By
William Kim
October 25, 2007
Anti-abortion protestors from the 40 Days for Life campaign gathered Tuesday in front of Planned Parenthood's U-District clinic, located next to the Metro Cinemas on the corner of 9th Ave Northeast and Northeast 45th Street.
"This is a peaceful prayer vigil," said participant Ursula Glancy. "We don't condone or recommend violence. We're just here to pray and pass out literature."
The campaign is part of a nation-wide anti-abortion movement. Based on Christian beliefs, the campaign encourages members to raise awareness for their views through prayer and fasting in front of targeted Planned Parenthood locations for 40 continuous days. The campaign started Sept. 26 and ends Nov. 4.
Each group stays for 24 hours and is replaced the next day with more participants.
"We only talk to people if they approach us and try to speak to us," Glancy said. "We're hoping we can make a difference and get people to really think about the implications of abortion. ... We're sure we've made a difference so far."
Six protestors were gathered Tuesday.
"We believe in the right for a child to be born," said participant Della, who asked to have her last name withheld. "We're not about condemning people for their actions."
Representatives of Planned Parenthood are unappreciative of the protests.
"These are services that people should have access without any shame," Kristen Prossor, public affairs director for Western Washington said, adding that it was "a little bit patronizing." "We're just trying to keep our patients and our staff from being harassed, and ... we would love our patients to have access to health care without any obstruction."
Planned Parenthood has organized "visibility teams" that counter the anti-abortion protests by relaying positive information about Planned Parenthood services, Prossor said.
Organizers of 40 Days for Life state on their Web site that 89 cities in 33 states will participate in this event.
The Web site also cites examples of reduced abortion rates and clinics going out of business, such as a clinic in Houston that "unexpectedly shut its doors and [went] out of business after 20 years in operation."
Prossor defended Planned Parenthood services by saying that they are a necessary and positive contribution to society.
Planned Parenthood is in the business of "delivering health care services that are critical to peoples' health and life," Prosser said.
"NOW [National Organization for Women] supporters will gather to counter-protest the demonstration by abortion opponents going on for almost a month outside the Planned Parenthood clinic," wrote Candace Heckman, a blogger for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
This counter-presence was planned for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., but only participants of 40 Days for Life were present at the time.
Katie Stapleton-Paff contributed to this story.
[Reach contributing writer William Kim at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]
26 Comments
#1 Darlene Wagner
on October 25, 2007 at 5:08 a.m.(Seymour, CT | Unverified Name)
Peaceful prayerful what does Planned Parenthood fear?
Is Planned Parenthood trying to stop prayer? Health Services aren't health services when they kill unborn children and that is a fact Planned Parenthood can not escape.
#2 Lucy Meseha
on October 25, 2007 at 7:27 a.m.(North Haven, CT | Unverified Name)
People say that it is "Political" the issue of abortion, but for me and all women and their loved ones who have been involved with it is "Personal" and a nightmare you cannot wake up from. As a post-abortive mother who would have a sixteen year old child today, how can I forgive myself for being party to the killing of my own flesh and blood. I did not at the time nor do I think any woman should have to choose between her own survival and that her own baby. Where was my and my child's human dignity? What I needed was to be supported in my own motherly' instinct but was instead only lied to, threatened, and coerced. I believe that abortion harms women 's health and their reproductive system. I believe that it is a sign we have failed women and that we have failed children and we really are the perpetrators of their abuse. If we can do such domestic violence and child abuse, as to rip the limbs off and crush the head off of a growing developing baby and mutilate the womb of his mother for future pregnancies, and then the next moment be so in love with newborn babies then think how we are in the biggest Denial and Lie of the century. This so-called "Choice" is to coverup our own cowardness and selfishness and lack of responsibility for our own actions and is the biggest failure of our society.
If a mother has an abortion she is still a mother, yet she is just the mother of dead children.
#3 KR
on October 25, 2007 at 11:14 a.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
Amen to the first to comments.
#4 Mary
on October 25, 2007 at 11:32 a.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
Thanks for the balanced article . . . a prayerful presence to support woman through "unplanned parenthood" by offering alternatives, support, and assistance all without judgment but with tenderness and understanding is the only way we will survive. Mother Theresa "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters"
And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)
#5 E.
on October 25, 2007 at 11:38 a.m.(UW Campus | Unverified Name)
“We don’t condone or recommend violence. We’re just here to pray and pass out literature.†It is just ironic to see that the protester who does not condone or recommend violence, is wearing a down parka, which is pretty much wearing another animal, killed by violence. If violence is violence, does it apply to just humans or does it not apply to animals as well?
