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.

My Reply (rejected/unpublished)

Letter to the Daily Tar Heel

submitted about 3/22/14

A more representative title for my March 18, 2014 letter to the editor would be “Abortion could be considered genocide.”  Perhaps the Daily Tar Heel’s imperative, “should,” prompted misunderstanding contained in the March 19 reply, “Abortion letter was ignorant and hateful.”
 
But if abortion is genocide (or if it’s murder) how are we to regard women who participate in taking the lives of their pre-natal children?

Every genocide has aspects in common with other genocides, but every one is different. Women have been deceived into believing abortion is good for them.  The reality of abortion being a violent act that will destroy their child is suppressed or withheld.  They’ve grown up in a culture that believes sexuality can be separated from reproduction, and it is legal and okay to destroy their offspring.  If a comparison can be made, it would be like German young people who grew up in the 1930s. They bear a degree of responsibility for their actions, but they are also victims of those who allowed the killing to be legitimized.

The UN and other definitions of genocide do not refer to hatred. Impassive calculation is enough, because the definitions turn on intent “to destroy in whole or in part.” There are groups, national and international, campaigning to destroy all unwanted children.  Planned Parenthood with its slogan “Every child a wanted child” is an example.  And often people involved in genocide are motivated only by self-interest.

With genocide, and in any widespread killing, dehumanizing language makes it easier.  “Fetus,” commonly used by abortion-choice advocates, refers to any mammal, when the human-specific term is “child.”

For perspective, watch the introductory video at www.abortionNo.org.  How can such violence be healthy for women?  Abortion is anti-women.  Not only does it harm mothers, half of the pre-natal children killed by abortion are girls.

I would encourage readers to examine the facts (including gruesome images of the victims of abortion), ignore the petty insults and personal attacks, consider the arguments, and come to the best conclusion.  What word describes abortion better than “genocide”?

by Meredith Hunt

The photo is a GAP brochure that we handed out on 4/1 2014 on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  Someone lit it on fire.  Not only was my reply rejected, the Daily Tar Heel did not allow me to post any online comments.

Abortion letter was ignorant and hateful

Published in the Daily Tar Heel, 03/18/14 11:24pm

TO THE EDITOR:

Yesterday’s letter to the editor titled “Abortion should be considered genocide” is ignorant, hateful and dangerous. The author, Meredith Hunt, runs an anti-choice blog that publishes names, cars and photos of pro-choice advocates in Asheville, NC.

There is no reasonable, informed argument linking abortion to genocide. First, the comparison implicitly says that women who choose to terminate a pregnancy are equivalent to Young Turks, Nazi soldiers and Hutu extremists. This assertion is ludicrous and prejudiced toward women.

Second, the comparison is factually absurd. Hunt’s clumsy primer invoking Raphael Lemkin and Samantha Power is nothing more than a poorly written Wikipedia paragraph. In order for abortion to be considered genocide, there would need to a group of mothers campaigning to kill all unborn children and each abortion would have to be carried out because of hatred toward the fetus. In reality, there is a network of compassionate advocates and supportive medical professionals solely looking out for the health of women.

Anti-choice advocates are free to make whatever claims they would like, but it’s worth noting their implications. Creating an anti-choice narrative involving genocide means creating an anti-woman narrative. It bolsters a right-wing policy agenda to which our governor and Republican legislators subscribe.

This summer’s “Motorcycle Safety” bill proves that people like Meredith Hunt, Pat McCrory and Thom Tillis will stop at nothing to curb women’s’ rights, even if it means comparing smart, reasonable women to a bloodthirsty killer.

Reject Meredith Hunt’s argument by supporting women, facts, and history.

Sean Langberg ’14
Global Studies
Geography

Here is a link to the original article.

The photograph is of "protestors" of our 3/31-4/1 2014 GAP display at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, home of the Tar Heels.  Note my reply, not published by the Daily Tar Heel, in a following post.

"Abortion COULD Be Considered Genocide"

The Daily Tar Heel of the University of North Carolina published the following letter to the editor of mine on March 18, 2014.

Abortion Should be Considered Genocide

Genocide is a powerful word.

In her Pulitzer winning book “A Problem from Hell” Samantha Power suggested the word would “chill listeners and invite immediate condemnation” and “carry in it society’s revulsion and indignation.”

