David Yaffe-Bellany Photo
Demonstrators outside Planned Parenthood.
“Your god is not a loving god!” shouted a demonstrator dressed in bright pink. “I would not want to go to your god’s heaven.”
“Get a bible and read it,” replied a protester with a cross hanging around her neck. “God loves you and wants you to live with him.”
A third person chimed in: “Have you read Leviticus lately?”
The demonstrators — waving signs and banners outside the Southern New England branch of Planned Parenthood on Whitney Avenue Saturday — were engaged in a reproductive turf war: a struggle for control over a few narrow strips of grass next to the clinic’s driveway.
A contingent of several dozen pro-choice activists — some of them representing Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD), a grassroots feminist organization — had organized a “mass action” designed to take back the real estate from the pro-life demonstrators who gather there every weekend. (A 2014 Supreme Court decision banned so-called “buffer zones” for protests outside abortion clinics; state law does not specifically regulate such protests.)
WORD organized the Planned Parenthood demonstration long before the June 12 murders at an LGBTQOrlando nightclub. But in the wake of that tragedy, the largest mass shooting in American history, the protest took on new urgency, with pro-choice activists waving rainbow-colored flags in a visual display of solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
Despite constant talk of the national abortion rights battle and the plight of queer individuals in post-Orlando America, the clash outside the clinic was fundamentally a local affair.
“A lot of us live around here and see this happen,” said IV, a transgender pro-choice activist who declined to give their last name, gesturing toward the crowd of pro-lifers. “And today we’re trying to take a more proactive approach against them.”
A core group of around 10 pro-choice activists has gathered by the Whitney Avenue clinic to face the pro-life demonstrators every week since November, when a gunman killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. They were joined Saturday by dozens of other local activists in a clash with pro-lifers who say their mission is to see Planned Parenthood closed down.
“They reach inside of cars. They yell in people’s faces,” said Norman Clement, a local organizer for the Answer Coalition. “We wanted to take the corner away from them today.”
Paths to Activism
Clement at the protest.
A Native American who keeps his long hair tied in a ponytail, Clement cut his teeth as a protester during the anti-Vietnam movement of the 1960s. He now runs a painting company in New Haven, devoting almost all his free time to local activism.
He led a group of demonstrators who gathered on Elm Street last fall to protest the naming of Yale’s Calhoun College. And on Saturday, he strode across the picket line, rallying fellow activists with words of council and encouragement.
“Planned Parenthood is under assault across the nation,” he said. “The same thing that happened [in Orlando] could potentially happen here.”
Clement watched, iPhone aloft, as a group of four pro-life activists surrounded a car in the Planned Parenthood driveway, urging the passengers to stop “killing babies” lest they suffer divine retribution.
One of the pro-lifers was Dean Reid, a former heroin addict who joined the movement after hearing at church that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger supported “the genocide of all black people.” (Sanger, an early birth-control proponent, was involved in the eugenics movement; some historians contend that she rejected racial measures of “fitness.” [link])
“We’re here to basically tell the truth about what Planned Parenthood is all about,” Reid said.
“These people,” he added, pointing to the pro-choice demonstrators, “are trying to make things tough for us.”
Reid, who grew up in Dixwell, said he went clean after he found God in a drug treatment center two decades ago.
“I met him one night,” Reid said. “It was a light that came in through the window and over my bed. I knew that was God.”
He waited for a moment, then turned away, his eyes fixed on the latest car to pull into the Planned Parenthood lot.
“Not Alone in the World”
Pro-life activists speak to drivers leaving the clinic.
“Have you read Leviticus lately?”
The reference was to Leviticus 18:22, cited most often by religious anti-gay-rights groups.
The question went unanswered.
A group of five pro-life activists, including a young girl and her mother, formed a prayer circle, whispering silent appeals, their heads tilted to the heavens.
Clement walked to the other end of the street, where a car honked in appreciation as it sped past the rainbow flags swirling in the wind. A group of women clad in pink jeans held signs reading “Defend Women’s Rights” and “Stand With Planned Parenthood.” An elderly man on the other side of the street was perched behind a giant poster bearing the words “Abortion is Murder.”
Clement, a pink bandanna wrapped around his neck, was in his element. He recalled the first protest he’d ever attended — an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C., in 1968.
“It was awesome — the solidarity I had, all the like-minded people,” he said. “When you experience that…you know you’re not alone in the world.”
I support and vehemently defend the 1st Amendment freedom of speech. As well as the freedom of and from religion. But this protest strikes me as odd. I'm not sure how attacking someone's religion/G*d benefits the pro choice movement. Dismantling the moral high ground can be done without that approach.
Second, I'm not sure how Orlando connects to defending Planned Parenthood. Was the goal to defend PP while also standing up against acts of hate? What happened in Orlando could happen anywhere.
Finally, was it necessary to use the picture of the young woman leaving Planned Parenthood? Especially since so many women who use the full range of health services at PP feel unfairly targeted by other's judgement and misperception?