Coalition for Life’s Anti-Abortion Tactics

During the week of July 20-24, an organization that calls itself the California Coalition for Life (and which counts the fanatical organization Operation Rescue among its endorsers) will be holding “prayer vigils” at the offices of selected South Bay ob/gyns. The purpose of these events, according to their literature, is to end abortion “through the power of prayer.” The unstated purpose of these events is to see that women are denied access to what is still a legal (and therefore safe) procedure in this country.

We are pro-choice citizens of the South Bay. We are people of many religions, faiths and beliefs. We will be counterdemonstrating at the sites that have been targeted because we feel it is imperative that our community know the truth about what these people are really doing and the impact it has on women’s lives.

We believe there is a need to reduce the number of abortions performed each year in this country, however, we know that praying will have no more effect on ending abortion than the blockading of clinics will. It is clear the number of abortions performed each year can only be reduced by teaching pregnancy prevention in sex education programs in the schools; by developing safer, more effective means of contraception, and by increasing the availability of birth control for all who require it--not by denying women access to a safe and legal medical procedure.

Outlawing abortion or making the procedure difficult to obtain will not prevent abortion. Women have always had abortions and will continue to do so, no matter what the law says. Therefore, it becomes a question of whether the procedures women have access to are legal and therefore safe, or instead are at the hands of unscrupulous, back-alley quacks who perform unsafe, unsanitary procedures that are life-threatening.

The American public must realize that if abortion is illegal or even inaccessible, women will die--fully grown women, teen-age girls, even those who are really no more than adolescent children. Furthermore, it must be acknowledged that these women are not faceless strangers--rather they are our sisters, our mothers, our daughters.

Turning back the clock by making abortion illegal will not eliminate the demand for it but instead will only make an already difficult and heart-wrenching situation for women life-threatening. We must keep abortion legal and accessible in order to keep it safe. For women, it is a matter of life and death.

DEBORAH BLAIR PORTER

Co-coordinator,

PV/South Bay NOW

Manhattan Beach