On November 15, a new pro-abortion group, the Feminist Uprising to Resist Inequality and Exploitation (FURIE), protested the Women’s Center at Chicago located at 5116 N. Cicero Avenue. The center offers free counseling, pregnancy tests, and ultrasounds as well as financial assistance; but they do not offer abortions.
The protest was organized by one of Chicago’s newest feminist organizations, the “radically inclusive” Feminist Uprising to Resist Inequality and Exploitation (FURIE). FURIE took shape just a few months ago, but has already been involved in various protests and initiatives including this year’s SlutWalk Chicago.
The group included multiple alumni of Chicago’s Shimer College (a school with a deep feminist tradition), including Netiya Shiner of Shimer’s class of 2014.
As Shiner explained, “FURIE purposely does not have a hierarchical structure, meaning that all members of FURIE hold equal weight in the decision making processes.” FURIE contains multiple breakout groups that focus on specific causes; the CPC protest was organized by FURIE’s reproductive justice breakout group.
Ultimately, the main mission of their organization is to shut down all pregnancy centers. This is because they believe sidewalk counselors harass, threaten, and intimidate anyone seeking abortions at an abortion facility. Shiner, who works for the group, even goes as far to say that many regard the Women’s Center as a terrorist organization. However, most of the time it’s the abortion industry that manipulates and intimidates women. This is because they are often more concerned about their bottom line, which is to increase revenue by pressuring women to have abortions, than the health and safety of their patients.
For example, at abortion facilities women won’t find out that an unborn baby at 20 weeks can feel pain or that women have died at the hands of sloppy abortionists. In fact, in 2012 a woman named Tonya Reaves died at a Chicago-area Planned Parenthood after a botched 2nd trimester abortion. After the tragedy, the abortion giant had to pay a $2 million settlement to the family because of their part in her death. It is likely Reaves would have survived if she would have received immediate emergency care and if Planned Parenthood had shared medical information with the hospital related to her incomplete abortion and uterine perforation.
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At an abortion facility women also won’t find out that statistics show over 65% of post-abortive women struggle with emotional side effects or that suicide rates among women who have abortions are six times higher than those who give birth. This is information women will only find out at pregnancy centers.
Additionally, since the abortion industry knows that the majority of women who enter a pregnancy center choose life for their baby, they do everything they can to ensure that they never enter their doors. This makes it all the more important that these centers stay open so that women receive real help when facing an unplanned pregnancy.
