While I personally like to imagine that police officers in Bangor, Maine, pass their time simply by posting memes about the department’s ‘Duck of Justice’ on Facebook and stuffing stale donuts into their strained pockets for later, two harrowing tragedies actually occurred in the greater Bangor region this weekend: On Saturday night—within the span of one hour—an alleged drunk driver collided with a motorcyclist who was pronounced dead on the scene, and someone doodled a polite message about abortion on the sidewalk in front of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) home with chalk, a notoriously water-soluble medium. Both resulted in police investigations.
That’s correct: Collins well and truly called the cops over a note on the *public* sidewalk in front of her home asking her to please codify Roe v. Wade, instead of simply, say, hosing it off or better yet, ignoring it and waiting for the next rainfall.
“Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —–> vote yes, clean up your mess,” the aggressively non-threatening message read, according to a Bangor police report. WHPA refers to The Women’s Health Protection Act, which—if passed—would codify the right to abortion into federal law. Let’s take a look at this deeply criminal sidewalk abomination…
[O]f the vibrant vandalism on Collins’ sidewalk—which was removed by Monday morning, according to the Bangor Daily News—the senator said: “We are grateful to the Bangor police officers and the City public works employee who responded to the defacement of public property in front of our home.”
Frankly, it’s rich that the very people hellbent on ensuring not a one of us get any semblance of privacy or bodily autonomy are simultaneously—and shamelessly—prioritizing their own supposed safety from chalk drawings and conflating peaceful protest with violence. As Jezebel’s Kylie Cheung wrote this week:
“Violence is children going to bed hungry in a country that refuses to tax billionaires. Violence is a higher education system so wildly unaffordable that predominantly poor people of color have no other viable options but to enlist in the US military, into which the US poured $801 billion last year alone. And violence is sure as hell the highest maternal mortality rate among wealthy nations, higher maternal mortality rates in states with more abortion restrictions, Black women being 243% more likely than white women to die from pregnancy and birth-related complications.”
No one asked, but here’s my advice to protestors everywhere, and especially in Bangor, Maine: For fuck’s sake, don’t say please next time.
This is so great because if anyone is caught impeding or messing with these deliveries, it’s MAIL, that makes it a FEDERAL crime, whoever fucks with these packages gets charged FEDERALLY, they face up to five years in prison.
[ID: A tweet by @ nytimes that reads, “Breaking News: Women can get abortion pills by mail for pregnancies up to 10 weeks without seeing a doctor in person, the FDA ruled. The decision comes as the Supreme Court considers whether to roll back abortion rights or even overturn Roe v. Wade.” Attached is a link to the article and a screenshot of the title and subtitle of the article. The article was published Dec 16, 2021. The title reads, “F.D.A. Will Permanently Allow Abortion Pills by Mail” and the subtitle reads, “The decision will broaden access to medication abortion, an increasingly common method, but many conservative states are already mobilizing against it.” /end ID]
