Echo Tourism, Mt. St. Helens Anniversary

The houses behind the "Femcare" site. They used to be dumpy, run down little places, but they've been fixed up with nice woodwork trim, cool colors, and cedar shakes.

Strawberries in the landscape in front of the neighboring yoga center. The center's owner bought the "Femcare" building at well below the tax appraisal value.  The property of the center once belonged to the abortionist Lorraine Cummings who worked under the name "Orange Street Properties."

Morning fog and light. Click on any image to enlarge.

A very different view from what we had from the sidewalk for the past few decades. Since I moved to Asheville, we've seen three abortion sites closed and torn down or gutted, and another one closed. Today is the 35th anniversary of the big Mount Saint Helens explosion. Just as in geologic time active volcanoes like Saint Helens will soon erupt again, its only a matter of time before the new Planned Parenthood abortion site will close and fall into decay or be remade into something else. As Winston Churchill wrote, "...though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small."

More Echo Tourism, Again

Every detail tells the story. The blood of the children cries out from the bricks, the pavement, the doorknobs. Listen, and you will hear it in your conscience. 

(Click to enlarge.)

Echo Tourism, Again

Site of the deaths of thousands of pre-natal children over the years.

For Sale

The "Femcare" sign is gone.

CLOSED

Femcare
(Femkill)

January 1975 - June 2014
Thirty-nine and a Half Sorrowful Years

Cigar Man

We call the person pictured here, Cigar Man. It's because he waddles up and down the sidewalk in front of the abortion site with a manic grin plastered on his face and an unlit cigar chomped in his teeth. After an incident today when he got his cigar into the face of one of our sidewalk counselors, I decided to reprint some commentary that originally appeared in the August 2012 edition of our Life Advocates newsletter.  

His real name is (we think) Joe Connelly.

About our “friend” the annoying person.  He starting coming out about three months ago.   Here he is pictured below holding his sign that says, “Do the people standing on the sidewalk beside me support the murder of health care providers like Dr. David Gunn and Dr. George Tiller?”   He has stood next to female sidewalk counselors when they are on the speaker and in a loud voice urged them to repent-his rhetoric is somewhat indirect, but that’s its essence.  Many times he has said, “I’ll see you next Wednesday unless your friends kill me first.  He said to a male sidewalk counselor (not me), “I thought you would bring a real man with you today.”   The first time I came to check him out, I videotaped “an interview” with him in which I asked questions about his motives and thinking.  The second time, several weeks later, I called the police, the non-emergency dispatch number, and expressed to the police the following, verbally and in writing: 

 1. We need to know how concerned we should be about this person.  (Does he have a history of violent or psychotic behavior, etc?) 

2.  We want to notify the police of his regular presence. 

3.  We request that the police advise him to not intentionally approach within 15 feet of any of us, especially women. 

   They talked with him and said we didn’t have anything to worry about, but I’m not convinced.  While some of us think he is unbalanced, and that’s a possibility, I’m inclined to believe he’s here to make a point-that he has an agenda to harass us, and his “concern” for abortionists and himself is bogus.   He hasn’t shown up yet today...

I just now found this online:  A WFMY-2 post up of an article from the Asheville Citizen-Times, that refers to Cigar Man.  The title is "Asheville Crowd Rallies For Gun Rights"

Participants carried signs with messages including "Guns have 2 enemies: rust and liberals," "What part of 'Shall not be infringed' confuses you?" and "The Second Amendment protects all the others." 

But Asheville attorney Joe Connelly wasn't there in support of gun rights. He had a sign reading, "Do the people standing on the sidewalk beside me support the murder of health care providers like Dr. David Gunn and Dr. George Tiller?" The message referred to the killing of the two abortion providers. 

"I'm not against guns," Connelly said. "But I am against people imposing on my rights by intimidating me with guns." 

It's hard to believe he's an attorney.  He doesn't seem smart enough.

However, I have wondered for years who the coward was who attacked me anonymously online with these comments.

The Essence of “Pro-Choice” Rhetoric: Misdirection (Part 1)

by M. E. Hunt

Illusionists and stage magicians know the secret of misdirection.  They’ll focus your attention on something relatively unimportant while the important action is happening right in front of you.

Master pickpocket and entertainer Apollo Robbins says misdirection happens in your brain as well.  He told the audience in a popular TED Talk that our minds are incapable of focusing on multiple aspects simultaneously.  We often experience “blindness” to things we see every day.  New information cannot be processed while trying to recover old information.