Human rights activists are warning that present violence and chaos in two areas of the world, Central African Republic and Myanmar, put certain peoples there at risk of genocide.

The UN defined genocide in 1948 as specific “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group...”

Those acts are:

• Killing;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm;
• Deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction;
• Imposing measures to prevent births;
• Forcibly transferring children.

Some individual nations expand the definition of genocide to include groups classified by age, sexual orientation, gender, political “condition”, health, or, as with France, “any other arbitrary criterion.”

And while the UN Convention limits prosecutable genocide, UN Resolution 96, passed in 1946, describes genocide as, “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups”, “when racial, religious, political or other groups have been destroyed in whole or in part”, and whether committed by “private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political, or any other grounds…”

When Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in the mid 1940s, he focused on one shade of meaning of the roots gen and genos, one with the suggestion of race. But there are other shades attached to them as seen in the English words genesis, engender, genetics, generate, generation, and genius, which imply “beginnings” and “family.” Progeny means “offspring.”

So, given the power and potential breadth of the word “genocide”, and given that every person’s life begins at fertilization, the violent, widespread, government-protected abortion of pre-natal children could be considered genocide based on age. No other existing single word captures the full reality of what abortion is.

Link to the original story.

A slightly longer version was published on March 21 in NC State's student newspaper, The Technician.

"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.

Winter GAP in Florida

                                                                                                                  This is our team on the campus of the University of North Florida.  All but five of us are from Canada.  The Canadians' mean age was 23.  Ours was 57.  As you probably can tell, it was cold. Click to enlarge.

Pictures of the Dead at Antietam

The New York Times

October 20, 1862

Bradley's Photographs

The living that throng Broadway care little perhaps for the dead at Antietam, but we fancy they would jostle less carelessly down the great thoroughfare, saunter less at their ease, were a few dripping bodies, fresh from the field, laid along the pavement. There would be a gathering up of skirts and a careful picking of the way; conversation would be less lively, and the general air of pedestrians more subdued. As it is, the dead of the battle-field come up to us very rarely, even in dreams. We see the list in the morning paper at breakfast, but dismiss its recollection with the coffee. There is a confused mass of names, but they are all strangers; we forget the horrible significance that dwells amid the jumble of type. The roll we read is being called over in Eternity, and pale, trembling lips are answering to it. Shadowy fingers point from the page to a field where even imagination is loth to follow. Each of these little names that the printer struck off so lightly last night, whistling over his work, and that we speak with a clip of the tongue, represents a bleeding, mangled corpse. It is a thunderbolt that will crash into some brain—a dull, dead, remorseless weight that will fall on some heart, straining it to breaking. There is nothing very terrible to us, however, in the list, though our sensations might be different if the newspaper carrier left the names on the battle-field and the bodies at our doors instead.

We recognize the battle-field as a reality, but it stands as a remote one. It is like a funeral next door. The crape on the bell-pull tells there is a death in the house, and in the close carriage that rolls away with muffled wheels, you know there rides a woman to whom the world is very dark now. But you only see the mourners in the last of the long line of carriages—they ride very jollily and at their ease, smoking cigars in a furtive and discoursive manner, perhaps, and were it not for the black gloves they wear, which the deceased was wise and liberal enough to furnish, it might be a wedding for all the world would know. It attracts your attention, but does not enlist your sympathy. But it is very different when the hearse stops at your own door, and the corpse is carried out over your own threshold—you know whether it is a funeral or a wedding then, without looking at the color of the gloves worn. Those who lose friends in battle know what battle-fields are, and our Marylanders, with their door-yards strewn with the dead and dying, and their houses turned into hospitals for the wounded, know what battle-fields are.

Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our door-yards and along the streets, he has done something very like it. At the door of his gallery hangs a little placard, “The Dead of Antietam.” Crowds of people are constantly going up stairs; follow them, and you will find them bending over the photographic views of that terrible battle, taken immediately after the action. Of all objects of horror one would think the battle-field should stand pre-eminent, that it should bear away the palm of repulsiveness. But, on the contrary, there is a terrible fascination about it that draws one near these pictures, and makes them loath to leave them. You will see hushed, reverend groups standing around these weird copies of carnage, bending down to look into the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men’s eyes. It seems somewhat singular that the same sun that looked down on the faces of the slain, blistering them, blotting out from the bodies all semblance of humanity, and hastening corruption, should have thus caught their feature upon the canvas and given them pe[r]petuity for ever. But so it is.

