking about two non-biological parents essentially buying a woman’s own fetus.

    Do such adoption payments constitute or cause human trafficking? Let’s work from the moral extremes toward the center.

    If a woman is coerced into becoming pregnant, carrying a child to term, and giving it up for adoption, that’s immoral.

    If some pimp gets the money instead of the woman, that’s immoral, because the pimp is using the woman as property, a means of production.

    Now we’re o.k. with regular surrogacy, right? A couple is having trouble conceiving, a healthy young woman has a womb for rent, they agree to terms… that’s o.k., right? A woman has a right to use her womb for commerce?

    So is there any moral difference between a surrogate accepting money to carry a fetus that consists of 50% or 100% of the genetic material of the couple to whom she will surrender the born baby and a woman accepting money to carry a fetus that consists of 0% of the genetic material of the couple to whom she will surrender the born baby?

    Imagine if ten women seeking abortions all lined up at the protestors’ feet. “Forget your candy and lotion,” they say. “Pay me $40K, adopt this child when it’s born, and I won’t abort.” Is it moral for those pregnant women to make that offer? And given the absolute evil the protestors see in abortion, is it moral for them to decline to take a concrete action that would achieve their goal of stopping those abortions from happening?

  12. Jason 2018-08-09 22:39

    Cory wrote:

    If a woman is coerced into becoming pregnant, carrying a child to term, and giving it up for adoption, that’s immoral.

    1. Why did you use the word coerced? If you are talking about rape, why not used the word rape? People don’t usually rape other people to get them pregnant unless they are illegal aliens in the US.

    2. What is immoral about adoption?

  13. Porter Lansing 2018-08-09 22:49

    Cory has just created the hypothetical that will take up way too much time in this years legislative session. Allowing the “Pay me $40K, adopt this child when it’s born, and I won’t abort.” is just too much female freedom for the Catholic Caucus to tolerate. There goes half the session unless Sen. Heidelberger can intercede.

  14. Jason 2018-08-09 22:58

    You’re not very smart Porter. No wonder why you had to resort to gay slurs against a fellow Democrat.

    If Cory really cared about children he would have posted about why it is so expensive to adopt

    Why haven’t you Cory?

    I don’t think it should be that expensive.

  15. Porter Lansing 2018-08-09 23:01

    What gay Democrat?

  16. Jason 2018-08-09 23:15

    Happy isn’t Gay Porter.

    I’m glad he informed me you use gay slurs.

    It didn’t surprise me though.

  17. Anne Beal 2018-08-10 06:15

    I am glad at least somebody is willing to discuss the compensation of birth mothers. Not surrogate mothers, but the women who are facing a crisis pregnancy, who find themselves in desperate need.

    Why shouldn’t a woman who has been thrown out of her home by her parents or boyfriend be offered financial assistance to continue her pregnancy? And why shouldn’t that assistance be provided by the people who want to adopt the child? What if the birth mother accepts the money but then changes her mind? What if she takes the money and disappears? What if this turns into a new industry, with little daylight between pimps and adoption agencies?

    One thing we can all agree on is that a woman in these circumstances need help. Given how easy it is to prevent an unplanned pregnancy in the first place, she has already demonstrated a lack of decision-making skills. Logically, if she can make $40,000 by carrying a baby to term, in addition to whatever she might earn at her job, going the distance makes financial sense. But then suing the man who knocked her up, for 18 years worth of child support, might make even more sense. How much money has he got? She should take him to the cleaners.
    These women don’t need abortions, or chocolates. They need lawyers.

