When the anger scatters, there’s real human concern and compassion.
When the anger scatters, there’s real human concern and compassion.
I t was a somewhat sad, quaint scene. I got out of an Uber and noticed eyes on me immediately. I had arrived at Planned Parenthood’s flagship center in Manhattan. It’s supposed to close soon, but for now it’s still in operation. Saturday used to be a big day for surgical abortions, but now the staff here are focused on administering chemical abortions and, what is a new priority for the abortion giant, puberty blockers for gender transitions. There are referrals for the rest nowadays. The only sign of life came from a security guard, standing at the back door. This Planned Parenthood is closed on Saturdays now; I had shown up for a perfunctory rally before the final passage of the so-called “big, beautiful bill,” which made history last Friday by cutting federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Congress’s cutting funding for Planned Parenthood makes sense. Since the Dobbs decision upended Roe v. Wade, abortion law is supposed to be made at the state level. Some of us would point out that this approach didn’t work so well in the case of, for example, slavery, but that’s for another time. For now, defenders of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood argue that cutting it — even for a year, which is where Congress eventually wound up, down from the proposed ten years that was initially passed by the House — amounts to a backdoor ban on abortion. But perhaps it’s an opportunity for Planned Parenthood to make honest donors out of Hollywood celebrities who constantly insist that the government fund their favorite cause.
The corner of Bleecker and Mott is down the block and across the street from Planned Parenthood — you may have seen it on Fox News a time or two, when anti-abortion activists would protest there and conduct our peaceful, quiet vigils for women and babies and Planned Parenthood workers (and the boyfriends, who sometimes don’t even bother to open the car or clinic door for the mothers of their children). It was formerly the Margaret Sanger Square, in SoHo. Planned Parenthood and the New York City Council removed her name from the building and the street after long-overdue pressure to distance themselves from the organization’s eugenicist, racist founder. Of course, it meant nothing much, practically speaking: More black and Hispanic babies than white babies are aborted in America today, just as Sanger intended. Household-name Democrats such as Hillary Clinton (who, as secretary of state, in 2009, received a Planned Parenthood award in Sanger’s name) have never been made to answer for their associations with that reality.
I noticed two men on my side of the street (across from the clinic) and assumed they might be extra security for Planned Parenthood, in case an elderly church lady were to get out of hand. I started praying silently — something that could get you arrested in London — and before too long, a familiar pro-life influencer popped by, with a photographer. She had recently been attacked by a woman on the street whom she was interviewing about abortion. Another young woman she interviewed had painfully described her abortion-not-for-me-but-for-thee philosophy, but then seemed genuinely surprised to hear about the gender-transition element of our latter-day Planned Parenthood.
It turned out that the two men were on the pro-life side. One explained that he felt called to stand against abortion and help women whenever he can. Around that time, two shy girls appeared, drinking cold Starbucks-looking beverages, pulling their black disposable masks up and down as they sipped. They sheepishly asked why I was there. I was happily in anonymous mode, and since the rosary beads hadn’t given me away, I turned the question on them. One giggled and said, “Never mind, no worries.” Before too long, they revealed their handwritten signs, which they would use to further cover their faces whenever there was a possibility of their photos being taken.
“Roe v. Wade wasn’t broken you just hate women.”
“Planned Parenthood = Health Care,” with a heart, drawn in red marker, as a closer.
Neither seemed interested in accusing anyone in particular of hating women. And they did, unintentionally, carry the pro-life message: one of the young women said to passersby, “Planned Parenthood doesn’t kill babies.” More than one walker heard “kill babies” and instinctively thought they were the anti-abortion nudges. Once the confusion cleared, there were abortion rants, thumbs up, and occasional rude gestures to the pro-life pack. The word “kill” was adapted from the signs — “Planned Parenthood Kills Babies Transitions Minors” — provided to our side by Live Action, most known for its undercover investigative videos taken at Planned Parenthood locations. A woman walking by decided to confiscate a few of our signs that were resting on a tree bark. I had to crack a smile as I saw her walk away with a sign’s “Defund Planned Parenthood” side visible. I don’t think she meant to carry the message through the streets of New York, but there she was.
There were no fireworks that Saturday morning. There was a little prayer. Precious little, and some conversation. There was an unintentional outing of the awkwardness of it all for the nonconfrontational, as well as a great representation of most Americans: who care that women have options. We might not meet constructively on a street corner in Manhattan, but we owe humanity that we do so in the many painfully challenging circumstances of life.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.