(Posted originally April 27, 2004)
The responses to the first post were amazing, and so many wrote me to share their grief, even relatives of women who had abortions. We got them in touch with ministries that can help them heal. It was all worth it, if one woman can find healing. And if one more decides not to abort, for whatever reason, that’s one less woman who will be physically damaged by abortion, and someday, cry.
All day at the march, I could see so many of the women who looked sad when they saw my sign, also read my T-shirt, which said, Rachel's Vineyard. They are now one Internet search away from finding a phenomenal source of caring people and healing.
[except that search engines are probably algorithming you away from ever seeing such links, now.]
(Men too, and other relatives, like uncles and grandparents of aborted babies, by the way, are welcome at Rachel’s Vineyard. You don't have to be Catholic, or even Christian. There was a Jewish man on my retreat weekend, everyone there in strictest confidence, and wherever the name “Jesus” was used, they simply said, “Yahweh” for this man.)
The pro-abortion marchers weren’t the only ones with hateful signs and words. Right across the street from me, I also saw the sign bragging about having "popped the abortion doc" (i.e., killed him). It made me so angry I wished I could have gone over and ripped it to shreds myself.
I heard the obscene, antagonistic “pro-life” screaming, and I too object to the bloody pictures. Last year, when I’d first gone to offer compassionate help to the women going into the same abortion clinic where I had my own abortion, I saw someone bring out the huge photo of the dismembered head (missing the lower jaw) of an aborted baby. My son was there with me. I had to turn away; I started retching and almost threw up right there on the sidewalk. My son said, “Mom, don’t look at it!”
That was the first time I’d seen photos such as that. When they tried to show me those pictures 25 years ago, I refused to look. So it wouldn’t get to me. I got so good at blocking out all thought of what I was doing, it lasted for 22 years.
I am ambivalent about showing those pictures ever, but thought they didn’t have a place counter-protesting at that march. I know some women have said the pictures were what changed their minds against abortion. But I still think a positive message of offering help, real here-and-now, survival help, is the message better sent, than one of horror.
You see, there had been a man in his 80s on the sidewalk when I had my abortion, and he's still there, screaming at the women. A so-called "Catholic," but he isn't. He screamed at me then, “You’re a murderer!” He still does, at the same place where I offer compassionate help. He also still says to the women, "If you die on that table in there now, you deserve to die!" I cringe each time; I've tried everything to stop him. I befriended him over a year ago, and later quietly asked him one day, "Did I deserve to die too?" He looked down, shamefaced, and mumbled, "No." I said, "Neither do these girls." But did that stop him? No, unfortunately. I'd give both arms to silence him and all like him. But despite his venom, my friends and I have helped between 1 and 8 women each of 2 days a week to realize they don't have to have abortions, that there is a lot of love and help for them, from us and the centers we know offer this. And they are so thankful someone finally offered them the real help they needed.
At the march, I also saw the abhorrent "God hates you" signs of other counter-protesters in the distance. God doesn't hate anyone. The people with those signs, saying hateful things to the marchers or to women at clinics, need a lot of help, and for those of us who pray, our prayers. Seriously. They may not learn until it is perhaps too late for them, that they've not only gotten God's Word all wrong, but they've disgusted many people who otherwise might not have rejected God's love and blessings.
Operation Witness, a separate group with its own permit, told all their joiners, in writing, to bring none of the bloody photos, so I don’t know who those people were. And there was one person arrested, I believe, for throwing inkpaint-eggs, although it’s questionable now whether it was a pro-lifer who threw it because there was a photo [now gone from even the Wayback Machine] that looked like it was a pro-lifer who got it in the face. Either way, it’s shameful.
At the actual start of the march, we in our Silent No More group in our permitted place on the sidewalk found ourselves being bumped out of the way by one of the antagonistic “pro-life” groups. Neither they nor the pro-death “pro-lifers” were part of our group; we possessed the only legal permit for the side of the street and that corner that we were on. Police shooed away from their original sites across the street, the “God Hates You” ones and braggarts praising killers of abortion doctors. I watched one of those hate-filled groups try to usurp our spot. We immediately asked the police to move them up the block past us because we didn’t want to be considered part of their hateful, pro-death, “holier than thou” message. We did not succeed, to our horror and dismay, so they were interspersed with our women and men on a packed sidewalk. I don’t know where the death-braggart sign ended up. I do know it had been across the street from me.
This comingling against our will or our control became a flashpoint in our comboxes the next day. A pro-choice commenter attacked me personally:
Oh yes, I saw you Annie, and some of your friends. You love life so much you allowed people with signs praising jim kopp for killing bernard slepian to march along with you. You regret your abortion or you regret the fact that more abortionists with families of their own aren't murdered? I would have taken you a lot more seriously if you werent there with people praising murderers…Of course you aren't interested in setting up shelters for these poor and abused women [made pregnant by husbands who force them into sex and pregnancy] but at least think of them when trying to take away the choices of others...
Jay | 04.27.04 - 3pm
This is where The Raving Atheist commented:
Jay - As the blackest, darkest, nastiest atheist you will ever meet, I can guarantee you that the people on this site are the kindest and most caring I have ever encountered.
The Raving Atheist | 04.28.04 - 6:12 pm