Self-serving Blog Entry

Along with my duties here at 2PJ, I also write a column for The Front. My latest can be found here. It begins like this:

A few months ago, the Pittsburgh City Council voted 6-3 on an ordinance that’s got some local (and nearly local) folks annoyed. While the title reads, “Public Safety at Health Care Facilities,” and the text is very general about “health care facilities,” it’s really about what goes on in front of the city’s abortion clinics. The ordinance sets up boundaries, of sorts, for the people who protest outside of the clinics. Since it was passed, the outer limits of the zones were spray painted onto the sidewalks of Liberty Avenue. If you walk down that side of the street, you’ll see them.

I wanted to see exactly what happened outside the clinic every Saturday morning. It was an odd experience. The "streetcorner counsellors" and the "clinic escorts" all knew their jobs and did them with practiced precision.