The anti-choice protest 40 Days for Life began yesterday, and for the next forty days clients of Planned Parenthood will be subjected to harassment from protesters. The protest, which takes place during the forty days of Lent and forty days in the fall, focuses on reproductive health care facilities and specifically on Planned Parenthood. This protest has been happening for several years and each year they have expanded the protest to more locations around the country. However, locally the protest has received less media coverage and the amount of protesters who have continued the vigil throughout the protest has also diminished. But, something is different this time.
What makes this 40 Days for Life different is that it is the first protest since the former director of Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson resigned, and joined the organizer of the protest the Coalition for Life. When Johnson first resigned I was among the first to question the validity of the claims that she made against Planned Parenthood. Recently investigations by Texas Monthly, and the Texas Observer also raised questions about the legitimacy her conversion. Fellow KEOS radio show host and blogger, Shelly Blair, was interview for both of those stories, and appeared on Biased Transmission last night and gave more insight into those events.
That is the only thing that is different this time. Nothing has changed about the message of the protesters, and none of the information given to clients has become more factual. Nothing has change the fact that women need access to reproductive health care, and the protesters continue to harass and impede women's ability to access reproductive health care while having their privacy protected. Nothing has changed the dedication of the employees of Planned Parenthood, and the volunteers who escort patients into the facility. Nothing has changed except that there is a new face on the other side of the fence.
The Coalition for Life holds an annual fundraiser to finance its anti-choice agenda, and each year the even usually attracts about 1,500 people to hear a pro-life speaker. Last year former Arkansas governor and 2008 Republican primary presidential candidate Mike Huckabee spoke at the event. This year it is expected that former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson will speak at the event, but it was announced that the keynote speaker will be former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
According to the Coalition for Life's web site the reason that they have invited the former governor to speak at the event is because "Jeb Bush has been very consistent in keeping a pro-life record." Among the reasons that the Coalition cited for this invitation was also the former governor's "attempted to have the unborn child of a severely disabled woman be appointed a court guardian."
In 2003 22-year-old woman living in a group home in Florida was raped, the woman was mentally disabled and had the cognitive and emotional capacity of a 1-year-old child. In addition to this she also suffered from cerebral palsy, autism and was prone to violent seizures. These conditions would make it very difficult for a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, in fact death is a real possibility if a woman with these conditions where to attempt to deliver the baby. Despite these facts then Governor Bush decided that it was more important to ensure that the pregnancy was carried to term, and that the abortion that could save the mother's life should be prevented from happening. Because of the ensuing legal battle the woman was forced to carry the pregnancy to term despite the risk, but a Florida appeals court panel later ruled that the action could not be taken by the state.
For over a year and a half I have been a volunteer escort at the Planned Parenthood reproductive health care facility in Bryan, Texas; this particular facility is located in a town home to arguably the most conservative public university, Texas A&M, and is known as one of the most anti-choice areas in the country. Located just steps from Planned Parenthood is an organization that opposes reproductive rights, the Coalition for Life. The fence that surrounds Planned Parenthood serves as the frontline between those that support reproductive rights and those that opposed reproductive rights. This week someone crossed from one side of the fence to the other: the director of the Planned Parenthood joined the Coalition for Life. How could something like this happen? The story is more complicated than the mainstream media is reporting.
Early on Saturday mornings, the days during which surgical abortions are performed; I arrive at Planned Parenthood and walk through the double doors and sign-in on the volunteer check-in sheet. I put on the yellow and orange volunteer vest, and check out a security badge. Over the next several hours I spend my morning escorting clients into the facility. Volunteer escorts meet clients at their cars and welcome them to Planned Parenthood, and as soon as the clients open their car doors the protesters being shouting through the fence. Escorts simply walk clients from their automobiles to the front door of the facility, and this demonstrates to the clients that we are there to support them. After clients leave the facility escorts walk the clients back to their automobiles, and then ensure that they have a clear path out of the driveway.