So, for example, when Apollo asks George what’s in his pocket, George’s mind turns inward to remember.  In the meantime, for a few moments, George did not notice what’s going on around him, that Apollo stole his watch.

Misdirection, both physical and rhetorical, is a critical tool in supporting the abortion of pre-natal children.
In my recent blog “Echo Tourism,” I mentioned an article titled “The Last Shift” written by a volunteer abortion escort and self-proclaimed “Asheville's Village Witch.”  For 10 years she greeted women seeking abortion at their cars in the clinic parking lot and walked them to the entrance.  This is when we sidewalk counselors speak to the women, offering help and urging them to let their children live.

She wrote:

…I always started a running patter, something like this—I’ll be talking about all sorts of things so focus on my voice.  It’ll be like a late night monologue, only I’m not very funny.  I’ll talk about your shoes—gosh, those are cute!  Or how far you had to drive—did you have far to come this morning?  BlackMountain?  Oh that’s not so bad.  How was the traffic?  Gosh, this is (fill in the blank) weather, isn’t it?  Does that RAV get good gas mileage?

A running patter.  In the online manuscript of Sleights of Mind, What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Everyday Deceptions, Stephen Macknik & Susana Martinez-Conde (2010) wrote:

Patter, it turns out, is one of the most important tools in the magician’s toolkit for attention management.  There are only a dozen or two (depending on who you ask) main categories of tricks in the magician’s repertoire …  Sleight of hand is of course critical, but so is patter, the smooth and confident stream of verbiage that can be used to hold, direct or divide attention.  Apollo tells George [his victim on stage] one thing while doing two other things with his hands.

The Asheville abortion place’s website admits as much when it says,

…we have volunteer escorts who may approach your car to walk you to our front door and help distract you from the demonstrators out on the sidewalk.

In this situation, the patter is meaningless babble.  Some escorts may be more adept at sincere conversation, but nothing they say pretends to engage the subject of abortion.  And yet, even when abortion-choice advocates seem to engage the issue, it’s almost entirely misdirection and distraction.

I'll explain in my next post, showing how this relates to the work of the Center for Bioethical Reform, the creator of the Genocide Awareness Project.

Echo Tourism

The Coliseum in Rome, from inside the wall.

by M. Hunt

If you’re quiet and listen, you might hear their voices.

When I looked across the arena at the Roman Coliseum during a torrid August afternoon in 2009, I tried to imagine the scenes of death from so many centuries ago. I tried to hear the echoes of blades on shields and the mobs cheering as blood flowed into the sand.

I imagine people feel the same somber wonder and horror when they visit other certain historical sites around the world, death camp sites such as Dachau, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, and the transport camp, Terezin.

At least two such tragic historical sites are located within Asheville, and the city is about to add another to its recommended tours.

One: The corner of 900 Hendersonville Road is now only a parking lot for a spiffy office building, but during the ‘80’s and into the early ‘90s, they aborted pre-natal children there in a low, squat building. Thousands of pre-natal children died in this sleazy, sordid place. The state of North Carolina tore it down to widen the road, and the business moved to the edge of Biltmore Village.

Two: Train tracks surrounded the new building that was located in an industrial zoned area. It featured a narrow waiting room on steel girders spanning a dirty, limpid creek. Weeds grew up the walls of the building, and on one side, old roofing material made the siding. Steel bars guarded broken window. The abortionists drove in from Tennessee and South Carolina. It was a back alley abortion mill with a sign hanging in the front alley.

On a Saturday afternoon in November, 1998, I showed up as usual with my “Let Your Baby Live. We Will Help!” sign, but no one else came. No other pro-life people, no abortion workers, and no victims. I was alone. A sheet of white paper had been taped to the front window. For the first time ever, I walked onto the property and to the front porch. The note said the place had closed permanently.

I remember months later seeing a monster garbage truck parked in front, rocking back and forth. An industrial shredder on wheels. A few years later another business moved into the building, a non-profit called Save the Children. That’s right. I stopped once just to look around inside, and I asked the people there a few questions. I wanted to, but didn’t ask if they ever heard the echoes of screaming children. Sometime later, the owner tore the building down, leaving rubble, and piles of weed-covered earth, now in view of nearby spiffy office buildings.

