The battle lines were drawn as anti-abortion and abortion rights groups both held rallies at the University of Wisconsin Library Mall Saturday.
Saturday marked the one-year anniversary since the Madison Surgery Center voted to approve an abortion clinic that would perform second-trimester abortions.
Though no abortion procedures have occurred since the clinic was approved, anti-abortion organizers put together a rally opposing the decision and demanding the clinics removal in response to the anniversary.
When abortion rights organizers learned about the rally they put together an impromptu counter-rally of their own. As anti-abortion speakers prayed, sang and delivered speeches, the abortion rights group marched in circles around the crowd and shouted slogans such as “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries,” and “Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate.”
Chris Slattery, a full-time anti-abortion activist from New York City, was there to speak about the surgery center and UW’s involvement.
“The UW needs to stop dead in its tracks now. This is our demand,” he said. “The university is going to fall if it continues to be in the baby killing business.”
The decision by the UW Hospital and Clinics Authority Board to support the clinic brought Slattery to Madison.
Slattery said ongoing protests are in the works to address what anti-abortion activists claim to be of utmost importance.
“We are planning 40 days of continual presence at the surgery center starting on Ash Wednesday,” Slattery said. “If they don’t change plans there will be an ongoing boycott of the UW.”
Kim Gasper, a member of the International Socialist Organization, was there to support the abortion rights rally. Gasper had an abortion when she was 26 and said she was not healthy or ready for children at the time.
“I owe no apologies, I did the right thing,” Gasper said. “I believe in free abortion on demand.”
Gasper added the right to choose is a matter of equality, and anti-abortion supporters are spreading hate against women.
“Women need to have complete control of their own bodies and access to birth control and abortion,” she said. “If these pro-life people want to help others, they should pack up and go to Haiti.”
Regardless of the pro-choice presence, Virginia Zignego, the spokesperson for Pro-Life Wisconsin, is happy with the success of the rally and previous protests they held within the last year.
“So far the surgery center has not performed an abortion,” Zignego said. “We like to think that our presence has played a part in that.”
She added that the issue is important for UW students because their demographic is the percent of the population that is most affected by abortion policies.
After the rally, the anti-abortion crowd marched down Lake Street to the surgery center on South Park Street. Yet, as the anti-abortion speakers wound down, the abortion rights rally made a preemptive move to beat them there, where the yelling, praying and slogan chanting continued for about an hour.
Zignego said abortion rights activists were attempting to drown out the demonstrations by anti-abortion speakers. She added that she felt abortion rights activists were disrespecting them with their actions.
“We are on the side of the abortionists too,” Slattery said. “We want to convert them.”
However, the abortion rights group was not there to be converted, but to voice its side of the issue.
“We’re just trying to show that pro-life is not the only voice. We have a stake in this too,” said Noel Benedetti, a graduate student at UW.
Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin Lisa Subeck said the demonstrations are intended to show UW support for services offered at the surgery center.
The weather was cold on Saturday, but the atmosphere was heated. There was a lot of shouting and a distinct difference in opinions. However, the day remained peaceful and without major incident.
Other than a disorderly conduct citation given to a man who took off his shirt and did a striptease on the small tower next to the Library Mall stage, there were no arrests.
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Did the author of this even attend, or is the blatant attempt to portray this as an equal showing on both parts merely their own bias showing through? Other articles are reporting only a few dozen abortion advocates and several hundred pro-lifers…you headline it “Nearly 500 abortion-rights, anti-abortion activists…” in what is probably an attempt to misinform readers as to the extent of pro-life support this event had.
Poor job, kid.
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http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_39ce110a-1389-11df-b0a3-001cc4c03286.html
The State Journal also reported close to 500 people. I was there and 500 does seem a bit high. The prolifers were definitely more organized and had the majority of the people. but it makes me wonder if all these people were actually from Madison or were they bused in from other communities. And how many were students. The prochoice side may have been outnumbered but they were a lot louder and mostly comprised of students.
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The pro-abortion side may have had some students involved, just like the pro-life side, but the pro-choice side was not “mostly comprised” of students. Lisa Subeck is an older adult and Andrew Ambler, the one who lead most of the chants, is also not a student. Many of the abortion-rights supporters also looked much older then typical students.
While there were some pro-lifers from surrounding communities (Middleton, Verona, etc.) very few traveled further then 50 miles, and there were no buses that brought people in.
