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Anti-abortion protesters keep vigil...but quietly
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Published: October 16, 2008
The protesters holding posters on the sidewalk across the street from a Winston-Salem Planned Parenthood office are projecting just the right image -- respectful citizens quietly exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and assembly.
It's a far cry from the stereotype of what many have come to expect when the words "pro-life rally" are strung together.
Instead of nearly hysterical mobs of far-right-wing loons chanting with all the fervor of the beer-hall putsch gangs and waving full-color photos of what they claim are aborted fetuses, we see small groups of the devout standing (mostly) silently on sidewalks holding (mostly) benign, inoffensive posters showing chubby little pink cherubs.
That is exactly the image that the anti-abortion crowd wants to project. Nobody likes an extremist.
"You don't see anything with aborted babies on it," said Toni Buckler, a campaign coordinator and one of the most dedicated among the local demonstrators. "Our whole purpose here is to say that life is a good thing."
Influence or intimidation?
To look at Buckler and a companion who were taking a shift last week on the sidewalk along Maplewood Avenue, you would be hard-pressed to say that this particular protest is unlawful or even out of line.
Organizers for the local group -- its members are part of a larger national campaign called 40 Days for Life -- say they have secured the right permits from the city, and it is true that demonstrators quickly step to the side to make room for pedestrians and work crews mowing the grass in front of an adjacent office building.
All of which makes it easy to forget that not terribly long ago, the most frenzied among the anti-abortion movement defined domestic terrorism. Anybody else remember the string of killings and bombings in the early 1990s? Does the name Eric Rudolph ring a bell?
The people protesting now say they abhor the violence perpetrated by extremists with the same fervor that they are using in their anti-abortion mission this month.
"Nobody's here to harass or intimidate anybody," Buckler said.
Which is an odd thing to say when appearances indicate that part of their purpose is to stare at young women who use Planned Parenthood's services, which, the last time I checked, were not limited to abortions and still perfectly legal.
"If the people going in are making that kind of decision (to have an abortion), they're not making it lightly," said Amber Westberg, a young woman who stopped in on her lunch hour recently to get birth-control pills. "Nobody needs that when you're going into that office."
Ballot measures coming up
If a handful of people stage a small protest along a quiet street in a medical park and nobody kicks up a ruckus in response, does anybody much care? Haven't we settled this question?
Not if ballot measures in South Dakota, Colorado and California are any indication.
Voters in California are being asked to approve a parental-notification law; in Colorado, they are being asked whether to define the term "person" as "any human being from the moment of fertilization"; and in South Dakota, residents are being asked to vote on a measure that would essentially ban abortion except in the case of rape, incest or threat to the woman's health.
If you think that abortion doesn't matter or doesn't bear further discussion, you should look around. Ignoring the issue won't make it disappear, no matter how much many of us would like for it to.
There is no middle ground in this debate. The rhetoric is as hot as ever, and passions continue to run high.
Only the tactics have changed. Instead of bombings and aborted fetuses, we have babies and ballot measures.
■ Scott Sexton can be reached at 727-7481 or at ssexton@wsjournal.com.
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