Three: Apparently, the abortion center on Asheville’s Orange Street is closing now. A volunteer escort recently said so in an article titled “The Last Shift” that appeared June 15 in an online publication called The Asheville Blade. So, by the end of this month we’ll have another historical site of sorrow and death to add to the itinerary. Maybe “Save the Children” will buy the building and move in. Maybe someday this terrible place will end up like all the others, in rubble and fading memories.

My late acquaintance, Kentucky poet laureate James Still and I once ate lunch together nearly every day. I could never find his source, and I may not have the quote down perfectly, but he one day he said, “Birds sang, the sun shone, flowers grew, and prayers rose up, but the laws of nature were not violated.” He was talking about Dachau, which I know he visited. Maybe the quote was his own, a fragment of an incomplete poem.

My friends and I spent many, many hours on the sidewalk in front of Femcare--when thousands of people ignored, dismissed, ridiculed, or cursed our offers of help and appeals to moms and dads to let their babies live. Thousands of mothers carried their children passed us into the doors to be killed.

An independent observer watching the passers-by might suppose the middle finger to be an international sign for “choice.” But many people expressed support, too, as they walked or drove by. Our presence was always, usually, more a quiet vigil than a protest. I’ve watched and listened to starlings, crows, doves, pigeons, and hawks. Last Saturday, a noisy mocking bird entertained and annoyed us with his crazy song list, more of cacophony than symphony.

Prayers rose up. But not enough prayer and not enough people praying. On occasion a mother changed her mind and left with her baby alive.

Femcare is closing. A better name for it is Femkill. Though, what you call it is irrelevant now because it’s closing. What’s important is the killing probably is moving to another place—to a building on McDowell Street owned and operated by Planned Parenthood.

North Carolina law says it’s a felony to “destroy” “unborn children” unless the act is done by a licensed physician “in a hospital or clinic certified by the Department of Health and Human Services to be a suitable facility for the performance of abortions.” We often bring posters to the sidewalk depicting a 10 week child who was destroyed by abortion. This is what Planned Parenthood intends to do in its new building. It’s bloody, violent, and evil. There is no suitable facility for this.

So, are we nostalgic about our upcoming last shift at Femcare? Are we jubilant? No. Just feeling sadness and resignation. We’ll be shifting to McDowell Street, if necessary. Unique human beings, persons in embryonic or fetal form, will be destroyed in that place. And someday even it will be a ruined historical site where, if you’re quiet and listen, you might hear their voices.

Echoing in your conscience.

The Last Shift

"Anon Jim" left a comment with a link to this short article about a volunteer escort's last shift at the abortion place, "Femkill".  It appeared in the Asheville Blade on June 15.

It begins with an introduction by the publisher:

At the end of this month FemCare, currently the last clinic in the Asheville area providing abortion services, will close. Last year, the clinic was controversially shut down for nearly a month by NC inspectors during a fight about new state legislation sharply restricting access to abortion. For almost a decade, local activist, author and Pagan clergy member Byron Ballard worked as a volunteer escort, accompanying women in and out of the clinic to ensure their safety. Here she tells the story of her last shift. -DF

By Byron Ballard

Read the full article here.

I will post a reply soon.

"Femcare" May Close for Good

According to a story yesterday by Jon Elliston of the Carolina Public Press, the abortion site "Femcare" may be closing permanently.









UPDATE/BREAKING NEWS: Asheville abortion clinic for sale, could close; Planned Parenthood plans new clinic

The plant is a weed growing in front of the abortion place.

October 2013

Dear Girls on the Run Contact,

Girls on the Run is a non-profit running program for girls.  It’s an international effort based in Charlotte and active in western North Carolina.  Its website lists your school as a program site.

On Thursday, September 5 this year, a radical pro-abortion-choice “doula” organization hosted a fundraiser for “Femcare,” an abortion business on Orange Street in Asheville. The fundraiser, called “Labor By Choice,” was held at Asheville Pizza and Brewing’s “Millroom” on Ashland Avenue.  The host group’s name is the Open Umbrella Collective.  Femcare made news in August when it was temporarily closed by the NC Department of Health and Human Services for more than 20 health and safety violations.  Femcare’s website says “Surgical abortions are provided until the 12th week of pregnancy (. . . from the first day of the last menstrual period)”, which would be approximately the 10th week of a baby’s life.

Amy Renigar is the Executive Director of Girls on the Run of Western North Carolina.  To the left [above] is a photograph of her attending the “Labor By Choice” fundraiser for Femcare. 

