Published this past Friday.
See quote below - "... he had come to see attention and opposition as proof of impact." That's right! Street activism is crucial!!
One of the rare times the NY Times has done an in-depth feature on anti-abortion street activism. AND the online version has a link to an audio and pictorial discussion (which is excellent and fair) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/10/09/us/abortion/index.html# that includes pictures. Here's the link to the full NYT article, which is honest.
Abortion Foes Tell of Their Journey to the Streets - NYTimes.com
But as the personal stories of Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Brewer and Ms. Anderson suggest, the motivations of many protesters are more complicated. They see themselves as righteous curbside critics, prophets warning the world with what they describe as the horrific truth no one wants to see. They have endured insults, threats and even estrangement from their families because they have found what nearly every activist craves: conviction, camaraderie and conflict.
Chet Gallagher mentioned above, is a former police officer from Las Vegas. who years ago did some rescues in the northeast and the NY area. The Ms. Anderson mentioned is NOT the HVCL co-director Judy Anderson.
The most repeated anecdotes involve abortions averted. Ms. Anderson recalled what she said was her first triumph. It was the early ’80s. After becoming pregnant with a boyfriend while separated from her husband — and deciding to have the baby despite friends’ advice to abort, she said — she was a single mother with a bumper sticker on her Chrysler Fifth Avenue that said “the heart beats at 24 days for an unborn child.”
One day in a parking lot near her home, Ms. Anderson said, a woman came up to her and said she had been on her way to get an abortion when she saw that simple statement and changed her mind. “There was a 2-year-old in the back seat,” Ms. Anderson said.
At her home in Memphis, Mich., other examples followed: of two girls from Ohio who left an abortion clinic and, she said, told Ms. Anderson that her presence had persuaded them had not gone through with it; of a young man who knocked on her door in the dead of night, after seeing anti-abortion signs in her window.
Then Ms. Anderson pulled out a black cassette recorder. Sitting on a red couch a few feet from two abortion posters, she replayed what she said was a voicemail message from several years ago. An older woman, sounding unsure and emotional, said she wanted to thank her because “you was at the clinic, and really helped my daughter.”
Ms. Anderson smiled. “I can’t tell you how many babies have been saved because of abortion protesters outside the abortion mills,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
More, from Mr. Brewer -
“I don’t want to say the conflict is fun, because it isn’t,” said Mr. Brewer, 40, an easygoing state pool champion with an earring high in his left ear. “But the interaction is fun, to be able to talk to people who take the time to listen to what you have to say.”
A layoff last year from his job at a boat factory pushed him further. He joined Mr. Pouillon about three times a week, he said, partly for the camaraderie and partly — like other anti-abortion protesters — because he had come to see attention and opposition as proof of impact.
Here's a further commentary on the NYT article -
New York Times Applauded for Showing Pictures of Babies Killed in Abortions
Monica Migliorino Miller, a Michigan pro-life advocate and professor at Madonna University, has taken so many pictures of babies killed in abortions she is regarded as an expert of sorts.
She told LifeNews.com over the weekend that the Times show and online pictorial is "nearly unprecedented in 37 years of legalized abortion."
"Perhaps for the first time in the history of the pro-life movement a nationally recognized paper -- or any newspaper for that matter -- has deliberately printed photos of actual abortion victims," Miller said.
Miller talked about the genesis of the news report and online photo spread.
"This is a story written by reporter Damien Cave who attended the memorial service for murdered pro-lifer, Jim Pouillon," Miller explained. "After the service, the reporter approached [me] and asked me about the use of graphic images in pro-life work. We later did a two hour interview and this story is the result."
Miller was able to take the photos because members of her pro-life group retrieved the bodies of babies killed in abortion from the dumpster of a local abortion center in April 2008.
"The two photos featured in this on-line edition are of a baby aborted by the saline method of abortion and the other is the foot of an unborn child murdered at the Women's Advisory abortion clinic in Livonia, Michigan," she told LifeNews.com.
Monica Miller was arrested along with some of her students in May at Notre Dame, the same day the "South Bend Five" from teh NY area was arrested there, protesting the Obama honorary degree and commencement speech.