  18. Porter Lansing 2018-08-10 08:28

    Anne Beal conflates it all in a way that’s about as nonsensical as I’ve ever seen. She has more imaginary friends than Christopher Robin. This woman isn’t my friend but her message touches my soul. I think it will touch your’s, also.
    ~ I am in my 80th year and clearly remember in 1956 trying to help another teenager through the aftermath of a back-street abortion accomplished with a solution made with carbolic soap. There was no assistance for this impoverished teenager with a low level job, living alone in a big city. She shared a small room with another teen — bathroom at the end of the hall, turn right and down six steps. She survived.
    And to the woman in Littleton who wrote a letter to the editor calling abortion tragic:
    Have you yourself adopted a child subjected to awful abuse because he/she was unwanted?
    Have you yourself helped a stranded teenage girl?
    Have you yourself helped an abused woman and her children?
    Have you yourself ever been in a position where you have no money, family or resources to feed or care for a helpless baby?
    If your answer is no, perhaps if you meet a little angel in your heaven you can explain why you did nothing to help his mother when she needed it most.
    Now, we need to vote to keep Roe vs. Wade and to keep Planned Parenthood as a lifesaver for many families. We cannot leave these life changing decisions to people with no direct knowledge of the situation. No, I am not an advocate for wholesale abortion, but we must keep the procedure legal to help those women who really have no choice.

  19. Ryan 2018-08-10 08:45

    What you all are talking about is no different than prostitution, which should be legal. I very much dislike laws regarding morality. Just being a $hitty person shouldn’t be illegal – too many people would be criminals and we don’t have enough egomaniacs who want to be cops for that. Let women sell babies if they want to and the market allows.

  20. mike from iowa 2018-08-10 09:08

    I’m pulling a Jason (distraction) right here- Jason, you know from experience Happy isn’t Gay? Are you saying you are Gay?

  21. Dana P 2018-08-10 09:16

    If these folks (and any others that are anti-abortion) spent just half, HALF, of their time and energy promoting affordable and accessible birth control – the amount of unwanted pregnancies and need for abortion would decrease tremendously.

  22. mike from iowa 2018-08-10 09:17

    From the Guardian-

    The law, popularly known as Obamacare, required all health insurance plans sold to individuals to cover maternity care as one of 10 “essential health benefits”. Another category, preventive care, covers a wealth of pre- and postnatal services, such as prenatal check-ups and breastfeeding support. The law also eliminated lifetime and annual caps on healthcare spending, giving a financial reprieve to thousands of women with expensive pregnancies.

    Having a baby is the most common reason for hospitalization. This is a common event we’re talking about not covering
    Usha Ranji

    But those benefits are on the chopping block now that Republicans in Congress are racing to repeal major portions of the ACA. Both the Senate bill revealed last week and the measure that passed House in May would allow states to seek waivers letting insurers drop the essential benefits to keep down costs.

    Few benefits seem more vulnerable than maternity coverage. In a nonpartisan evaluation of the House bill, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that maternity coverage, along with mental healthcare, would be the first benefit many insurers would eliminate in their individual market plans. (Twelve states require the coverage independent of the ACA.)

    How many benefits remain after wingnuts get done making insurance more expensive for all?

  23. Jason 2018-08-10 09:22

    Dana P,

    You can’t afford $5-10 a month for birth control pills?

  24. Jason 2018-08-10 09:27

    MIke,

    You do know that insurance covered births before obamacare right?

    It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t know that.

  25. Ryan 2018-08-10 09:37

    Dangit, Jason beat me to it. People always talk about “affordable and accessible birth control.” Give me a break, condoms and pills are everywhere and they cost less than one trip through a scooter’s drive thru. Some people just can’t do things that are in their own best interest, quit pretending it is society’s fault.

  26. jerry 2018-08-10 10:01

    Ryan and Comrade Jason, You should know that pregnancy was not covered under the old plans, if you were anywhere close to being pregnant when you applied for coverage, DENIED. If you had a C-Section anytime in the past. DENIED. Gestational diabetes in the past, DENIED. In addition to all of this, you would have to buy a maternity rider to cover (after deductible and co insurance) the “normal delivery”.

    Regarding Birth control pills, Comrade Jason doesn’t have a clue. You only pay 5 or 10 bucks when it is a co pay. Old insurance plans did not cover prescription drugs, period. Birth control pills cost out of pocket without insurance, $20.00 to $60.00 per month.