The protesters outside of the facility will shout through the fence at the clients the entire time they are arriving and leaving. Also, the protesters will stand along the driveway holding brochures and pamphlets while attempting to get the clients attention. The brochures and pamphlets include factually inaccurate information and intellectually dishonest claims. Often the false link between abortion and breast cancer is claimed in the literature, despite the fact that according to the American Cancer Society "the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer." Also, the claim is made that women who have abortions will suffer "post-abortion syndrome," however, "post-abortion syndrome" is not recognized as a legitimate medical condition by either the American Psychological Association (APA) or the American Psychiatric Association.
It was during these mornings that I met Abby Johnson, the director of the Planned Parenthood in Bryan. Johnson was always open to talk about the issues dealing with reproductive rights, and I have always known her to be an outspoken and an opinionated advocate of reproductive rights. Sometimes Johnson would visit with the volunteer escorts in front of the facility, and complaints about the protesters seemed to always be one of the topics of conversation. When it comes to the protesters Abby had plenty to complain about. As a volunteer and then later as an employ of Planned Parenthood, she had seen times when the protesters were much more aggressive and much more hostile towards the clients, volunteers, and employees. In fact Johnson herself has been the victim of harassment, and even death threats. While Coalition for Life does not claim responsibility for the actions of all of the protesters, the Coalition for Life facilitates an atmosphere that contributes to those actions.
Every day during 40 Days for Life protesters stand in front of the fence at the Planned Parenthood in Bryan, and every day they spread misinformation and lies to the patients that utilize the clinic for reproductive health care. The protesters regularly attempt to pass information to the clients of Planned Parenthood both verbally and in written form. However, much of the information that the protesters try and give the clients is both intellectually dishonest and factually incorrect. Often false information is given about the services provided at Planned Parenthood and the facts about abortion and reproductive health care.
One of the pamphlets that are often given to clients, titled "10 Reasons to Avoid Planned Parenthood," includes several factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations. The first claim listed is that the services at Planned Parenthood focus only abortion, and that while over 6,000 abortions were performed less than 300 women received prenatal care. The truth is that according to annual reports abortion only makes up 7% of the total services provided at Planned Parenthood. Also Planned Parenthood does provide both prenatal care and adoption refers for women that chose not to terminate a pregnancy.
According to the Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas 2006 annual report, 87% of the patients visited Planned Parenthood for family planning: 89,611 out of the 103,004 patients. Also, 4,969 people were tested for HIV and counseled on prevention. Only 6,811 patients who visited all of the area Planned Parenthoods, including the Houston metropolitan area and Bryan-College Station, terminated pregnancies.
Another distortion of the facts include implying that surgical abortions are dangerous, even though less than 0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.
The anti-choice movement is not about abortion, but then again, the pro-choice movement is not about abortion either.
Today marks the first day of 40 Days for Life, an anti-choice movement that began in College Station, Texas. In 2004 the Coalition for Life began protesting outside of the Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas for the forty days of Lent. Protest of Planned Parenthood is nothing new, however, this protest was held for twenty-four hours a day for forty straight days. Throughout the day and night protesters stood in front of the fence with their heads bowed, or stood on the sidewalk holding up protest signs. Over the last several years the 40 Days for Life protest have expanded to twice a year, and according to the web site has spread 212 cities throughout the United States and in two other countries. Word has spread through social networking sites, and also through church communities.
The Coalition for Life likes to characterize the protest as peaceful, and emphasizes the prayer and display of protest signs. However, protesters regularly verbally target patients, volunteer escorts, and Planned Parenthood employees. The medical staff that works at Planned Parenthood has regularly been targets of verbal abuse, and some of the staff has received death threats. The volunteer escorts, who walk patients from their cars and are there as a welcoming presence, are also targeted by the protesters. The moment that a patient opens their car door the protesters begin shouting through the fence, and giving false information about reproductive health care and Planned Parenthood. In the past the Coalition for Life has distanced themselves from actions taken by protesters at Planned Parenthood, and does not take responsibility for the actions of the protesters.
