At the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum, three dozen people, many of them teenagers, arrived last month without warning. A group of young abortion opponents calling
themselves the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust staged a protest last
month at the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum. Wearing T-shirts that said “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust,” they
demanded that the museum include an exhibit on what they called the
“American genocide” of legal abortion, and fanned out to scatter cards
with pictures of bloody “late-term abortion victims.”They then moved outside to picket with a banner calling Albuquerque “America’s Auschwitz.”
Albuquerque has become the latest flash point in the abortion wars, with Operation Rescue,
the militant group based in Kansas, calling it the “late-term abortion
capital of the country.” This is because a private clinic, Southwestern Women’s Options, is one of only a few nationwide that offers abortions after the sixth month of pregnancy.
A pitched political battle is now under way. After failed attempts in
the Democratic-controlled Legislature, abortion opponents have collected
enough signatures to hold a referendum over whether to make Albuquerque
the first city in the country to ban abortions at 20 weeks after
conception, just as a dozen states have done.
Abortion rights advocates see an ominous parallel with events in Kansas
in recent years. Operation Rescue moved its headquarters to Wichita,
Kan., in 2003 and labeled it the late-term abortion capital to
underscore the group’s campaign against a clinic there run by Dr. George
R. Tiller. In May 2009, a gunman killed Dr. Tiller in the foyer of his
church. Operation Rescue leaders, who had denounced violence, said they
had no connection with the killer.
The drive for a city referendum has been led here by a couple who
trained with Operation Rescue in Kansas and moved here three years ago
as anti-abortion “missionaries.” “We felt called to come and serve in Albuquerque,” said Tara Shaver, 29.
She and her husband, Bud, moved here largely to find a way to shut down
Southwestern Women’s Options, she said. Ms. Shaver is the spokeswoman for a coalition
of Roman Catholic, evangelical and other groups pushing the ballot
initiative. City officials say the proposed 20-week ban is expected to
be put to voters this fall.
The Shavers’ newcomer status and close ties to Operation Rescue, which
is known for harassment of clinics, have become rallying points for
abortion rights defenders here. “The fact that they call themselves missionaries is really offensive,” said Joan Lamunyon Sanford, director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and a leader of a coalition fighting the 20-week proposal. “We don’t need outsiders bringing in this kind of disruption.”
No comments:
Post a Comment