  27. Jason 2018-08-10 10:07

    Jerry, you are wrong. Google is your friend.

  28. Porter Lansing 2018-08-10 10:13

    Jerry … Everything you posted was accurate. These two boys (R. Kelly and J. Gohn) are wrong.

  29. mike from iowa 2018-08-10 10:31

    Jason, you knew all this didn’t you? No? Why doesn’t that surprise me?

    to 2014, most individual plans excluded maternity coverage. Today, all new policies include maternity benefits.

    Louise Norris
    Individual health insurance and health reform authority; broker
    August 16, 2016

    Prior to 2014, women who purchased their own health insurance were often completely out of luck if they wanted to have coverage for maternity. In 2013, the National Women’s Law Center reported that just 12 percent of individual market plans included maternity benefits. And that was despite the fact that nine states required maternity benefits to be included on all individual plans.

    In the rest of the states, maternity coverage in the individual market was extremely rare, and if it did exist, it was generally in the form of an expensive rider that could be added to a plan, usually with a waiting period. Yet even on plans that excluded maternity coverage, women were charged premiums that were at least 30 percent higher than those charged to men for the same coverage.

    Before Obamacare made coverage guaranteed issue, pregnancy itself was also considered a pre-existing condition that would prevent an expectant parent — male or female — from obtaining coverage in all but five states. And many individual health insurance carriers considered a previous cesarean section to be a reason to decline an application or charge a higher initial premium. (in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont, state regulations prevented carriers from using medical underwriting to determine eligibility for coverage, long before this became the norm under the A

    Source: https://www.healthinsurance.org/obamacare/how-obamacare-changed-maternity-coverage/
    Follow us: @EyeOnInsurance on Twitter | healthinsurance.org on Facebook

  30. Ryan 2018-08-10 10:37

    Jerry, I didn’t say anything about health insurance. I said birth control is easy to obtain and not expensive. People who think that somebody became pregnant because they couldn’t find or afford birth control are stupid. It’s everywhere and it’s cheap (or free lots of places).

    Why is it that people blame society for getting women pregnant and want to coddle those poor helpless pregnant mothers, but then you say that dads need to take responsibility when they get women pregnant because they knew what they were doing and need to be accountable for their actions? We will never have gender equality when there is a double standard for personal accountability between the genders.

  31. Jason 2018-08-10 10:40

    Of course you paid more for maternity coverage. I don’t know of any family that didn’t pay for maternity coverage before Obamacare except for women who had hysterectomies. Now women who can’t have children have to pay for maternity coverage.

  32. mike from iowa 2018-08-10 10:42

    Pompatus of Pablum seems to be arguing with hizownself and spewing questionable info.

  33. Jason 2018-08-10 10:43

    Mike, call Walmart and report back the price of birth control pills for us. I bet you won’t

  34. jerry 2018-08-10 11:35

    $20.00 to $60.00 without insurance. Co pays apply if you have drug coverage. Called and responded. I will be glad when middle school starts for you.

  35. Dana P 2018-08-10 11:37

    $5-$10 a month, Jason??? LMAO. What planet are you on?

    First, birth control needs a prescription. That takes a trip to the doctor. That takes way more than $5-$10, especially if you are uninsured. Birth Control can cost up to $600/year, plus the doctor appointment. A wee bit more than $5-$10/month, don’t you think?

    Like always, Jason avoids the topic and tries to distract. wash, rinse, repeat.

  36. Jason 2018-08-10 11:40

    Dana,

    Call Walmart and report back the price to us?

    Women should see a Doctor once a year no matter what.

  37. mike from iowa 2018-08-10 11:42

    ,I won’t call WalMart. You call them. Not every woman that uses birth control lives near or, heaven forbids, shops WalMart. Cheap birth control doesn’t work for everyone. None of them do.

    You are losing the argument by what you leave out.

