The Holy Water Spraying - Why Some Prolifers Are Wrong On This

On Jan 9 at an abortuary in Alabama,  a 70-year old pro-life activist named Joyce Fecteau was arrested.  Why she was arrested seemed somewhat nebulous at the get-go.  The Lifenews  posting said in its lead sentence that she was arrested "after sprinkling Holy Water on a public sidewalk" on December 22, 2012.  Only after we read the full article do we see that she "was reportedly not arrested for spraying Holy Water, but for another reason after she did so".  The emphasis is mine.  So right there we go from "sprinkling" to "spraying" and then we have this mysterious "other reason".  Right then and there I knew we weren't being told the full story.  I found it disconcerting that LifeNews did not disclose the precise nature of this "other reason".

An article about this on Lifesitenews has more detail.  The deathscort who was sprayed is Lisa Cox and she reports being hit in the face with the vapors.  Fecteau said that Cox was burning a "noxious substance" so she tried to spray it away.  She said she couldn't tell if it drifted onto Cox's face.

Jill Stanek's blog has a video of actual incident.  After viewing that, I have to opine that the lion's share of the blame does rest with Ms Fecteau.  I don't know why two weeks lapsed between the actual incident and the arrest but that doesn't change the facts depicted in the clip below.



Ms Fecteau is a sidewalk counselor.  So am I, and I speak as a sidewalk counselor. While we know we're doing the right thing, sometimes that knowledge can go to our heads and we can get downright cavalier when it comes to minding our own manners. Somehow we think that God will overlook our "little peccadillos" because we're "such great folks" for being on the front lines. Not so! We must be absolutely above reproach. The video clearly shows that, at best, Ms Fecteau was abysmally careless with the spray bottle. I saw another video (on LifeNews and LifesiteNews posts above) where there was much conversation between her and the police. If she was mouthing off to the cops (and yes, fellow prolifers, we have done that!), then I can see where they might have construed her actions to be deliberate.

When examining things such as this, we must be diligent to keep our own biases in check.  Unfortunately, both LifeNews and LifesiteNews fell short in that regard.