Since the Supreme Court issued its decision on Roe v. Wade there has been a struggle in the United States over reproductive rights, and that struggle has included violence. This year for the first time since 1998 an abortion provider was murdered, and the rhetoric of the anti-choice movement has become increasingly vicious. After the murder of George Tiller in his church earlier this year, there is only one doctor in the country that specializes in late term abortions; Doctor Warren Hern is now the only place for women in the most difficult of circumstances to go if they need a late term abortion.
One of the most tragic things in the reproductive rights protest is the stories of women who have been actively involved in the anti-choice movement who then either desire or need an abortion. Those in the reproductive health care field have told me stories of patients that consider themselves pro-life but felt that their situation was justified. A doctor that performs abortion in Arkansas has told me stories of anti-choice protesters who would bring in their crying daughters to have an abortion at the very facility that they protested with the parents. In an article in Esquire magazine, Doctor Hern described one incident with a teenage patient:
"What brings you here? he asked. I have to have an abortion. Why? I'm not old enough to have a baby. But you told the counselor we should all be killed? Yes, you should all be killed. Why? Because you do abortions. Me too? Yes, you should be killed too. Do you want me killed before or after I do your abortion? Before."
There has been a discussion in the last few months of the extremism that has been surfacing in the public discourse over several issues and the most prominent of the issues is currently health care. The rhetoric from conservative lawmakers, commentators, and the blogosphere has been increasingly severe, although they have repeatedly denounced violence while invoking increasing vicious rhetoric. Across the country townhall meetings have erupted with constituents, who may have legitimate concerns, shouting down lawmakers and invoking violent and distasteful images; North Carolina Congressman Brad Miller received a death threat because of his support for the health care reform proposed by Congress.
However, this situation has been present in the reproductive rights debate for decades, and now that the relative calm of the Bush Administration is over another wave of violence may be around the corner. The murder of Doctor Tiller is not an isolated incident, nor was it perpetrated by a "lone wolf." Scott Roeder, the man accused of murdering Doctor Tiller, is involved in a fanatical network of anti-choice activist. According to a report by the Kansas City Star, since Roeder's arrest he has been visited in jail by the man behind the Army of God web site, two convicted clinic bombers, and several other radical anti-choice activists. One of the activists that visit Roeder said that they "support the shooting of George Tiller as justifiable homicide." This also comes after Roeder made a threat after Doctor Tiller's murder that there are "many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal."
Are Americans really more pro-life? The truth is that it is the wrong question. The question of whether or not someone identifies as pro-life or pro-choice has as much to do with the terms themselves that it does with their views on abortion.
A recent Gallup poll reported that 51% of those surveyed identified as pro-life, while 42% identified as pro-choice. For the first time since Gallup began polling on the subject in 1995 a majority of Americans self identified as pro-life. However, when you look at the public's specific views on the legality of abortion it has remained relatively constant over the last thirty-five years. Since 1975 at least 48% of those surveyed believe that abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, and at least 22% of those surveyed believe that abortion should be legal under all circumstances. While those surveyed who believe that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances has never had more than 22% and as low as 12%. Currently 53% of those surveyed believe that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances and 22% believe it should be legal in all circumstances.
CNN/Opinion Research Corporation asked if respondents would want the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe v Wade decision, and 68% of those surveyed did not want the decision overturned. Public opinion in support of Roe v Wade has remained constant, if not increasing, over the last twenty years. This is perhaps a much more truthful depiction of the public's overall opinion on abortion, there is a difference between a people self identifying as pro-life or pro-choice and their propensity to support legal abortion. Nate Silver of 538 notes "the terms 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' are at least somewhat fungible; years of Democrats saying things like 'I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don't think I have a right to impose my few on the rest of society'."
Today the Representatives from the Texas House of Representatives released a press release that promotes a bill to "prevent teen and unintended pregnancies" with no hope of actually preventing teen and unintended pregnancies.