These poor subjects could not give the sun sittings, and they are taken as they fell, their poor hands clutching the grass around them in spasms of pain, or reaching out for a help which none gave. Union soldiers and Confederates, side by side; here they lie, the red light of battle faded from their eyes, but their lips set as when they met in their last fierce charge which loosed their souls and sent them grappling with each other and battling to the very gates of Heaven. The ground whereon they lie is torn by shot and shell, the grass is trampled down by the tread of hot, hurrying feet, and little rivulets that can scarcely be water, are trickling along the earth like tears over a mother’s face. It is a bleak, barren plain and above it bends an ashen sullen sky; there is no friendly shade or shelter from the noonday sun or the midnight dews; coldly and unpityingly the stars will look down on them, and darkness will come with night to shut them in. But there is a poetry in the scene that no green fields or smiling landscapes can possess. Here lie men who have not hesitated to seal and stamp their convictions with their blood; men who have flung themselves into the great gulf of the unknown to teach the world that there are truths dearer than life, wrongs and shames more to be dreaded than death. And if there be on earth one spot where the grass will grow greener than on another, when the next summer comes, where the leaves of autumn will drop more lightly when they fall like a benediction upon a work completed and a promise fulfilled, it is these soldiers’ graves.

There is one side of the picture that the sun did not catch, one phase that has escaped photographic skill. It is the background of widows and orphans, torn from the bosom of their natural protectors by the red, remorseless hand of Battle, and thrown upon the fatherhood of God. Homes have been made desolate, and the light of life in thousands of hearts had been quenched forever. All of this desolution imagination must paint—broken hearts can not be photographed.

These pictures have a terrible distinctness. By the aid of the magnifying glass, the very features of the slain may be distinguished. We would scarce choose to be in the gallery when one of the women bending over them should recognize a husband, son, or a brother in the still, lifeless lines of bodies that lie ready for the gaping trenches. For these trenches have a terror for a woman’s heart, that goes far to outweigh all the others that hover over the battle-field. How can a mother bear to know that the boy she has cradled, and whose head her bosom pillowed until the rolling drum called him forth—whose poor, pale face, could she reach it, should find the same pillow again—whose corpse should be strewn with the rarest flowers that spring gives or summer leaves—when, but for the privilege of touching that corpse, of kissing once more the lips though white and cold, of smoothing back the hair from the brow and cleansing it from blood stains, she would give all the remaining years that Heaven has allotted her—how can this mother bear to know that in a shallow trench, hastily dug, rude hands have thrown him. She would have handled the poor corpse so tenderly, have prized the boon of caring for it so dearly—yet, even the imperative office of hiding the dead from sight has been done by those who thought it trouble, and were only glad when their work ended.

Have heart, poor mother; grieve not without hope, mourn not without consolation. This is not the last of your boy.

With pealing of trumpets and beating of drums

 

These trenches shall open—the Son of Man comes.

And then is reserved for him that crown which only heroes and martyrs are permitted to wear—a crown mightier than bays, greener and more lasting than laurel.

 

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God Made All Peoples

by M.E. Hunt

Taking our “Choice” signs to Berea College on Friday, November 8 was a homecoming for me.  

When Fletcher Armstrong of CBR told me about the GAPs planned for Northern KY University, Eastern KY University, and the University of KY, it seemed natural to go to nearby Berea on the extra in between day.   That weekend, quite literally was Homecoming at Berea.  Since my youngest son is now a student there, my wife and I, both of us alums, have special impetus to becoming involved in the college again.

Years ago when I was a Berea student, I attended a convocation at which the speaker spoke on abortion as a silent holocaust, and that presentation, I’m sure, was a factor in leading me into full-time pro-life work.  My son said that the college, having become far more liberal since then, would never have such a speaker now.   Not that they would boast of it, but the Berea graduate, Dr. Willie J. Parker (class of 1986) is an outspoken abortion advocate and practicing late term abortionist.   He’s been the “medical director” of Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC and he is the 2013 winner of the “2013 George Tiller, MD, Abortion Provider Award” whatever that is.  Parker is not only an abortionist but is a “Christian,” he says.  He explained last year (May 27) in the New Jersey Star Register,

“In listening to a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, I came to a deeper understanding of my spirituality, which places a higher value on compassion. King said what made the good Samaritan “good” is that instead of focusing on would happen to him by stopping to help the traveler, he was more concerned about what would happen to the traveler if he didn’t stop to help.  I became more concerned about what would happen to these women if I, as an obstetrician, did not help them.”

