Bizarro Reactions to Jubilee Post-Abortion Outreach

Life Insight, Apr.-May 2000, at 2, Susan E. Wills, NCCB Secretariat for Pro-life Activities

It appears that the success of the NCCB's [National Conference of Catholic Bishop's] Jubilee year outreach to post-aborted women is really starting to bother Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and other abortion purveyors around the country.

The outreach effort, undertaken to make women and men suffering from an abortion experience aware of the assistance available to them through the Church’s Project Rachel ministry, began in February in the (arch)dioceses of Washington, Baltimore and Arlington. From there, the program is spreading to other (arch)dioceses, including Boston, Syracuse, West Palm Beach, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Altoona-Jobnstown, Springfield, Ill., Dallas, Oakland, San Francisco, Calgary, and the states of Michigan, Nebraska and New Hampshire.

Even before the radio ads began to run in Boston, the outreach effort attracted the attention of the local media. The city's largest paper, the Boston Globe, ran a front the effort, and the local Associated Press (AP) reporter also did a story. This AP story was later picked up by other newspapers nationwide. When running the story, many of these newspapers added to it information about their own local Project Rachel offices.

Surprisingly, the two original Boston stories were fair, even positive, in their coverage. They quoted favorably Barbara Thorp, director of pro-life activities with the Boston Archdiocese (the AP story mistakenly put "director of pro-life services," but this was a minor error; nothing to compare with what CNN—see below—would do to it) and also a woman who had gone through the Project Rachel program, who spoke of the healing and peace she found through it.

On the whole, this coverage was good news, very appropnate for a project that is based on good news, the good news of hope and reconciliation for those who have suffered from an abortion experience.

But this good news apparently was seen as bad news by those in the business of abortion.

"We don’t believe that an organization which teaches that abortion is a mortal sin is appropriate for unbiased and healthy counseling," sniffed Virginia Martin, an executive vice president of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. In another report, Frances Kissling, president of the spectacularly oxymoronic "Catholics for a Free Choice," bloviated that "if the Church affirmed women’s ability to make good decisions . . ., told the truth about Church teachings that leave room for women to decide to have abortions in good conscience (sic), and offered non-judgmental spiritual counseling before the abortion decision was made, there would be no need for post-abortion reconciliation. To a considerable extent, the bishops’ current program of reconciliation is designed to solve a problem that the Church has created."

In offering these opinions, Ms. Martin and Ms. Kissling managed to sound both silly and petty at the same time. To say that the Church should not provide post-abortion counseling because of its teaching on abortion is like saying the Church should stop providing services to those suffering from AIDs because of its teachings against behaviors that may lead to that disease. The assertion flies in the face of the experiences of those who have participated in Project Rachel, one of whom told the Boston Globe that the process "was without recrimination or judgment."

The suggestion that the women and men seeking the help offered by Project Rachel do so because they are on some sort of "Catholic guilt trip" is not only a slur that would not be tolerated if aimed at any other religion. It is belied by the fact that over 40 percent of those who contacted Project Rachel as a result of the Jubilee effort were people of other faiths or none. Killing a child is a shameful thing and human beings know this instinctively.

The Boston AP story reported that Michelle Ringuette, spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, attempted to discredit the need for Project Rachel by noting that out of 1,000 abortions a month in Massachusetts, "only two to four women call for counseling."

Hmmmm ... let’s see. A woman goes to a Planned Parenthood clinic and has an abortion. Later, she becomes emotionally devastated by this experience; her life may totter on the brink of emotional ruin. And she is seriously expected to go back to the scene of her devastation for help in overcoming it? Of course Planned Parenthood receives virtually no requests for post-abortion healing. Women who are hurting from abortion know the source of that hurt, and it’s not the Catholic Church. 

