Glee in the Anti-Abortion Crowd
Bader, Eleanor J.
By Eleanor J. Bader Illustration by Kelly Mudge Glee in the Anti-Abortion Crowd It is two months after the Supreme Court voted to ban dilation and extraction, popularly known as "partial birth...
...He also suggests getting each state to outlaw partial birth abortion...
...Don't rush at the women," she advises...
...This proves that the Court is serious and that reasonable regulations will be upheld...
...It's the reason I'm in the race for President, to right this wrong, to stand up and fight for life...
...The crowd— 500-plus mostly middle-aged-to-elderly Caucasians, evenly split between men and women—hoots and hollers...
...Hillary Clinton takes repeated knocks...
...Raimundo Rojas, National Right to Life Committee's Hispanic outreach coordinator, can't help but lambaste the U.N...
...Look," she tells conferees, "at least 25 percent of women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine have had abortions...
...Paul captures the unifying thread...
...It makes me feel dirty, but we have to do this because people don't know...
...delegates appointed by Chavez...
...They should see their unborn child," he says...
...Former fetus opposed to abortion...
...By Eleanor J. Bader Illustration by Kelly Mudge Glee in the Anti-Abortion Crowd It is two months after the Supreme Court voted to ban dilation and extraction, popularly known as "partial birth abortion," and the mood at the thirty-fifth annual National Right to Life convention in Kansas City, Missouri, is upbeat...
...Several speakers refer to the Clinton News Network—that's CNN—as something to avoid...
...Despite an array of seventy-two workshops, I am intrigued by one entitled "Lost Fatherhood" and decide to attend...
...Like other speakers, Bopp rails against the recently reintroduced Equal Rights Amendment: "If the ERA were to pass, none of the restrictions on abortion would survive...
...Brownback is the clear favorite...
...We need to "talk about the fact that there are men out there who are willing to raise a child...
...The denial of that has hurt a lot of guys," he says...
...Federal laws are enforced by federal prosecutors who are busy chasing terrorists and mobsters...
...Why, it's enough to give pro-abortionists the vapors...
...She is a regular contributor to The Brooklyn Rail, the New York Law Journal, Lilith, the Public Eye, The Indypendent, and Women's eNews...
...The delegates used to dress in Prada and Gucci and were always elegant," he says...
...He then goes on, pledging to oppose gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, euthanasia, and easy access to emergency contraception...
...Planned Parenthood presents itself as being about choice, but we know that choice equals abortion...
...As if on cue, people rise to their feet, clapping and shouting for several minutes...
...Plenty of T-shirts and bumper stickers are available...
...Their goal is to win additional concessions from the courts, limit abortion access in the states, and keep anti-abortion advocates in elected office...
...Franks reveals her multitiered strategy: Hit funders with boycott threats, denounce Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's shameful ties to eugenicists, and craft PR campaigns to publicize the group's pro-sex ethos...
...The threat to our culture is real and those in a position to do something must take action to protect life...
...Anne Dierks, director of Project Rachel in Little Rock, Arkansas, agrees...
...Unresolved pain comes out in symptoms, and I see men suffering from depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and an inability to bond with new children, stepchildren, their spouses, or God...
...In April, a five-member Court majority found that banning partial birth abortion did not impose an undue burden...
...How, then, to fight Goliath, the moniker given to Planned Parenthood...
...In a workshop on the aftermath of abortion, she describes Project Rachel, an eleven-week counseling program for Catholic women who have had abortions...
...If we don't include men, we are doing the opposite of what we say we want to do: Help victims of abortion...
...Let people know that Planned Parenthood promotes teen sex play, mutual masturbation, oral sex, and cybersex," she says...
...We need to tell people that their website, TeenWire, is pornographic...
...Angela Franks, a theologian with a doctorate from Boston College, has created www.pphurtsgirls.org...
...James Bopp Jr., general counsel to the National Right to Life Committee, argues that the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey remains paramount...
...Be sure to include civil penalties so someone can sue to stop a doctor from performing partial birth abortions...
...Abortion is the great moral crisis of the day...
...For three June days, the anti-abortion movement celebrates its advances and plots strategy for making even more gains...