There can be so much more done versus standing around and praying for 24 hours when there are poor low income women who have decided to bear their children. I have never, ever seen any of these white christian women on the 49 Metro route going down into the heart of Rainier at 11 pm when I see tired, weary women carrying their children home after working long hours at minimum wage. Instead of standing around praying, maybe creating a safe ride home for these working mothers who cannot afford a car and commute late in the evening would probably help so much more than literally, standing there.
#6 KR
on October 25, 2007 at 1:25 p.m.(UW Campus | Unverified Name)
What does her parka have to do with anything? Does it even have leather or fur?
I'm pretty sure killing human beings is a bit more serious than killing animals.
#7 jenna
on October 25, 2007 at 1:29 p.m.(Atlanta, GA | Unverified Name)
There is not a single "pro-life" organization that supports birth control.
The mission statement of the largest right-to-life educational organization—The American Life League—reads, "A.L.L. denies the moral acceptability of artificial birth control and encourages each individual to trust in God, to surrender to His will, and be pre-disposed to welcoming children."
There is nothing immoral about terminating an unwanted pregnancy or removing a clump of cells that have not yet developed into a viable human being from a woman’s body. A fetus is not a baby. If a woman doesn’t want to continue a pregnancy all the way (for whatever reason), she should have the freedom to end it, safely and easily. There is nothing tragic about it—indeed, the real tragedy lies in the lives of women that are foreclosed and disfigured and even ended by being compelled to have children that they do not want, a tragedy that happens millions of times a day on this planet, with the connivance and support of the U.S. government.
The life of a woman who is forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy is endangered. From the dangers of illegal abortions to the disrespect for her own life, she is harmed and demeaned as a human being. Being forced by society to have a baby when a woman either does not want or cannot care for one is one of the age-old tragedies that are no longer necessary for anyone to have to suffer. But if a woman is not allowed to control her own body, her own reproduction, not allowed to decide whether or not or when to become a mother, she has no more freedom than a slave. This is for the greater good for the health and overall well-being of that woman, whose life we should value and cherish more than that of a partially formed fetus
#8 sara
on October 25, 2007 at 1:34 p.m.(Atlanta, GA | Unverified Name)
"Health Services aren't health services when they kill unborn children and that is a fact Planned Parenthood can not escape"-Darlene Wagner
A fetus is not a child. this is a REAL fact...
A fetus is not yet a human being. It is more like a seed or a sprout of a human being. It is "alive," but that is also true of all the other cells in a woman’s body. It has no life of its own yet. It is not yet a separate life from the life of the woman in whose uterus it is.
Just because something has the characteristics of "life" doesn’t mean people should necessarily preserve it.
This is an obvious truth. Think about it: People routinely terminate "life" for what is seen as a greater good.
We do this every time we eat—all the fruits, vegetables, and meats come from live plants and animals killed for our nourishment.
People end "life" every time we cut a tree for firewood, every time we take antibiotics to kill off the live disease organisms which are making us sick, or even every time we kill other human beings in self-defense or to prevent them from causing other human beings to suffer and die.
#9 loretta mason
on October 25, 2007 at 1:41 p.m.(Atlanta, GA | Unverified Name)
Kathleen's Story
I had an abortion in 1993. Wow, it's been 6 years already.
I was 21 years old and I was in the process of divorcing a terrible man. The man I was dating knew I was pregnant and offered to raise the baby as "ours" but I knew it was not the right decision. It was difficult for me to have an abortion because I have always had fertility problems, up until that point, I hadn't even ever had my period. I feared being unable to get pregnant again. My family feared the same, my mom questioned my decision. She says it was because she wanted to make SURE I had thought things through.
Now, six years later, I have returned to college, I have a four-year-old daughter (whose father is the same man I dated when I went through my abortion). I don't know how having a baby then would have changed my life, but I can only imagine that I wouldn't be in the position I am in now. I have never once regretted my decision, nor do I regret the entire episode. I have learned compassion and empathy for other people through the event. Nobody is perfect. Sometimes things happen in our lives that we wish we could change and thankfully, women before us have fought hard for us to be able to change an unplanned pregnancy.