  38. Jason 2018-08-10 11:42

    If you can’t afford $20 a month for birth control pills you shouldn’t be having sex.

  39. mike from iowa 2018-08-10 11:44

    What about all those pharmacists whose sincerely held racial prejudices preclude them from selling birth control at any cost to young women or POC, Muslims, etc?

  40. Porter Lansing 2018-08-10 11:52

    The topic is obnoxious, self consumed women forcing their religious rhetoric onto strangers.

  41. jerry 2018-08-10 11:58

    Ryan, your arrogance is showing. $60.00 bucks a month for birth control is only the beginning, In order to get those magic pills, you have to go to the doctor and that was not free and still is not.

    Dad’s have a responsibility and in this society, even more so with poverty and a dead end future for many young women that feel they need a man. We are all animals dude, we all need to copulate to populate. We call that nature. So if you cannot pay, don’t play.

  42. Debbo 2018-08-10 11:58

    It’s so entertaining to watch wingnut males argue about women’s reproduction. I can always count on the role of the male being mostly glossed over. Ryan did mention that; point for Ryan. Carry on boys. 🤗

    🎵Let me entertain you!
    Let me make you smile!🎶

  43. jerry 2018-08-10 12:02

    Did you read your linky Comrade Jason? “Here’s the not so good, but then again, not necessarily bad news. It’s only 2 pills – Sprintec and Tri-Sprintec, generic versions of Ortho Cyclen and Ortho Tricyclen. Not necessarily my first choice of pills, but not necessarily bad ones, either. For most women, these are fine – in fact, more than fine – pills.”

    Keep in mind that this is today we are speaking of. We have the ACA/Obamacare and you can see savings. In the past, this was not available. Thanks Obama and thanks Democrats for being real Americans.

  44. Jason 2018-08-10 12:03

    Jerry,

    That article was from 2007. So if they are $10 now, then the ACA made them more expensive.

  45. Ryan 2018-08-10 13:04

    So maybe we take a vote…?

    Are people on this blog more bothered by hundreds of thousands of abortions being performed in the US each year, or by strangers who talk to you and attempt to influence you in public about personal issues (such as abortion)?

    Because I am an introvert and generally dislike talking to strangers, and because stranger’s lives aren’t all that important to me, I would say a person trying to talk to me in line at a drive thru one time bothers me more than a half million abortions annually. Apparently leslee and crew think the aborted fetuses are more of a problem and is willing to bother a few introverts to further her cause.

  46. jerry 2018-08-10 13:06

    Comrade Jason, I cannot help that you post 11 year old drivel, which only seems fitting as it pertains to your actual age, son.

    Everything costs more as years go by, like houses, pot, cars, combines, anvil’s, beer etc. so there ya go, birth control went up in the last 11 years, alert the news.

  47. Porter Lansing 2018-08-10 13:20

    HC … Lots of things about abortion bother me. Most have to do with men (not the father) involving themselves in women and their Doctor’s medical decisions.

    For the record: You told us a few years ago that you are a gay man. Is that true? It’s none of my business but the transsexual wannabe going by “Jason” claims you told him you’re straight.

  48. Ryan 2018-08-10 13:29

    porter, I don’t know who jason is in real life, or who HC is, or who you are, but you strike me as a total piece of $hit.

    Just sayin.

  49. Porter Lansing 2018-08-10 14:00

    Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

  50. Porter Lansing 2018-08-10 19:14

    There are 20 Catholic hospitals in South Dakota. The trend is for them not to inform patients of the procedures they refuse to perform until it’s often too late.
    ~ Many Catholic health care institutions do not make clear up front that they have a religious affiliation, nor what procedures they won’t perform, a New York Times analysis found.
    One patient, Jennafer Norris was told after a dangerous and unplanned pregnancy that despite her wishes, a doctor wouldn’t tie her tubes to prevent another one. Ms. Norris was stunned.
    “If we were informed, we would have had time to make an informed choice on the best medical care for our pregnancy and unborn baby,” Ms. Norris said.

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