Major protest activity in Aurora, IL

In Illinois today, a federal judge is expected to hear an intriguing argument in the abortion debate. At issue: Is Aurora, Ill., a city of nearly 175,000 about an hour's drive west of Chicago, trying to stop Tuesday's scheduled opening of the nation's largest Planned Parenthood clinic because of political pressure from anti-abortion activists? Or was the clinic's true nature - that is, its Planned Parenthood genesis - not readily apparent to city officials when they originally approved permits for the building? Or is it a bit of both? The case is already one of the most heated in the nation's grassroots abortion wars, and protests in Aurora this past weekend drew hundreds of anti-abortion demonstrators.

And the most recent letter from Planned Parenthood if you want to get involved:

Dear Sarah,

Planned Parenthood is under attack.

To be absolutely clear: the largest anti-choice protest we've seen in a very long time is happening at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Illinois, at this very moment.

It's easy to ignore if you don't live there or aren't a woman trying to seek health care services at the clinic. But I hope you won't ignore it, because what's happening in Aurora is what's happening to all of us who care about choice in America.

We are facing no less than the most emboldened protest by the most radical anti-choice people I've ever encountered. They've made our brand new health center in Aurora ground zero in their fight against women's access to health care. And they are determined to keep our clinic from ever opening.

If there was ever a time for us to ask for help from our pro-choice friends and family — this is it.


First, take a simple action that demonstrates how much support Planned Parenthood and the women we serve have from all over the country. Click here to tie a hot-pink ribbon at the clinic — one ribbon for every supporter.
Then, tell your circle of friends and family what's happening in Aurora and what it means for access to reproductive health care and choice for all of us.
If you know people in the Chicago area, encourage them to put up a lawn sign or volunteer (For more information, please call 312.592.6890 or email volunteer@ppca.org).
The protesters are determined to stop us, it's true. But we're taking this battle into our own hands — and into YOUR own hands. We're determined to open this clinic any day now, and with more warmth, more strength, and more solidarity with our supporters across the country than ever before.

Thank you for doing your part today.

Sincerely,


Cecile Richards
President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

P.S. Thank you for your action today — if you can, we’d be grateful for your financial support as well. Any amount will help.

Amazing book art!

I'm absolutely awed by these (link ganked from yendi)

(oh, and grf, it was Wim Delvoye's work I was talking about in regards to the stained glass and x-rays)

Activism and psychology

Protesting is good for you, say psychologists
A study by psychologists at the University of Sussex has found that as well as potentially changing the world, participation in protests and demonstrations is actually good for you.
This is one of the findings of a large-scale interview study led by Dr John Drury, Lecturer in Social Psychology, into protest crowds and social movements, often known as 'collective action'.

"Many published activist accounts refer to feelings of encouragement and confidence emerging from experiences of collective action," says Dr Drury. "But it is not always clear how and why such empowerment occurs, so we aimed to explain what factors within a collective action event contribute most to such feelings."

The study involved in-depth interviews with nearly 40 activists from a variety of backgrounds, in which over 160 experiences of collective action were described. The range of events described by interviewees included traditional marches, fox-hunt sabotages, anti-capitalist street parties, environmental direct actions, and industrial mass pickets.


"The main factors contributing to a sense of empowerment were the realization of the collective identity, the sense of movement potential, unity and mutual support within a crowd," says Dr Drury.

"However, what was also interesting was the centrality of emotion in the accounts. Empowering events were almost without exception described as joyous occasions. Participants experienced a deep sense of happiness and even euphoria in being involved in protest events. Simply recounting the events in the interview itself brought a smile to the faces of the interviewees."

Psychologists have become increasingly interested in the role of positive experiences and emotions not just in making people feel good but also in promoting psychological and physical health. Uplifting experiences are associated with a variety of indicators of well-being, such as speed of physiological recovery; ability to cope with physical stressors; and the reduction of pain, anxiety and depression.

"Collective actions, such as protests, strikes, occupations and demonstrations, are less common in the UK than they were perhaps 20 years ago," says Dr Drury. "The take-home message from this research therefore might be that people should get more involved in campaigns, struggles and social movements, not only in the wider interest of social change, but also for their own personal good."

Interesting, and very true to my experiences, but I do have questions about the inherent bias in the sample -- how do these people compare with others? Is this a case where people who are drawn to mass movements do, indeed, get lots out of them personally, but it's not true that you could dump any random person into a compatible protest event and have that effect, or is the effect valid across wider groups? I particularly wonder about introvert/extrovert measures, for example. Do groups of protestors skew toward extrovert?

Anyway, just a quick note about it, because phones are busy, but I wanted to mention it.