A number of political figures also attended the fundraiser, including Patsy Keever, Cecil Bothwell, Gordon Smith, and Susan Fisher.

Anna Pfaff, shown to the right, a member of the Board of Directors of Girls on the Run, lists herself at Linkedin as a Health Care Professional.  Her listing also says that she currently is a “Full Spectrum Doula at Open Umbrella Collective”, the radical group that hosted the fundraiser for the abortion business.

Included with this mailing is a photo of a baby aborted at 10 weeks, which is within the age range of the children killed at Femcare.

Do you want people who directly give public support for abortion running a program that plays such an important role in the lives of young girls, the students in your care?

Meredith Eugene Hunt

Life Advocates
PO Box 19205
Asheville, NC   28815   828-575-7300  

lifeadvocates@earthlink.net

"You Destroyed a Miracle"

 

A letter to the editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times by me appeared in the September 1 issue under the title, "Says every abortion destroys a miracle."   The letter said:

   Years ago I often ate lunch with James Still, a writer of renown in the world of Appalachian literature.  One day I stomped a cockroach that was scuttling across the floor at our feet.

   “You destroyed a miracle,” Mr. Still said…
   I’ve always been fascinated with life in miniature.  When I see an iridescent wolf spider no larger than a sesame seed, or another amazing wild creature around the house, I’ll run for the magnifying glass.
   Science recognizes that fertilization is when a unique person is created.  The biological entity that begins then is the same biological entity that’s born, the same that grows into a toddler, teen, adult, and mature older adult.   It’s only to justify abortion that the words “life,” “person,” or “human” are re-defined to exclude the prenatal human individual.   ”Prochoice” is a philosophy that requires a person to have certain characteristics before he or she has a right to live.
   Whatever the news is about North Carolina legislation or the closing or opening of “Femcare", and however biased the coverage might be, none of it changes the reality that every abortion destroys a miracle.  Not a cockroach or a parasite either, but a living human being.

Link to the letter.

FemKill Fundraiser Part One

Yesterday evening, fourteen of us stood in front of the entrance of the Millroom to greet financial donors of the Asheville business that aborts prenatal children on Orange Street.

Our friends Chris and Mary Beth (holding their new baby) talking with a UNCA student, an Anthropology major.  Mary Beth said, "Keever came up to me and did the "awww baby...how old?" routine telling me of her own grand baby. I asked her how she could support this fundraiser and she said, "very easily." I told her [my daughter] was merely three months out of the womb."

Not related to a photo, but PARC, People Advocating Real Conservancy, enthusiastically supported the fundraiser.  See their Facebook Event, Femcare Fundraiser: Labor by Choice.

Here on the right is Amy Renigar, Executive Director of Girls on the Run of WNC. Their website says, "Amy Renigar joined the GOTR team in June 2012 because of her interest public health and passion for creating a world where all girls (and women) are empowered to become their best selves."  Ann Pfaff, an outspoken abortion supporter, is on their Board of Directors. This organization runs programs in elementary schools all over the region, including at Veritas Christian Academy.  Go to it's website to learn of its numerous local sponsors, many of whom would not wish to be connected with the violent deaths of prenatal children.  Groups such as Rotary Club of Asheville, Earth Fare, Diamond Brand Outdoors, and so on.

City Councilman Gordon Smith on the left.  At one point towards the end of the evening, he passed by me with an acknowledgement, "How are you, Meredith?"  I nodded.  Then he turned back and said with a grin, "You have raised so much money for them in there."  Something like that...  Money.  This got me thinking.  The people at this event were pretty committed and not likely to be influenced.  But not everyone is this way.  Many people still have a functioning conscience when it comes to abortion.   Or at least they can have a normal reaction.  When we were winding down, I took Eric and Starla with me around the block to the other side of the building...

...which is the front of Asheville Pizza and Brewing, the business that owns the Millroom, which was either rented to the Open Umbrella Collective or donated.  Asheville Pizza has an outdoor dining patio that is right next to the sidewalk and last night it was full of people eating.  We had faced the large posters of a mangled, bloody 10 week pre-born child toward the customers no more than two or three seconds before we had a diner in our face, confronting us.   None of the Femcare supporters acted like this.  People are more upset over an impediment to their appetite then they are about children being slaughtered and about a fundraiser for such atrocities in the same building in which they are filling their stomachs.  They demand that we behave decently when this horrible outrage goes on day after day, year after year.  (Out of sight, out of mind.)  But at least they react. One of the managers called the police and when an officer came we chatted a few minutes. 