VILLARREAL AND VAN DE PUTTE TEAM UP TO PREVENT TEEN AND UNINTENDED PREGNANCIES For Immediate Release
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
(SAN ANTONIO, TX) -- Representative Mike Villarreal (San Antonio) and Senator Leticia Van de Putte (San Antonio) jointly filed legislation aimed at reducing the teen birth rate in Bexar County and across Texas. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Texas has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation, with 63 births for every 1,000 female teens ages 15-19. This is more than 50 percent higher than the national average.
Last year, President Bush blessed us with Dr. Eric Keroack, a family planning czar who not only taught that condoms don't work, but who told us that women have much in common with rodents in heat.
Now, once again, a zealous opponent of birth control from the ranks of the Religious Right has been awarded the prize of running family planning programs for the entire country. That appointment gives Regent University alumna Susan Orr, Ph.D., the powerful position of advising the Department of Health and Human Services on "a wide range of reproductive health topics, including adolescent pregnancy, family planning, and sterilization, as well as other population issues."
As one astute commenter observes, that's "like the Flat Earth Society overseeing NASA."
In Life's Dominion, Ronald Dworkin posited that although most people believe that abortion is sometimes justifiable, they also believe it "a kind of cosmic shame when human life at any stage is deliberately extinguished."
Dworkin concluded that "because opinions about abortion rest on differing interpretations of a shared belief in the sanctity of human life, they are themselves essentially religious beliefs" -- which made the banning of abortion an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
But as self-styled political "moderates" decide that some forms of human life count more than others -- and that Christian conservative votes count most of all -- there's plenty of cosmic shame to go around.
Equipped to Serve is a popular training resource for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) or, as they call themselves among themselves, "pregnancy center ministries." The first of the "Seven Fundamentals" at Equipped to Serve begins as follows.
"Truth is a very different thing from fact. ... Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion."
Maybe that explains why the "truth" presented by CPCs strays so very far from the facts.
Human Life International (HLI), "the largest international, pro-life, pro-family, pro-woman organization in the world," is directed by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer. Euteneuer is a well-connected activist who has logged over 700,000 miles in his tireless crusade to eliminate safe abortion care both here and around the world. Now he's written a book about exorcism, and one of the demon-worshipers who's simply got to go is ... me.
The HLI site is headlined by an article titled "Abortion: The Devil's Masterpiece." It's heavily larded with the inflammatory language of hatred - including a charge that my colleagues and I literally worship the demon Moloch by supplying him with blood sacrifices of children - and Father Tom means every word of it.
If he wasn't such a man of peace, I'd think he was trying to get us killed.
Last week, Flip Benham's Operation Save America converged in Birmingham to "push what is left of the abortion industry into a deep grave." Writing of an OSA action against Birmingham clinics in 1994, Benham likened his mission to that of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Saints [were] held in the Birmingham jail where Rev. Martin Luther King wrote his letter. The battle we fight is the same, just a different colored glove. One colored glove: the humanity and equality of our black brothers and sisters. Second colored glove: the humanity and equality of our little brothers and sisters in their mother's wombs. Both gloves cover the hand of one who has come to rob, kill, and destroy -- the devil! The battle is the same.
Legitimate members of the clergy on the scene in Alabama this year included the Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, who witnessed a different kind of battle altogether.
What do you call a woman who has an abortion? A "murderous mom"? A victim rendered mentally incompetent by the hormone rush of pregnancy?
Do you call her your wife, your lover, your sister, your daughter . . . or somebody else's criminal?
Thoreau said, "The soul of man exists in the Contemplation of the nature of women behind bars." In this, as in so many things, he appears to have been right.
As the Army of God honors executed murderer Paul Hill in Milwaukee and Operation Save America descends upon the same clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph, Operation Rescue prepares to host its own event in Wichita. Its target is Dr. George Tiller, the object of a years-long crusade by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.
Besides the usual gang of suspects with shadowy pasts and dubious friends, this year's list of high-profile guest stars includes the president of a United States delegation to the United Nations.
