How can abortion rates be brought down when Roe vs. Wade is the law of the land? How can unwanted pregnancies be minimized in a post-Roe nation, where abortions would be legal in some states and not in others? How can we create a society where women feel they have real alternatives to abortion?
Such questions, which go to the heart of the U.S. abortion debate, never made it to the heartland. Ironically, Wichita, Kansas, will not go down in history as the site where new ideas about how to reduce the demand for abortion emerged -- despite almost 3,000 arrests in July and August of people who tried to shut down the city's three abortion clinics.
Instead, the Summer of Mercy (as it was dubbed by the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue) appears to have further polarized the issue. All that has changed is the decibel level of pro-life and pro-choice voices; they are shouting more loudly.
The tone and style of Operation Rescue, which organized the Summer of Mercy, ensured that no new political space would open up for people of good will -- pro-choice and pro-life alike -- to talk about how to prevent abortion. Rescue leaders -- not all but politically key ones -- relied on an apocalyptic "us vs. them" mentality to convey their message, often using the Bible to demonize the other side. The triumphalism of some of the leadership at times made a mockery of those "rescuers" given to a posture of prayerful introspection.
At one of the nightly rallies at the Wichita Plaza Hotel in August, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry offered his take on U.S. District Judge Patrick Kelly (a practicing Catholic) with a rap song Terry composed and performed. "Here come d' judge/Here come d' judge ... He'll protect the baby slayers/because he's in love/with Judas' kiss," shouted Terry, as some 900 people clapped wildly. When referring to Kelly, the phrase "Nazi judge" was deployed frequently by Terry and other (mostly male) Rescue leaders.
One can disagree profoundly with Kelly's reading of the law without demonizing him or, for that matter, others who support Roe. In the end, such a tactic serves only to preclude dialogue with potential allies: people who feel criminalizing abortion will only drive it underground, but who want to find ways to change hearts/society so that abortions are no longer perceived as a viable option.
PUSHED TO THE WALL, pro-choice advocates reverted to stock phrases, intoning "right to choose" like a mantra, evoking an all-too-tidy, abstract vision of morality in which the individual exists, as it were, in a void. Absent in the comments of pro-choice advocates was a sense of tragedy about the stopping of a heartbeat that is abortion. Missing was any articulation of grief about the fact that almost one in three pregnancies in the United States ends in abortion.
The pro-choice activists' tendency, in reflecting on Wichita, to charge pro-lifers with "fanaticism" and "terrorism" rang hollow, given that pro-lifers really believe abortion kills. And Kelly himself often waxed needlessly hysterical. At one point he called on Wichita Catholic Bishop Eugene Gerber to "stop this madness" -- mostly peaceful civil disobedience -- and on television news programs he issued dire warnings of impending bloodshed.
In short, Operation Rescue's politics of polarization became a self-fulfilling prophecy: The rescuers cried wolf and the pro-choicers howled back. And since Operation Rescue leaders have said they will be targeting other cities in the near future (including Little Rock, Arkansas, and Fargo, North Dakota), it appears that polarization will play itself out again and again, with each side citing events as proof of its own rightness.
A truly prophetic stance against abortion likely will come from quarters other than that of Operation Rescue. For one thing, the moral grounding of the rescue movement is shaky at best. It was disturbing to interview rescuer after rescuer, including those in leadership, who unquestioningly supported the Gulf war and the death penalty, often manipulating scripture to back claims that some killing can be sanctioned. A sign often seen at demonstrations: Support Our Unborn Troops.
A notable exception was movement leader Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Center for Christian Action in Boca Raton, Florida. Among other things, he has marched against the Gulf war, fought for justice in South Africa, and slept in dumpsters to protest homelessness.
"Rescuing is not the best strategy for saving babies," said Mahoney, but he contends it is a "rational response to the taking of human life."
Perhaps. But it may be that a still more rational response would be to declare a Summer of Contemplation and Action where people can, in good faith, talk about how to reduce the demand for abortion, Roe or no.
Bring together people like the Wichita Catholic rescuer who invites pregnant women to live in her home as an alternative to abortion. And people like the Wichita mother of six -- a member of a Pentecostal church -- who joined pro-choice forces not because she likes the idea of abortion but because she fears the return of back-alley procedures. Let these and others share their insights.
From reaching out to pregnant women to demanding better wages for female workers, abortion prevention must be rooted in a radically different vision of society. Summers of Mercy aren't enough. What is needed is justice.
Demetria Martinez was a staff writer for National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City, Missouri when this article appeared.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!