I wonder how much money we could raise for Asheville Pizza and Brewing.  It  would be a new twist to "Brew and View."

Of course, notorious celebrity, Cecil Bothwell (below), whose contribution to dialog was to practically shout that one of the protestors should "repent of your self righteousness!"  I wonder if he can explain "self-righteous" in a way that doesn't include his own attitude?  This accusation dodges talking about what's really right or wrong.

Femkill Fundraiser Part Two

Pasty Keever, former member of the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners arrives at the abortion fundraiser.  She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2012 against Patrick McHenry in the 10th District of North Carolina.  On August 17 this year Democratic activists elected her as the Number 2 person in the state party.  The Associated Press said, "Democrats are trying to get their bearings after last fall’s elections left them without control of either the executive or legislative branch for the first time in more than a century."  Notice that she is wearing pink, the Planned Parenthood color of choice.  She was one of the speakers for the event.

State Representative Susan Fisher arrives in baggy grey.  She often acted as a sort of official representative of Femcare in the media during this situation. Fisher has been associated with Planned Parenthood in Asheville for many years.  Unfortunately she usually runs unopposed for her state House seat.  Many of her constituents are African-Americans.who would not support her enthusiastic advocacy and promotion of abortion.  In the photo below  Fisher is paying to get in the door.

The lady in the pink did us the favor of introducing people who attended (to someone out of the frame).  The young gentleman in grey said he is a liaison for Democratic Senator Joe Sam Queen, who represents the North Carolina's 47 Senate District with constituents in Avery, Haywood, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell and Yancey counties, very conservative areas. When the lady said who he was, he said, "Shhhh" and then laughed a little.  You could tell he didn't want us to know who he was.  If Queen's constituents knew of his support for abortion, that could contribute to his defeat in the next election.

Fearless Symmetry

By Helen Gordon

 

A whirl of chaos enveloped Orange Street in front of Femcare that morning: cars passing, pedestrians, utility bucket truck working overhead, a frequent opponent of our presence plopped in the middle of things, and through it all, a steady stream of mothers heading up the driveway.  One car stops as I approach, the father calm and quiet behind the wheel, the mother quietly distraught beside him. Their tender hearts show on their faces, in their eyes. I speak and question gently, but bluntly, about the reality of what they have come to do. So much time goes by with them frozen in the driveway, Lillian vigilant at the corner where they entered and a steady barrage of prayers from a young trio of siblings ascending through the chaos of street and sidewalk.

 

Finally, the father agrees to back out of the driveway and into the parking lot immediately next door.
 

I retreat from the side of their car to let them talk and, I hope, pray. Soon, our gentle Annie Lee walks up holding her signature rose, a white one this morning, a gift for the mothers that is rarely given away. She greets them at their car window to speak in their native tongue, Spanish. For a long time, Annie Lee listens and talks, but returns to us still holding her rose. "The mother is so upset, so afraid," she says. Then Sharon makes her regular appearance on the sidewalk. She, too, approaches their car speaking to them in her passionate Spanish.

 

Our prayer continues. The chaos continues in the street, on the sidewalk, as other mothers arrive with their babies scheduled to die.

 

A young woman exits Femcare and walks deliberately down the parking lot through our midst and up to the car in the neighboring lot with the mother and father still conversing with Sharon. She interrupts briefly, speaking to the mother in Spanish, and then retreats the way she came and reenters Femcare. Sharon calls to us that she has warned the mother that her situation is very dangerous. Without thinking, I ask Sharon to tell them we shall take them to the doctor. And now I pray ardently as I call his office that he will be there. Keen attention and enthusiasm are the response of those who answer my call and put me on hold to speak to the doctor. A flood of gratitude washes over me as I ready my car to lead them - this doctor and his staff always have hands and hearts ready to help, but how rare it is to find this same understanding of this life and death emergency when entreating others for help.

 

They follow closely (the mother clutching Annie Lee's white rose, as I learned later) as Sharon and I lead them to the doctor's office. We leave Femcare far behind and my thumping heart begins to still.

 

A quiet, warm welcome greets us at the reception desk and we are seated—what a sweet refuge in that little waiting room! Our troubled mother turns to me. She is showing me pictures on her phone of their other children. She is smiling and calm, her true self.  Fear has left her.

