Author: Tech

One former clinic escort and pro-choice activist recounts the following:

“I was told to antagonize the pro-lifers and I made the girls throw out any pro-life literature before entering the clinic. … We would tell them, `Those people out there are terrorists, it’s safer in here. They’re crazy.’ I even told one group, `That woman out there was just released from Meadowview Mental Hospital. Don’t talk to her; she killed her family’. … As soon as I got here last August, I joined the “Freedom of Choice Action League.” They’re big at Pine and Market… the clinic director tells us, every time we beat up the pro-lifers, to cover their cameras. … I wrote [an editorial to the Wichita Eagle] that pro-abortionists displayed sex toys in front of children and how they dumped semen and urine on people at national rescues. I personally defaced churches, LIFE, Inc., and HopeNet. I apologize for that. … “

Former pro-abortion activist Raymond Rivera

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Operation Rescue was a pro-life group that staged demonstrations and sit ins at abortion clinics in the 1990s. They were often opposed by pro-choice activists to sometimes instigated violence. according to one such activist:

“We decided to link arms and snake our way in front of the antis [anti-choicers – pro-lifers] and block as much of the perimeter as we could. We moved quickly and the antis and police were caught unaware. It seemed like slow motion but it was probably only about 30 seconds: We were in. The antis started whining to the police and pointing fingers. “They’re pushing! We were here first!” they said. Too bad! We came to Wichita to keep this clinic open and right is on our side!”

Wichita Journals: On the Front Lines for Reproductive Freedom by Brooke & Margo, Seattle Refuse & Resist!

Also:

“At a little before noon, we left the clinic for Woodard Park, the site of Operation Save America’s abhorrent “fetus funeral.” A tiny white coffin…[we] held a pro-choice speak-out to remember the real human lives lost in the struggle for abortion rights: the seven abortion providers who have been murdered at the hands of the antis…We also spent time talking about our own experiences with abortion. Our stories countered the lies designed to make women feel ashamed of making the responsible choice to have an abortion and determine the destinies of our own lives.”

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Operation Rescue was an organization that picketed abortion clinics and sometimes blocked them. All the participants signed a pledge to be nonviolent and nonconfrontational. Pro-choice writers and activists portrayed them as being violent, but in reality they usually conducted very peaceful sit ins.

The following passage is an excerpt from the March 1989 publication entitled “Clinic Defense: A Model,” by the Bay Area Coalition Against Operation Rescue (BACAOR)

“Isolate and humiliate. It is critical to separate in some way the resident OR leader or troublemakers. We assign them a particular escort and do our best to isolate them from the others by getting them to lose their cool, look foolish, argue with us, etc. Although in general sexual jokes or extreme harassment are not useful with the OR picketers, if baiting an OR about his treatment of women, his sexuality, and how many times he masturbates will keep him from bothering clients and from being able to effectively direct the others, do it. Remember, we are under no obligation to be polite to these people … They have already broken Miss Manners code by being at the clinic at all … Confining our behavior toward OR to the legal realm has distinct limitations.”

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“About a year ago, I began to wonder what could be done about the Pregnancy Problem Action Centre, a Right to Life front, which tells young women terrifying lies about abortion. I decided that bombing them would just make them feel more righteous and martyred, give them more ammunition in their ‘holy war.’ Without their financial power and access to the media, graffiti [sic] seemed like an appropriate way to shriek defiance at them. One graffiti I did was on a church wall. I put ‘Isn’t your God a Misogynist?’ It helped break one of my own taboos, while expressing my anger at religion. It felt good.”

Anonymous pro-abortion vandal, quoted in Jill Posener’s book Louder Than Words

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“I resent strongly the charges that I am a murderer, a killer, a devil. I resent the right [of demonstrators] to sit-in at my clinic. If they ever do that to my clinic again, it’s to the death. Only one of us is coming out of there.”

Bill Baird, quoted in The Idaho Statesman, November 19, 1981.

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“I think it’s [picketing] religious persecution. These ‘good Christians’ don’t respect anyone else’s religion.”

Marilyn Buckham, director of the Buffalo GYN Womenservices Clinic, after the abortionist who worked there attacked and seriously injured a pro-life picketer with a baseball bat. Quoted in Paul Likoudis. “Buffalo Abortionist Attacks Pro-Lifers with Baseball Bat.” The Wanderer, December 15, 1988, page 1.