While the Bible that the Christian Right is substituting for the Constitution these days maintains that "her price is far above rubies," those same people have decreed in various bans on abortion that the worth of any woman, no matter how virtuous, plummets at "that point in time when a male human sperm penetrates the zona pellucida of a female human ovum." From that moment forward, not only her body, her hopes and her dreams, but sometimes -— despite the hollow promise of tacked-on provisions allowing "a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother" — even her very life can be forfeit.
In their avid thirst for the blessing of the Christian right, GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback lined up last fall to prostrate themselves before James Dobson and Tony Perkins. In the grip of his own presidential fever, John McCain joined them in pimping the religious right's agenda.
Catholic bishops are frustrated by Rudy Giuliani, who says he is personally opposed to abortion, but would not impose his beliefs on the nation. Some Catholic bishops condemn Giuliani's more moderate position on abortion as "pathetic," saying "he shares the identical position on abortion as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.”
John Allen Jr., a senior correspondent for the ... National Catholic Reporter, said U.S. bishops who want to withhold Communion from Catholic politicians can find support in Pope Benedict XVI's comments — made to reporters en route to Brazil this year — that essentially endorsed the idea that Mexican legislators who voted to legalize abortion have separated themselves from the church.
"If you are an American bishop who is inclined to move in that direction, you're going to feel like the pope has got your back."
As Rick Santorum, Hillary Clinton, Sam Brownback and Barack Obama packed to attend Jim Wallis' Pentecost 2006, some wondered about Wallis' true agenda.
The source of Wallis' appeal is his apparent moderation, both political and theological. His argument is compelling in its simplicity: An overriding commitment to social justice is more basic to Christianity than the issues championed by Christian fundamentalists. But to prevail he must avoid seeming too militantly progressive. "The country is not hungry, I don't think, for a religious left to counter the religious right," Wallis [said]. "The country is hungry for a moral center."
Before his elevation as an "evangelical progressive" celebrity, together with a Who's Who of the Religious Right -- Gary Bauer, Charles Colson, James Dobson, Robert George, William Kristol, Beverly LaHaye, Richard Land, Bernard Nathanson, Frank Pavone and Ralph Reed -- Jim Wallis signed a lengthy document that said plenty about his moral center, culminating in a call for a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion entirely.
And to this day, Wallis has yet to repudiate a word of it.
Johnny Castle and Baby could have taken lessons from Texas Speaker of the House Tom Craddick and Joe Pojman of Texas Alliance for Life. With the Speaker's one-man rule of the House facing an unprecedented challenge from within his own party, with the passage of a high-impact antiabortion bill at stake, and with the Texas legislative session in its final days, Craddick and Pojman were caught dancing the political payola polka.
"One of the sources of irritation with the Speaker this session is the amount of blood spilled and floor time that has been committed to socially conservative issues," but Craddick and the "pro-life" lobby are longtime partners - and one good move deserves another.
In the Texas Legislature, dirty dancing is only politics as usual.
In The New Republic, Christine Stansell writes on "Partial Law: A Lost History of Abortion."
"Thank God for President Bush, and thank God for Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito," intoned Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention last week, after the Supreme Court announced its decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, the so-called partial-birth abortion case. But Land also should have thanked Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose majority opinion dangerously reframes the abortion debate.
Kennedy ... reasons that the ban on D&X procedures--the medical name for what the anti-choice movement calls partial-birth abortions--should be permitted because it is meant to protect women from making a choice that goes against their nature. "Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child," Kennedy declares. Concerned that women may learn the details of how the procedure is performed only after the fact, he writes, "The State has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed."
[:::]
In Kennedy's words, one hears the echo of the anti-choice movement's new emphasis on abortion as a de facto violation of something at the very core of women's being. Medical technicalities take up the bulk of the Court's majority opinion, but the reasoning concerns the nature of women and the integrity of their moral choices--an implicit rejection of the most mainstream tenets of modern feminism.
An implicit rejection of women's moral capacity or authority, an echo from the past - and a recapitulation of the arguments that made abortion illegal over a hundred years ago.