 

Very soon our mother and father are with the dear doctor. Sharon and I sit, joyous, grateful, exhausted. The nurse comes to assure us that all is well. As we stand and wait to leave, the father comes out into the corridor. He looks into my eyes and very firmly states, "I knew she would not do it. I knew when we got to that place there would be someone outside to help." My heart was pierced by his look, his words, his presence. I could say nothing, only blink back tears.

 

The battle had raged mightily all morning in the chaos of that place. And there had been victory for one tiny baby, and mother, and father, and four brothers and sisters through the merciful hand of God present in Lillian, and Annie Lee, and Sharon, and our trio of valiant young pray-ers, and in our utility workmen who had very kindly and wisely tightened the bolts of the overhead wires they were taking down so as to keep us safe. They knew we had to be present. One of them had said with a smile, "It won't work very well for you to be across the street, will it?" He knew we had to be close at hand.

 

 

Femcare. A sad, sorry person.

This person is a frequent escort at the killing center.  He also stood in front of our "ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN" banner, blocking it at the Mountain Moral Monday event.  Here he is pulling a few weeds at the abortion grounds.  I have to wonder, what is motivating him?  Exactly what is in his mind as he helps this place that kills small human beings?

 

Mountain Moral (Manure) Monday

Narrative, as promised...

August 5, 2013

When we got into downtown Asheville proper I immediately knew the Mountain Moral Monday would be bigger than had I expected.  People carrying signs were walking blocks to the location from their remote parking spaces.  We parked across from the abortion place on Orange Street.   It was just two of us, my wife and I, and we had to carry poles, signs, a banner, and a taller than life puppet, who was draped in a garbage bag.  A lot of stuff and we had six blocks to walk.

Four different groups of people offered to help us carry our material.  I’m not really sure how I should have responded, but in each case I told the people they really didn’t want to help us.  The first group was a family of three on Orange Street—Dad, Mom, and Junior.   Dad was all gung ho and said, “We believe in a good cause.”  I read him as a being a typical "liberal"—sort of generous, but ready to turn hostile in a moment.   When we told him we were “the opposition” he backpedaled quickly and the three of them hustled off, with him saying, “We’re different.”   

With the next guy who offered to help, I tried a different approach.   I said, “I need to ask you some questions first.  Are you prolife?”

“If you mean do I think abortion should be illegal, then no, I’m not.”

“When does human life begin?” I asked.

“Whenever the parents say it does.”

“Even if that’s five years old?”

“How often does that happen?”

“Biologically, an individual human life begins at fertilization.”

At this point the guy became angry and said, “It begins when the parents say it does. You know, I’m sick and tired of the right wing bxll shxt and I’m not going to debate with you.”

How often does it happen?  Parents murder their born children all the time, but that would be fine with this guy.  It was shocking how he could explode so dramatically after being all friendly.  And he gave me no credit for doing him a favor, from his point of view, by warning him of the horrible mistake he was a about to make.

When we arrived at the site I quickly saw how we couldn’t set up our 20 foot banner in the place I had scouted out a few days earlier, on a tier in view of the podium.  Too many people around.  We moved off to the side and higher.    I got out my puppet and it didn’t take long before some young women surrounded me with their little signs about “women’s health”.  The Shrunke family with three of their teens arrived from Morganton to help.  We got the banner up, then some pro-abortion choice folks took positions in front to block people from seeing it.   The puppet was much taller, so I decided to make it our focal point.  A lot of people took pictures of him.

One woman said, “You know it’s proven (according to a recent article in The Economist) that thousands of women a year die in Latin American countries because of illegal abortion.”  I said, “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t support abandoning legal protection for prenatal children.”  She then went on to talk about how women are not protected and supported, etc.  I mentioned the breakdown of the family and was about to talk about how liberals like those in Planned Parenthood have undermined marriage when she interrupted with “Are you married?  Are you married?”

I wanted to finish my thought and when she kept insisting that I answer her question, I referred to her interrupting me.  She said angrily, “It’s because you’re not making any ‘effing’ sense.”

I said, “Okay” and turned away.  The conversation was over as far as I was concerned.  I wonder though, where she was headed with the marriage question. It’s just that I refuse to make the conversation about me.   My personal marital status, sex, race, age etc. are completely irrelevant to the issue of abortion.