...But the Lord told her to dry her tears, that there is hope for her future.' " Yet for all the talk about compassion, Dierks consistently refers to women who have had abortions as "mothers of dead children...
...But Casey promised that there could be reasonable regulation of abortion as long as it did not impose an undue burden on women...
...The issue," he tells them, "is whether the fetus is human and deserves the protection of law...
...He asserts that feminism is also culpable...
...Hasek, a licensed marriage and family therapist, currently works for a Christian counseling service in Oregon...
...If abortion was considered necessary for the equal protection of women, every decision since Roe would be thrown out...
...Despite the rhetoric about ending abortion, many workshop leaders are circumspect about overturning Roe...
...The answer is no, emphatically no," Bopp says...
...Don't shout...
...These themes get a boost from three Republican Presidential hopefuls—Senator Sam Brownback, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Representative Ron Paul—who address the conference...
...David O'Steen, the executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, describes "Hillarygate," Clinton's defeated health care reform, for example, as an un-American attempt to curtail the free market...
...She calls it a "healing ministry" that enables the woman to get on with her life post-abortion...
...Some may be hardcore pro-choicers, but not all are...
...Facilitators Dave Wemhoff and Greg Hasek begin by confessing that they had both gotten their girlfriends pregnant and had supported their abortion decisions, only to face feelings of guilt and shame years later...
...They include: "No matter how small, a person is a person...
...The audience laughs and many bolt out of their chairs to give her the day's first standing ovation...
...No one wants to see gory pictures of bloody body parts...
...Wanda Franz, the National Right to Life Committee president, opens the confab by declaring "the end of court-imposed radical feminism...
...They often equate sex with love and will choose love from a man over having a child...
...Wemhoff, an attorney and professor at Tri-State University in Indiana, calls male supremacy "the natural law, the will of God...
...Then Chavez comes into power and we have hairy-legged feminists in burlap who won't talk to us...
...They're there and we need to reach out and offer them the words of Jeremiah: 'Rachel mourns her children because her children are no more...
...Oddly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is also slammed...
...A companion program, called Project Joseph, does the same thing for men, she says...
...I want to be the President who appoints the Eleanor J. Bader is a teacher and writer from Brooklyn, New York...
...Nonetheless, Hasek does not cast full blame on abortion...
...I know this is hard to talk about...
...For his part, Romney opens by confessing that he made errors early in his political career...
...At the same time, she cautions activists against aggressive "sidewalk counseling" outside clinics...
...For the pro-abortion side, this is a catastrophic turn...
...Bopp then lays out an agenda for advocates, urging them to push for mandatory ultrasound exams for women seeking abortions...
...I now know that abortion has cheapened the idea of life...
...In addition to going to workshops and plenaries, attendees mingle, pray, and shop...
...Men don't say, 'Hi, I'm struggling with abortion.' They're angry, and the men who are kept out of the decision to abort are the angriest...
...and "You can't be a Christian and a Democrat...
...After instructing the audience to "speak truth gently and not in bitterness," Brownback looks out at the group and beams...
...These are men in crisis, about to lose their families, and one of the pains in their lives is abortion...
...That's 25 percent of the women sitting next to you at work, on an airplane, or in church...
...I'm a convert to the pro-life position," he begins, "just like Henry Hyde and George Bush Sr...
...After all of our hard work," Franz chuckles, "we've earned the right to enjoy watching progressives become unhinged...
...Many wave the small American flags that were handed to them as they entered the ballroom...
...Men are to protect and provide, building a family and caring for women and children...
...They should hear the beating heart...
...Is Roe ready to fall...
...Supreme Court judge who will overturn Roe," Brownback tells the crowd...
...Women look to men for decisions," he says...
...My counseling center deals exclusively with sexual addiction," he says...
...State laws are enforced by state lawmakers," he continues...
...The cry for relief from emotional pain, the cry for love, is always louder than the cry for God...
...Planned Parenthood trades on the fact that it is treated as benignly as the Boy Scouts," Franks begins...
...Women have been wounded by abortion since 1973, and we responded when we realized we needed to do more for them," Hasek adds...
...We need to target businesses that support them...
...Justice Blackmun must be spinning in his cold grave," Franz continues...
Vol. 71 • September 2007 • No. 9