CNN reached new heights of media political correctness on abortion when it changed Barbara Thorp’s title to "Director of Anti-Abortion Services, Archdiocese of Boston" (her correct title, as noted above, is director of pro-life activities).   Apparently NAF and Planned Parenthood judged their scattered media salvos inadequate to undermine the goodwill for Project Rachel generated by positive stories in Boston. So they took the occasion of NAF’s "2000 Public Service Campaign," scheduled for May-June in Boston to announce a press conference under the headlines:

"PRO-CHOICE ADVOCATES REFUTE ANTI-CHOICE ADS THAT MISLEAD WOMEN ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL EFFECTS OF ABORTION: National Abortion Federation Public Service Ads, Featuring Toll-Free Abortion Hotline Number, Present Accurate Information About Abortion to Boston Women."

NAF’s "public service" ads (rejected by Atlanta’s Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority or MARTA) consist of two innuendo-laden statements. The first ad’s message reads: "Sister, daughter, mother. A few names women who’ve had an abortion actually deserve to be called." In smaller type, it continues: "Women who’ve had an abortion endure all kinds of name calling, much of which is unprintable here. But the belief that there’s a certain ‘type’ of woman who chooses abortion is as outdated as it is ignorant. Just consider one simple fact: by age 45, nearly half (43%) of the women in America will have had an abortion.... They are the women we love."

The implication that Project Rachel is all about vilifying women by calling them names too foul to print could not be more wrong. And, by the way, that "simple fact" about nearly half of American women having an abortion by age 45 ... only in their fondest dreams and marketing plans!

The second ad declares ominously: "Our doctors have learned everything there is to know about making abortion safe. Except what to wear to work." It continues: "A bullet proof vest is the last thing any doctor thought he or she would need to wear to work. Yet today, this is the unfortunate reality...."

How this bit of nastiness—lumping all pro-life people in with the few mentally unbalanced individuals who have resorted to lethal violence—answers the "misleading" information in the Project Rachel outreach ads is anyone’s guess. If the ads seem offensive, the press conference to discredit the Rachel ads was even worse. NAF Executive Director Vicki Saporta flew up from Washington to tell the press that women overwhelmingly feel relief after abortion. She forgot to mention that often the "relief" typically lasts only a few hours, days or weeks before it is replaced by crushing grief and sorrow. She also pointed out that "instead of vilifying them, we should give them the support they deserve." And that’s precisely what Project Rachel has been doing for 15 years. No one thought to ask her what NAF has done in the way of supporting women devastated by abortion.

Pity. The silence would have spoken volumes. Dr. Maureen Paul, incoming NAF president and medical director of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts declared that "the makers of these ads have no idea what women who choose abortion actually experience." The truth: the texts of all ads were taken directly from the words of women who’ve had abortions. And that is precisely why they resonate so strongly among women suffering from abortion. They ring true because they are true.

The most disturbing comment of the press conference came from a second-year med student from Harvard: "The best day I have had in the last two years of medical school was spent in an abortion clinic, shadowing Dr. Paul. ... I went home that day as happy as I have ever been about my decision to be a doctor." The silver lining was that only three members of the press even showed up: a cameraman, a journalist from a suburban paper, and one from Boston’s archdiocesan paper.

Numerous women who had been helped by Project Rachel in Boston contacted that office to express their anger at the NAF- Planned Parenthood attacks. One statement is representative of their feelings:

Many years ago I was young and in trouble. I went to Planned Parenthoodfor help. I needed someone to talk to. They presented only one option. They told me the cost in dollars. They never told me the true costs that I would pay over the years. I have suffered in silence, ashamed of my dirty little secret, no one to talk to, not even my family or friends. This cycle of pain, anguish and silence continued until I asked and received help from Project Rachel. The volunteer at Project Rachel helped me to come to terms with my actions. They saved me by enabling the healing process to begin. They helped me reconcile with God. I hope that all troubled women are allowed the free choice to go to Project Rachel without condemnation. I urge all who suffer because of their choices to seek [Project Rachel] and you shall be healed.