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“… Not the state, women should decide their fate”
Isn’t that what the anti-abortion folks want too? State dollars should not be used for or against abortions.
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There’s a reason it’s called “pro-choice”. Giving women the option of abortion is women “deciding their fate”. Denying women the mere option of an abortion (what anti-abortion folks want) is negating that decision. The state isn’t deciding a woman’s fate if they offer abortions, they don’t force the decision on anyone. In an odd way of thinking about it, providing abortion could be a state interest since it may avoid the state having to pay for an “unwanted” child down the road. Many countries around the world are heavily influenced by religious and anti-abortion legal action. Women end up going to unsafe and unqualified places for abortions, often leading to death and/or illnesses. If there’s a need/demand, people will find a way. The state can provide a sanitary and reliable place for abortions. You can’t change a woman’s opinion by making laws against it or protesting facilities that enable her to make safer choices.
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That’s fine, I don’t really wish to argue those points. What I’m saying is, abortion rights advocates can’t say they state needs to stay out of their business, and then want the state to help pay for their abortions.
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UW Hospitals and Clinics is not a state institution; the only dollars the state has invested in this is via Medicaid patients.
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�The university is going to fall if it continues to be in the baby killing business.�
What a hoot! Go right ahead and boycott the university — whatever good that will do. That would be kind of like boycotting Sears on this issue since neither Sears nor UW are parties to the joint endeavor. The Madison Surgery Center (in business for several years providing hundreds of outpatient surgical procedures other than abortions) is a partnership of Meriter Hospital (no relation to UW), the UW Hospitals and Clinics (a separate state authority and NOT part of UW) and the UW Medical Faculty (a non-state, corporate entity separate from UW).
To be effective protestors need at least the basic information about who they are protesting to.
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Clearly, if a woman decides she is unprepared to carry a pregnancy to term, she will tend to have an abortion SOONER rather than later. So whom does a late-term abortion ban affect most of all? It affects women who discover late in term that the fetus is suffering from severe or fatal anomalies or that their own health is threatened.
In other words, it affects women who WANTED to have a baby but developed serious medical problems. Those are the women who were used as fodder in the calculated anti-choice strategy, the so-called “Partial Birth” Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (federal ban). The danger to women’s health from banning medical procedures was of no concern to those who devised the ban.
The federal ban was a callous strategy, callous in its complete disregard for the health and safety of women. The effect was to endanger the lives of women who have hazardous pregnancies and medical emergencies.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated, “The intervention of legislative bodies into medical decision making is inappropriate, ill advised, and dangerous.”
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Murdering a pregnant woman is considered a double homicide, because two people are killed.
Abortion is the direct killing of a baby living and breathing in a mother’s womb.
So why isn’t abortion murder?
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That isn’t good reasoning. Just because something is currently a law doesn’t mean you can use it as a defense.
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I am simply addressing the dangerous conflict in our society.
In the case of the double homicide, the government recognizes the presence of a living baby within the mother before the baby is born, and charges the killer with double homicide.
But it is considered legal for a pregnant woman to abort and kill her baby before it�s born.
How can we say that some people have a “right” to kill, and others don’t? No one has the right to kill.
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Thanks to those of you who spoke out against regressive beliefs that continue to make women second-class citizens.
Women deserve complete control over their bodies and quality of life, no IF AND or BUTs!!!
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Poor job, indeed.
The numbers ARE completely off (~800 pro-life, ~30 pro-choice). The spin is also remarkable.
The author never used the correct name of the PRO-LIFE movement, calling it anti-abortion instead. Does that entitle us to re-define the pro-choicers as pro-aborts or pro-murder?
The author never commented on the fact that the pro-lifer’s demeanor was quiet and civilized, while the socialist pro-aborts were loud, angry, and required police intervention several times.
The author did not indicate that the man who did a strip-tease on the tower above the stage was a pro-abort activist who was so intent on disrupting the peaceful pro-life rally that he took off his shirt at 20 degrees and performed lewd actions in front of the rally. This man did very little to further the cause of the pro-aborts or their reputation.
The author never discussed the original purpose of the rally, did not list the groups attending,and did not interview the organizers.
What a bad piece of journalism …., no, PROPAGANDA.
An author as opinionated as this one disgraces the name of journalism and of the Badger Herald.