Turner’s Pro-Choice Film Creates a Stir

A handful of anti-abortionists, calling for air time to present their views, picketed outside Turner Broadcasting System’s headquarters in Atlanta Friday, two days after chairman Ted Turner labeled them “bozos” and “idiots” during a Century City gathering of television critics and writers.

But despite the demonstration and scores of protest calls received at Turner’s Atlanta offices by mid-day Friday, Arthur Sando, Turner’s vice president for marketing and communications, said the company would stand by its decision to air the “definitely slanted” pro-choice film, “Abortion: For Survival,” at 8:05 p.m. Thursday on cable superstation TBS (with re-broadcasts at 4:05 p.m. July 22 and 11 p.m. July 23).

“Abortion: For Survival” was produced earlier this year by the Fund for the Feminist Majority in response to an anti-abortion film, “The Silent Scream.” While Turner made clear that he supports its point of view, Sando said TBS already had planned to try to balance it with a one-hour panel discussion between representatives of both sides of the abortion issue.

The discussion program, which was being taped in Atlanta Friday, will feature Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Calif.) and March for Life President Nellie Gray on the pro-life side, and Planned Parenthood President Faye Wattleton and Fund for the Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal on the pro-choice side. It will be moderated by Martin Agronsky, former host of the nationally syndicated program “Agronsky and Company.”

Anti-abortionists nationwide said Friday that they were angered when Turner, asked during a news conference with TV critics Wednesday about the documentary and the followup program, said, “I’ll tell you what, we’ll give the other bozos a chance to talk back. They look like idiots anyway.”

“We find it regrettable that the issue of human life would be reduced to name calling,” said Rod Gregory, spokesperson for Operation Rescue, a nationwide group that staged protests at abortion clinics and other sites. “It goes beyond the dignity of either side.”

Gregory questioned whether Turner would have called others who fought for causes, such as Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr., bozos too.

“Mr. Turner’s remarks were very insulting to the people of the pro-life movement, as they would have been had they been directed toward any group or individual. We feel he has displayed his lack of knowledge of our cause by his broad and malicious attack,” the 27,000-member Right to Life League said in a prepared statement.

Although several anti-abortion activists contacted by The Times did not know of TBS’ scheduled broadcast of “Abortion: For Survival” and had not heard of Turner’s comments, they agreed that the followup panel discussion would not produce a fair or balanced presentation on the issue, contending that viewers would be biased after watching the one-sided film.

“A (pro-life) film . . . should be shown as well,” said Beverly Cielnicky of a 2,300-member Southern California Christian group, Crusade for Life. “To be fair, in a free country, we should be given equal time--even if it’s just to show the development of a baby.”

“It seems it would be reasonable if he would show an (anti-abortion) film along with the pro-abortion propaganda film,” said Tim Wilkinson, program director for the 10,000-member, St. Paul-based Pro-Life Action ministry. “If he would do that, I wouldn’t care what he called us.”

Sando said that TBS offices in Atlanta had received more than 150 calls by midday Friday, and that they had been equally divided on both sides of the abortion issue.

The panel discussion was being produced by the Turner-founded group Better World Society. No advertising will be shown with either program, according to TBS.