Iowans participate in Nebraska abortion demonstration

BELLEVUE, Neb. — The battle over a woman’s right to choose abortion has been reignited in Kansas since the May 31 murder of Dr. George Tiller. Over the weekend, the battle moved north to this small town near Omaha where Dr. LeRoy Carhart provides abortion services. Several Iowans were among the individuals from at least 17 states who came to let their voices be heard.

Fairfield resident Mary LaFrancis walks behind the line of individuals defending Dr. LeRoy Carhart's abortion clinic in Bellevue, Neb. Despite her attempts to speak with those on the line and show them an ultrasound picture, she is ignored except for chants of "Welcome. Welcome. This clinic stays open."

“The drive is nothing when you consider the importance of defending Dr. Carhart, this clinic and the women who had scheduled appointments here,” said Des Moines resident David Rosenfeld, 46, who abandoned his local city council campaign for the weekend to come to Bellevue. “I didn’t even think about [the drive]. I just knew I had to be here.”

According to Lt. Chuck Clark of the Bellevue Police Department, those who came to defend the clinic from a protest initially announced by Kansas-based Operation Rescue substantially outnumbered protesters throughout the scheduled two-day event.

“Both sides — the anti-abortion protesters and the pro-choice demonstrators — started about 7:30 [Saturday] morning or so, and probably their numbers peaked between 8 and 10 a.m. At that time there were probably about 150 of the pro-choice people and there were about 50 of the anti-abortion protesters. There were more here throughout the day, as people came and went, but at those peak times the ratio was about three-to-one,” Clark said.

The ratio of Iowans who traveled to Nebraska to be part of the demonstrations was even more lop-sided. Of the roughly 20 Iowans who participated, only one was there to protest the clinic.

Mary LaFrancis, a retired nurse who lives in Fairfield, had been making the 7-hour drive into Wichita, Kan., to protest Tiller’s clinic before the doctor was gunned down in the foyer of his own church.

“Women come from all over for late-term abortions because they are sold lies in their vulnerability and desperation. Just as they explained to me at the clinic, the circumstances make the choice… That’s why I’m here,” said LaFrancis, who was previously arrested during protests at the University of Notre Dame.

LaFrancis, who became an activist following the Terri Schiavo controversy, said that “man proposes and God disposes.”

“Each one of these people should be in that abortion room and see what they are doing and hold that woman’s hand. And, hopefully, some day they will see it differently,” she said. “When we come to understand that the unborn child is a person, a person from the very first cell, and how would — I mean — they should have done this thing to our president. You know? What if their mothers would have done this thing to them? Would they see it differently?”

Des Moines resident David Rosenfeld and ISU graduate student Kendra Malone were among more than 150 individuals from 17 states who traveled to Bellevue, Neb. to defend Dr. LeRoy Carhart and his clinic.

LaFrancis believes that abortion under any circumstance is murder and, she said, that belief justifies her urgency. In Bellevue, she walked behind a line of people defending the clinic with an ultrasound photo that she described as “the truth.” She attempted to show those in the line the photo, which Operation Rescue officials claim was taken that morning of a woman who changed her mind about having an abortion. LaFrancis, like all the protesters who crossed the street in hopes of communicating directly with clinic defenders, was ignored except for a nearly continuous chant, “Welcome. Welcome. This clinic stays open.” Unlike Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, and another protester who refused to identify herself, LaFrancis simply moved back to the other side of the street and didn’t laugh or offer comment to the chant.

Cheryl Sullenger, a senior executive with Operation Rescue who was made infamous by a two-year federal prison sentence in connection with an attempted California clinic bombing and by her name and phone number being on the dashboard of the man charged with murdering Tiller, also walked around the clinic attempting to distribute the ultrasound photo. Sullenger said that the woman wasn’t aware that there would be demonstrators when she made the appointment, and that “pro-abortion people were calling her name over a bullhorn, and that upset her.” The Iowa Independent was on the site well before the woman allegedly arrived on Saturday morning, however, and those affiliated with the clinic or defending the clinic were not seen using or carrying bullhorns.

Despite attempts by The Iowa Independent to make direct contact with the woman who anti-abortion organizers said provided written consent for her ultrasound photo to be used, an interview could not be arranged and the woman’s name was not provided. It remains unclear if the woman was truly an individual who, when presented with an ultrasound, chose to remain pregnant, or if she was party to a publicity stunt meant to bolster the protesters’ meager presence at the clinic.

Clinic officials, who would not say if any patients had missed scheduled appointments that morning, did reveal that at least one woman who had come to the clinic for an abortion turned out not to be pregnant. Whether the woman was simply misinformed about her condition, or if she knowingly scheduled an appointment for an unneeded procedure also remains unclear.

Whatever women’s reasons for entering the clinic on Saturday, Kendra Malone, an Iowa State University graduate student, said she was happy to be there for them.

“We are here to support them, to let them go about their business and so that they can get the care they need,” she said. “We wanted to show them that there are people out in the community that support them and the decisions that they have every right to make.”

Jean Classon, president of Iowa NOW, stands near the intersection of Mission and Lincoln in Bellevue, Neb. to show support for women's rights.

Des Moines resident Jean Classon, president of the Iowa chapter of the National Organization for Women, said those who support a woman’s right to choose abortion are also not the people who are drawing attention to women who make that choice.

“This is what NOW is all about — defending women’s rights. The most basic of those rights is to have an abortion and to have it be safe and legal. I couldn’t imagine not participating in some way,” she said. “But our side of the debate isn’t usually the side that starts these things. It doesn’t make sense to stand outside of clinics if there is nothing to defend against.”

Classon, who helped defend Planned Parenthood clinics in Des Moines from local anti-abortion activist Dave Leach, said that maybe Iowans have become accustomed to the state’s progressive tendencies and are a bit complacent in the battle for women’s rights.

“We need health care reform so badly, and they are trying to tack on all these things to ensure that women are not included in this reform effort,” she said. “It irks me to think that we’ve been fighting this fight for 35 years and it is still going on, and it still seems to be in the same place. I think that people that have grown up since this started — when the Roe v. Wade decision came down — I think that there is maybe a whole generation of people who think that it is a given right and that there is nothing that could ever stop it from being that way. Unfortunately, it could happen — and very easily.”

Malone and Rosenfeld agree, insisting that there can be no compromise or common ground found between those who believe a woman should have ultimate control of her own health decisions and those who believe women should not.

“The government should have nothing to do with what happens between an individual and his/her health care provider — be that abortion, reproductive health services or any aspect of physical and mental health,” Malone said. “There is no compromise because if you draw one little line you can constantly be taking way and backing up until we have nothing again.”

Rosenfeld, who was raised by parents who were active in the women’s and civil rights movements, views the very concept of common ground as dangerous.

“This is something that President Obama has raised and that others have raised and I think it emboldens [opponents of women's rights]. The key thing is why abortion should be treated differently than other medical procedures that you could get benefits for or financial aid for. It is one of the many erosions of this right since it was won. So, the question isn’t about where to find common ground, but how to ensure that this is a right that all women have access to,” he said.

While this battle is a win for the clinic defenders — in terms of both numbers on the ground and contributions raised through the pledge-a-picket program, activists on both sides of the issue understand that the war is far from over.