Wichita, Kansas had been abortion-clinic-free for several years, ever since someone shot and killed George Tiller in church. Now, however, a new clinic, the South Wind Women’s Center, has opened in the same spot, and it has anti-choice forces all up in a tizzy. They are taking a novel approach this time, however. They are asking the city to change the area’s zoning to “non business” so that South Wind cannot operate there, because they say the clinic will cause noise disruptions.

According to the Wichita Eagle, abortion opponents are citing several reasons that the clinic shouldn’t be allowed to operate in the community: several gun incidents that occurred when Tiller practiced there, the lack of communication between the clinic’s security staff and the anti-abortion activists to “defuse violence” before it occurs, the level of “antagonism” between the the clinic’s escorts and the anti-choice protesters, and the fact that it may be “inappropriate” for school children to see graphic signs and protests affiliated with the clinic.

So basically, the very same people who would be causing the noise are complaining about the possibility of noise. Don’t get me started on the “defuse violence” argument. This strikes me as a classic diversion tactic used by abusers: “Look what you made me do.” They regard loud, disruptive protests—complete with “graphic signs”—as some sort of natural result of a clinic opening in their town. Some (not all) even seem to regard violence as a likely outcome, with little to no thought of the moral agency of the people committing the violence:

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: What about showing some personal responsibility, anti-choicers? What about accepting that a clinic’s mere existence is not actually provoking you to do anything, whether it’s shoot someone or merely yell invective at them as they go about their business? But personal responsibility is so 2012 (unless you are black). We’re in a new era now, where the mere existence of free birth control means you have to take it and abortion providers are making you harass them just by existing. Willpower is dead.

Photo credit: By Anthony Appleyard (talk).Anthony Appleyard at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.