#10 Darlene Wagner
on October 25, 2007 at 1:56 p.m.(New Haven, CT | Unverified Name)
Accourding to National geographic Womb as seen on National Geographic T.V Channel between the 6th and 8th week since conception you will grow 10,000 times faster than any other time in your entire Life.Please educate yourself. The world is not flat nor is the unborn a blob of tissue.
Tragically this is the time when most abotions are done. Life is a beautiful choice.
#11 Darlene Wagner
on October 25, 2007 at 2:03 p.m.(New Haven, CT | Unverified Name)
According to National Geographic Womb as seen on National Geographic T.V Channel between the 6th and 8th week since conception you will grow 10,000 times faster than any other time in your entire Life. Please educate yourself.The world is not flat nor is the unborn a blob of tissue.Tragically this is the time when most abortions are done.Life is a beautiful choice.
#12 WC
on October 25, 2007 at 2:32 p.m.(UW Campus | Unverified Name)
I am a man, and therefore feel dismissed when speaking of abortion most of the time. I am also an atheist and therefore have no particular moral delema with abortion. To me the question comes down to responsibility and preparation. I have seen far too many children given their "right" to life only to be abused by a multitude of factors ranging from income, to physical abuse, to neglect. If a family (and lets be frank here, rarely are abortions the result of a family, but an accident)is not prepared to care for a child emotionally, physically, and financially, they probably are doing a disservice to the child by having it. We read daily about foster homes rampant with abuse and throngs of children in the system waiting for adoptions and permanent homes. To bring a child into the world when you aren't prepared for it is the most irresponsible thing a person can do in my opinion.
#13 Matthew
on October 25, 2007 at 3:51 p.m.(Atlanta, GA | Unverified Name)
"6th and 8th week since conception you will grow 10,000 times faster than any other time in your entire Life."
Between these weeks the fetus is no larger than 30 mm (1.2 inches) in length.
Darlene, if you are so against abortions, then i assume your organization advocates lots of forms of birth control?
And the fact that you are are so "pro-life", you probably oppose the war on Iraq that has killed over a million civilians...
And that you are protesting against the Military Commissions Act, which legalized torture!
And that you also denounce the Bible which says, "Numbers 31:17 (Moses) “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.â€
#14 Summer
on October 26, 2007 at 12:56 a.m.(Kirkland, WA | Unverified Name)
Why are so many pro-lifers willing to fight for the "rights" of a fetus, but once it's born they ignore it? Maybe if you fought to improve the lives of children already born you would be more convincing when telling women what to do with their lives. The job only begins at birth--help these mothers then, when they really need it.
#15 Chris
on October 26, 2007 at 6:22 a.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
I love it how so many people for abortion think that all pro-lifers ignore children once they are born. I'm involved with the 40 Days for Life, and I know countless people (myself included) that help out at a nearby soup kitchen on a weekly basis, as well as with groups that do go to the city caring for those in need of aid. I can see the huge amount of "need" that exists in this city; primarily the need for love. As a Christian I believe that at the time of conception God has endowed that life with a soul, called with a purpose for Him and to Him. That is my "one-line" definition of life. And yes, if you want to you can also look at the material - the preborn also has all the DNA he'll ever get, and while in the womb has a heart beat and brain waves. Just because his life is aided in survival through the body of his mother doesn't deny the fact of his life and of his soul. That is why I pray for the unborn. And that is also why I pray for the mother - that she may see that love and that soul as well. If there's one thing I've learned from all my time with the homeless and those in prison, it's that the challenges we face in life do not give us the right to deny anybody love. Instead, it opens the doors to experience it's true depths.