 

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“Most feminists, predictably, can’t stand them [pro-life women]…Anti-abortion feminist groups have been banned from ERA rallies, rebuffed in their attempts to join consortiums of women’s groups, and forbidden to meet in campus women’s centers. The rift has been present since the earliest days of the women’s movement. Pat Goltz, the member of Ohio NOW who founded FFL in 1972, was asked and then forced to give up her NOW membership because of her anti-abortion activities. NOW’s president Molly Yard says that she would meet the same fate today. “I don’t know how someone can be a feminist if she’s not for a woman’s right to her own life,” she says. Seventeen years later, seven-term congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar of Ohio is consistently refused endorsement by women’s organizations because she opposes abortion, even though she has been a leading supporter of the ERA, pay equity, and aid for poor and elderly women.”

Pamela Ehrens. “Anti-Abortion, Pro-Feminism?” Mother Jones, May 1989, pages 31 and 45.

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A Portland Oregon Feminist Women’s Health Care Center worker, who expected and prepared for an Operation Rescue demonstration that never happened, had this to say:

“The lesson I learned is that it’s still terrorism whether or not the threat is ever realized.”

She calls simple picketing “terrorism.” In the statistics of “Pro-Life” violence, picketing and leafleting are generally included.

From “The Clinic Attack That Wasn’t.” Feminist Women’s Health Center Newsletter [Portland, Oregon], Summer 1993, page 8.

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“Every time someone says something inflammatory i.e. ‘Abortion kills babies. Abortion doctors murder babies’ they contribute to another clinic bombing. … If people want to think horrible things about abortion, that’s their business. But I want it to become politically incorrect and socially unacceptable to say such inflammatory things.”

Michelle Farley, administrator of the “New Woman All Women Health Care” abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, quoted in Jennifer Gonnerman. “Cheerleaders For Violence.” The Village Voice, November 3-9, 1998.

The vast majority of pro-lifers oppose all forms of violence against abortion providers, and must continue to do so if the movement is ever going to win over the hearts of everyday people. It is very important to oppose violence in the pro-life movement both on a large scale (bombing, murder) and on a small scale (insults, hatred, vicious comments). But abortion providers like Michelle Farley are attempting to force pro-lifers to abandon their cause, using the pretense that simply being pro-life and speaking out against abortion is causing violence. Violence in the abortion debate is tragic, whether perpetuated by pro-choicers or pro-lifers – but the answer is not to abandon the movement.

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“Got a Tech 9 [gun]. Every gynecologist needs a Tech 9, so I could have more rounds, ’cause they were bringing me more Christians. There’s a Smith and Wesson .40 and a few rifles, for crowd control down at the [abortion clinic] office. Ya ever looked down [the barrel of] a gun? C’mon, it’s fun. … Pretend the Catholic hordes are after you.

Children of the Rosary is usually a very virulent, malicious group of harpies for Jesus. Kathy S— [leader of the group] is a double-butt ugly mean-spirited bitch. It’s reasonably apparent that she’s physically challenged. She’s just unattractive. Really, really unattractive. And I don’t understand why she has this hatred for women, but she’s one of these really mean-spirited Catholic misogynists who doesn’t like women.

Now you just have a bunch of Wal-Mart shoppers showing up out front. Retirees – it’s obvious just looking at them they’re retirees. They’re on a budget, they don’t have a lot of money, they have a lot of free time. And they’re looking for an ego feed. ‘Somebody tell me I’m important, please.’ They’ve never been important in their lives at all. So they come down here to my office, and they prey on people.

I’m smarter than the pro-lifers, I can form abstract thoughts. I’ll talk to the media and explain to them what’s going on.

Not all abortionists are champions of women – Dr. Finkel attacks a female protester by mocking her appearance. This Arizona abortionist Brian Finkel, is quoted in Amy Silverman. “The Terminator.” Downloaded from www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1999/061799/feature1-1.html to feature 1-7.html, the online edition of the weekly Phoenix New Times, on June 21, 1999
(Finkel was later convicted of molesting women who came to him for abortions)

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