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January 19, 2003
That false dichotomy thing
From a (registration required) Chicago Tribune article, For all sides, still no easy `choice' (and if you can't guess what it's about from that title, hang it up and go home now. Please.):
Nationwide, abortion rates have been falling. But the Hope Clinic [in Granite City, IL] -- founded a year after Roe vs. Wade--has been at its busiest in recent years.Many surrounding states have passed more restrictive abortion laws, many smaller providers have shut down, and abortion opponents have kept up their pressure. As a result, this massive fortress of a clinic now sees patients from 22 states, 7,000 women a year.
It also was one of the first clinics in the country to offer medical abortion--an alternative to surgery, approved in 2000, in which pills induce a miscarriage.
The opposition has changed too. While people still stand outside the clinic with Bibles and placards, trying to stop women from entering, a different kind of activism has sprung up down the road. There, a Christian woman runs a center for those who have decided to continue their pregnancies.
The patients at Hope range in age from 11 to 56 and come from all racial, economic and religious groups. "The only thing they all have in common is that they're pregnant," says Allison Hile, who has worked there for 23 years.
Well, they'are also all women. Which point seems obvious, but might be lost on Daniel Michael:
Just as dedicated and just as strong-willed [as the people actually working in the clinic] are the Michael family, who stand outside the clinic bearing poster-sized photographs of mangled fetuses and wearing T-shirts that say "Abortion is homicide."All of the women who entered had to pass the family. The Michaels do not threaten the women, but the patients nevertheless rush into a security booth, sealed by bulletproof glass, where they are cleared to enter the building. Such measures have become a way of life since the early 1980s, when violence started nationally against providers.
In January 1982, the Hope clinic was firebombed less than an hour after closing. Eight months later, the owner, Dr. Hector Zevallos, and his wife were blindfolded and kidnapped, held at gunpoint for eight days. A group known as the Army of God claimed responsibility for the abduction.
Daniel Michael denounces violence, but says he'll do just about anything else to keep women from crossing into the "abortuary."
For 15 to 20 hours each week, Daniel and his wife, Angela, along with their 11 children, ages 5 to 25, plant themselves in front of the clinic.
"Hey, Mommy. Don't do it, Mommy," they shout at the patients, who look away.
Charming.
Also profiled is Kathy Sparks, "the executive director of New Beginnings--a crisis pregnancy center located 10 minutes from the Hope Clinic." She has nothing nice to say about the Michael family:
"I'm embarrassed by what they do," Sparks said. "No one ever changed their mind by being shouted at from a sidewalk."
Which I find admirable. But then she blows it all to hell by saying:
"Years from now, I think we'll look back on abortion in the same way we look at slavery or segregation," Sparks said. "We'll wonder how we possibly could have thought this was ever acceptable."
. . .
I'm sure she didn't mean to compare black people to. . . actually, you know what? I'm sure she did. And wouldn't understand why anyone would find the statement really fucking annoying.
Politics.
Or more accurately, the particular style of political debate in the U.S.
The article ends well, probably because it just has a quote from a patient, one who used RU-486:
Michelle is among the 67 percent of women having abortions who are unwed. Also, the majority of women who have abortions intend to have children in the future. But she didn't want to end up like some of her family members, who had children much too young."Accidents happen. I was not ready to make that commitment," she said. "Abortion is your choice. It's your body. It takes you through a lot. I'm still making that choice. Luckily, I still had that choice."
Then, fool that I am, I did a Google search on RU-486.
Don't do that.
Try Mifepristone instead; at least the first result there is the FDA's site, followed by Planned Parenthood. Perhaps I'm deluded, but they're probably just the slightest bit more reliable than why-am-I-even-fucking-linking-it? RU-486.org.
This entry may be heavily edited or vanish entirely in the near future. I really don't see that as a great loss to anyone.
Posted by Aaron at January 19, 2003 12:38 PM
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