#16 MF
on October 26, 2007 at 7:29 a.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
Right on Chris! I am saddened to see that people believe we should kill unborn children instead of raising them in this society. Death is better? How about giving every human being (that is correct, it is human, check your facts) a right to live. Instead of saying well it's better to kill a child because he/she may be abused, hungry, when they are born. How about we help the children once they are born? This soul should have a chance to live, like you and me. Maybe this little baby will be the one to cure cancer, maybe this baby will be the best janitor ever, maybe this baby will get a chance to experience life and make this world a better place. But this chance goes away because we think it's better he/she isn't born. This goes beyond politics and religion. It is human right to LIFE, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If you really want to know if it is human, there are many sites that show you an abortion procedure. You can see body parts taken apart. This is reality, this is the truth, a baby is killed. This is not just a blob of tissue that can't experience pain. And for the person who wrote it is a waste of time to pray. We need to pray because we, as pro-lifers think it is the best way to help. I pray for the mothers to be, the women who are hurt and confused and think abortion is the only option. Prayer is not a waste of time. Pray leads to action. Prayer is what makes the difference. You need faith! This is why I am pro-life.
#17 matt
on October 26, 2007 at 7:27 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
I very much enjoy how none of these "pro-lifers" avoided all of my responses so I am going to repost them.
if you are so against abortions, then i assume your organization advocates lots of forms of birth control?
And the fact that you are are so "pro-life", you probably oppose the war on Iraq that has killed over a million civilians...
And that you are protesting against the Military Commissions Act, which legalized torture....
And that you also denounce the Bible which says, "Numbers 31:17 (Moses) “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.â€
#18 isaac
on October 27, 2007 at 7:15 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
“We believe in the right for a child to be bornâ€
how do unborn clump of cells get rights?
praying to something that is proved that it exists is a good way to stop abortions. maybe this "god" will reign fire on all the abortion clinics around the world and kill a bunch of murderers while it's at it.
#19 Joe
on October 28, 2007 at 6:46 a.m.(Yucaipa, CA | Unverified Name)
Funny thing about birth control, whatever country or society it has ever been widely introduced into, abortion rates have always INCREASED, not decreased. Kind of counter-intuitive, but this is a fact.
Why might this be? Well, for one thing, all forms of birth control have failure rates. Just because your girlfriend is on the pill, doesn't mean you are not going to become a father. Sex and babies have a way of going together, even when we try to thwart that natural process.
Another point to consider is that most of the women who go in for abortions were either on the pill or using some form of birth control, by which they (and maybe even moreso their boyfriends) had set up for themselves, in their minds, the idea that now they could have sex and not get pregnant. The reality is that it's actually more like russian roulette.
As radical as it may sound to some, the best way for a man and woman to be responsible for their actions and to one another, is to wait until they are in a marriage relationship before having sexual relations. Sex before then might bring great physical pleasure at the time, but in the long run it carries zero benefits, and lots of risks.
I have had one friend and several co-workers who have aborted their own children, and whenever I hear that somebody has done this it makes me feel like I've been hit in the stomach. I do not understand how anybody can do this, especially in this country where help is available. There is no question that there are sacrifices involved in giving life to a new human being. But there is also no question that there is nothing you will ever do that is better than giving the gift of life to another human being.
To those of you who have participated in abortion, I have to wonder what kind of person doesn't even think about what their own child might have been like, what they might have accomplished, how much they would have loved you, or you them. I don't mean to make you beat yourself up, but if you don't feel you made a mistake, you simply cannot say that you value human life. I'm glad your schooling wasn't interrupted, or you had a chance to get ahead in your career before starting a family, or whatever. I'm just sorry it came at the cost of one of your own children.
#20 Trisha
on October 28, 2007 at 9:18 a.m.(Kent, WA | Unverified Name)
Fifty six percent of women seeking abortion cite contraceptive "failure" as the reason for their abortions.
"Blobs of cells" generally do not have arms, legs, noses, and beating hearts. All abortions are done on babies with enough physical development to allow the abortionist to identify specific body parts, so as to insure all the "parts" are removed from the mother's womb. Being the bright and intelligent college students I know you are, I am certain you will google pictures of the developing fetus. It is impossible to make the "blob of cells" argument once you see what a 10 week old fetus looks like.
Babies, from the moment of conception (not implantation, but conception) have their own distinct and unique DNA, absolutely separate from the mother's. In 1981, the Senate Judiciary Subcommitte invited experts to testify on the question of when life begins. With the exception of one pro-abortion witness who submitted that he did not know the answer, every single expert testified that human life begins at the moment of conception.
Human life is not the equivalent of plant, animal, or vegetable life. You should have been taught that in biology 101.
Catholic Community services is the second largest provider of services to pregnant women, second only to the state.