As I walked around, some of the young women followed me. This was annoying and eventually I took a loop through the crowd to look for a better place for the banner and find some police officers.   One of the girls followed.  I had already asked her not to follow me and claimed she was stalking me.   When I approached a group of officers, I asked one to ask the girl to stop it. She had passed the group and pretended to be on other business, but I pointed her out.  Eventually an officer asked her to not follow me and she complied.  

From there I moved to a different street corner.  One guy with a bicycle started asking questions.   He brought out the usual ad hominems and non sequiturs.   His main point seemed to be that I was a hypocrite.  (They always want to make the debate personal, as if the whole issue of abortion depends upon their perception of my apparent virtue.  If I am pure according to their values, then abortion really kills a baby and they will suddenly become pro-life.   Well, not really. Actually that approach is nothing but a ruse to fool themselves that they have a legitimate point.)

The fact of the matter is that I beat him soundly in debate. (You'll have to take my word for it.)  No surprise, since I happen to hold to the truth and have been doing this for years.   Whenever he got pinned, he changed the subject until he had nothing to say but, “You’re brainwashed” as a parting shot.

I went close to the front, on the side. It was a mob scene for awhile.  I was surrounded by angry people who all seemed to want to talk at once.  All of them offered slogans in the form of rhetorical questions, some they had just heard from the podium.   One old man asked me about cutting unemployment, or something.  I told him that he should go home and research the issue and study both sides.  He said, "Oh, okay," like that was a new idea for him. Four or five large black men (NAACP, no doubt) got chest to chest with me (or, should I say, belly to belly) and tried to gently force me to the edge.  When I suggested that they ask a policeman to get involved, they backed down.  Next, a person tried to hide the Femcare puppet behind an U.S. flag on a pole and someone else, a rainbow flag.  Both flags were hitting me in the face and I said, mildly, "That's battery.  If that flag hits me in the face again, I might give it a little yank."  One of the black guys asked me, "Are you threatening somebody?"  When I said no, but the flags were in my face, he persuaded them to move away from me.

At this point it was time to go.  As I walked back up to where the banner was located, “cigar man” approached.    As in other recent occasions, he had the stub of a cigar clamped in his teeth which he exhibited in a wild looking, abandoned grin.   He grinned like he had just somehow achieved some incredibly brilliant maneuver against me.  He said in his high pitched voice, “You know, Meredith, I called the DA’s office and told them that you had written down my license plate and a description of my car.  Do you want my address?  I’ll give you my address if you want it.”

I didn’t say a word.  I just looked at him, taking in the disturbing spectacle of a demented mad man, who quite possibly is under demonic influence.   This is the fellow I wrote about earlier who is obsessed with wondering if “one of our friends” will kill him.  I certainly wasn’t going to remind him of what he surely should have known—that I had been taking note of his info for a police dispatcher, who I had live on the phone.  I said at the time that he was following me, which he was.  It was Saturday morning, August 3, and he insisted on standing inches from us with his silly sign, and then when I moved away from him, he insisted on following us across the street.  When I said, “I’m calling the police” he said, “Call the police.”   But I’m not sure that he even was aware that when I called the police he quickly went to his truck to drive away.  Then when the police asked me for his identifying information and I trotted up to his car to read the plate, he stopped in the middle of the road and got out to tell me the license number and that his Toyota was green, all of which I could see for myself right there. 

As I said, his wickedness quite apart, what’s most disturbing about this man is his up-close-and-personal infliction on us of his profound stupidity.  And then, at the Mountain Moral Monday, he crossed the road to remind me again, with his crazy grin that he had called the DA to tell him I made note of his license plate number, so that if something happened to him, the DA would know “who was responsible.”   And as before, I said nothing, but thinking how foolish he was because I had been giving the police his license number!   I called the event, “Mountain Manure Monday.”  Maybe “Mountain Madness Monday” is also appropriate.

This event and the comments of people we encountered convince me again that there is something in people’s defense for abortion that is not reachable by reason.  In fact, for many it’s not reachable by anything, which leaves them open for harsh judgment as individuals, and we as a nation.
 

Scattered throughout the MM crowd were signs supporting Femcare.  Words endorsing abortion flowed from the podium including from Rev. Barber of the NAACP.  The close association between abortion, homosexuality and the other “issues” championed during Moral Mondays removes any credibility those other positions might have.  And from what I’ve researched on education funding, and understand how distorted the MM rhetoric is, I suspect that everything about MM is wrong.  Considering how much positive coverage MM is getting nationally, we are in for a tremendous battle for truth in North Carolina.

 

photo below by Eric Zetterholm