Parker doesn’t seem to notice that in the Good Samaritan story, he’s the violent robber who leaves the traveler in the ditch, naked, and bleeding.

Berea College, too, projects a skewed, incomplete perspective on certain aspects of Christianity.  When college president Roelofs learned of our intention to bring Choice signs for students to see them as they crossed the highway that intersects the campus, he sent out a campus-wide e-mail.   In the e-mail he wrote these words:

“In 2003, our community (persons from Berea College, the City of Berea, local churches, and others) developed the following statement expressing our collective commitment to “love over hate,” and it seems appropriate to revisit this thinking:

“For God so loved the world .. . that’s all of us!  United and Diverse.  We believe all people have been created in the image of God and are loved by God.  We believe this divine origin and love invests each person with an inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  We believe God’s love toward us is not dependent upon our condition or actions.  God loves all because God is love.”

It seems clear from the rest of the letter that Berea College does not include children before birth in the human family.  That they are not created in the image of God, are not loved by God, do not have inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  That love for pre-natal children is dependent on conditions.

Or maybe they weren’t thinking about abortion at all when they composed their statement.  Perhaps they should have been.  But that’s why we brought the images and printed arguments to Berea.

During our GAP tour I led a short devotional with the team each morning.  Before Berea, my text was (from Philippians 4) “Let your gentleness be known to all.  The Lord is near.”

The students who passed us were respectful.  True, a couple female professor types stood back out of brochure range as they waited for the light to change, but by in large everyone else was either friendly or receptive to our presence.  We handed out so many brochures, the one titled “Unmasking Choice”.  A black student asked one of our people, “Is this a religious organization?”  The answer essentially was no.  “That’s why your arguments are so cogent!” he said with enthusiasm and waving one of the brochures.  Whether or not CBR is religious, we primarily make secular and scientific arguments as to why abortion is wrong.

Passersby, that is, drivers in vehicles often responded, and most expressions indicated strong support.   Berea is a liberal college in the middle of a rural, conservative region, and you could see that clearly.  A few people pulled over to get out and make a comment, or people just gave a thumbs up or called out encouragement.   A few didn’t know if we were for abortion or against it, but it’s hard to imagine how anyone could think  people who supported the choice to abort a child would show pictures of that dead child.  But some people get confused that way.  Innocent unsophistication, I guess.

We also had the Choice Truck driving up and down the road for most of the four hours we were there.  A U.S. Marine Corps medical corpsman in dress uniform and at Berea for homecoming stopped to talk and thank us.  I spent a good amount of time talking with the director of campus safety.  He was my age and had had long experience as a police chief and with security for governmental leaders.

The editor of the student newspaper, the Pinnacle came by for a while.  He wrote an editorial that favorably compared our use of graphic imagery with a similar approach for issues important to him, such as war and mountain top removal in coal mining.  He did however say that our “protest” was not much newsworthy.  “I didn’t see anything particularly timely or gripping about this demonstration,” he wrote.  “Did this particular group break any new information about abortion?  No they did not.”

Probably he’s right.  But it’s a sad state of affairs when the aborting of children in the womb is so customary, routine, and “old” that it can’t be news.   We are in a sorry condition when cogent arguments against the ongoing legal killing of children don't break any new information.

In the instance of us bringing the graphic images to Berea College, we were the true reporters and journalists.  We were the media, the “guardian of the student’s right to know”, the byline of the Pinnacle.  This information about abortion was new to most of those students. We brought that missing convocation out on the sidewalk, and hopefully some student will make a decision for life for her baby, or will someday become a prolife activist, or won’t become another misguided Dr. Willie J. Jackson.  By advocating for children in the womb, we represent a missing element in the fulfillment of Berea’s motto, taken from the Bible, “God made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

Let’s go back again soon.

Read another account of this project HERE.

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