Christian charities in general provide more services for pregnant women than any secular "health services" organization.
Adult men who CHOOSE to enter the military and fight for their country do so on a volunteer basis. They are given the necessary arms to defend themselves against agressors. The unborn have been given no right to life and no protection from their attackers.
Biblical principles, while in complete alignment with pro-life philosophy, are not needed to support the pro-life defense. One need only open a first year biology textbook or view in-utero pictures of the fetus to understand who is actually residing in the mother's womb.
#21 mary
on October 29, 2007 at 8:48 a.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
matt - thank your mother for giving you life
#22 sd
on October 30, 2007 at 3:22 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
While Planned Parenthood does provide abortions, I resent efforts by anti-abortion groups to portray Planned Parenthood as ONLY about abortions. I have been a patient of Planned Parenthood for over 5 years. I have never had an abortion. I have received annual exams, pap smears, birth control, STD tests, information about quitting smoking, and an HIV test. During times when I've had no health care, Planned Parenthood was the only place where I could get free and low cost services that I needed.
By providing birth control and safer sex resources, Planned Parenthood does more than ANYONE to prevent abortion- including so-called "pro-life" groups. If these groups really want to prevent unplanned pregnancies, they will put aside their ideology and start supporting birth control- which is a proven method of reducing abortion. The fact is that women will get abortions whether they are legal or not. Here is the difference- when abortion is illegal and unsafe, women die.
Nobody likes abortion. Nobody wants to have an abortion. You can debate the moral/ethical implications of abortion all you want on bulletin boards and make all the judgments you want. You can stand outside clinics praying in the rain. But when the day is done, the staff at these clinics are the ones really doing the most to prevent unplanned pregnancies and abortions.
#23 Joe
on October 31, 2007 at 1:40 a.m.(Las Vegas, NV | Unverified Name)
sd -
Planned Parenthood does not make any money off their low-cost services. The reason why you can get your birth control for free, is because Planned Parenthood never gives abortions away for free - they make money on them, which is how they pay for your free birth control.
Also, when they target local College- and HighSchool-age women, like with their ads on the metro buses, and they tell women there is absolutely nothing to worry about having sex because, here! we'll put you on birth control for free, and test you for HIV/STDs if you get them ... Nothing to worry about, right? But within a year or so, what happens? I'm truly glad it wasn't you, but what percentage of those same women are going to be coming back through PP's doors, each with several hundred dollars in their hands to pay for abortions? What percentage would be coming back if PP encouraged them to stay off the carcinogenic hormonal birth control and taught them strategies for concentrating on school during these years and delaying sexual activity? Would that also be a money-making strategy for them?
Planned Parenthood is a racket. I think they do believe, however grotesquely mistaken they are, that they are helping women. They have their own ideology, which is deeply flawed and failing women in many ways, such as by telling them they need hormonal birth control and abortion in order to be "free" women when this is a perverse lie.
#24 Trisha
on October 31, 2007 at 10:30 p.m.(Kent, WA | Unverified Name)
In this country, we will avoid buying tuna unless it boldly states on the label that it is "dolphin safe". It may be more expensive, but we will happily spend the extra money to save the dolphins. We will spend whatever is necessary to drive a Prius so we can save the planet, and not think twice about the financial hardship it may inflict. But it is too much of an imposition for a woman to pay a nominal fee for a pap smear in order to refrain from patronizing an establishment that primarily makes it's money from aborting babies.
The standard pro-abortion rhetoric claims no woman likes abortion; no woman really wants abortion. I challenge those who repeat the party line thoughtlessly to read some of the personal testimonies on PP's own website. I suggest that research may be in order for those that think PP and it's supporters are in the abortion business only to "help" women. I also challenge those who insist that birth control is the answer to check the statistics. It's virtually undeniable that the unlimited availability of birth control has not, and will not put an end to abortion.
#25 mary
on November 5, 2007 at 12:36 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
Thank you DAVID BEREIT, Aaron and Chris plus the strong baby loving souls who turned out to pray for vulnerable babies and woman and of course all involved in the abortion business. The seed has been planted and nourished by the prayers, fasting and by the quiet presence of pro-life humans and I look forward to 40 days again next year.
#26 mary
on November 5, 2007 at 12:39 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
Trisha thank your mother for giving you life
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