Abortion Rights Supporters Discuss Strategy

Academics and activists joined together to discuss issues surrounding the abortion movement, including the growing militancy of abortion opponents and efforts to strengthen their own causes, at a panel last night in Radcliffe's Lyman Common Room.

The event, part of the Radcliffe Union of Students' Take Back the Night week, was co-sponsored by Students for Choice.

The three panelists were Carol A. Mason, a Bunting Institute fellow, Eileen L. McDonagh, a Murray Institute fellow and Jonathan C. McDowell, a Planned Parenthood activist.

The speakers viewed their roles as supporters of abortion rights through vastly different lenses, ranging from the academic world to the front lines of activism.

While both Mason and McDonagh have turned to more academic examinations of the abortion debate, McDowell has participated in grassroots activism.

A native of England, McDowell became involved when the issue of abortion became personal for him.

He said the local rallies of Operation Rescue in Brookline in 1988 caused him to become active.

"Those people, by and large, are motivated by desire to control other people's lives," he said. "Although they use the words of Christian love, there is a lot of hate in them."

McDowell's activism increased after the 1994 Brookline shootings of an abortion clinic worker and Planned Parenthood receptionist.

He has worked to counter protests by Operation Rescue, in order to ensure that abortion clinics remain open, and has also helped to escort women into clinics under the duress of abortion opponents' protests.

McDonagh, author of Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent, said she has tried to create a stronger legalistic argument for abortion not based on pure choice, but on the necessity of consent.

"The issue is no longer whether it's a women's right to choose; rather it's her right to consent to what [the pregnancy] is doing to her body," McDonagh said.

"She not only has a right to stop it, she has the right to call upon the government to stop it," she added.

McDonagh emphasized her stance by arguing that the abortion debate should not center around the issue of whether a fetus is a person or not.

Mason's academic work centers less around the legalistic debates, and more on the dangers of increasingly militant tactics of abortion opponents.

Mason said she believes the best way to protect abortion rights is to analyze the method of abortion opponents.

"I do not believe that the escalation of violence is a conspiracy but it is not isolated either," she said.

Mason cited what she called the "guerilla warfare" nature of abortion opponents, some of whom use domestic terror tactics to create an environment to endanger women's rights, as evidence of such violence.

While Mason has centered her work in Cambridge for the last year, she spent last week in Buffalo, observing Operation Rescue rallies at clinics.

Last October, Dr. Bernard Slepian, who worked at a Buffalo clinic, was shot to death by a sniper at his home.

"They do function symbolically together to make abortion increasingly physically, mentally and emotionally more difficult," she said of abortion opponents who use violence.

For McDowell, his experiences have shown him the lighter sides of abortion-opponent extremists.

"It's entertaining to talk to them. There are some seriously disturbed people out there," he said.

Although he is sometimes amused by his experiences, ultimately he said the active protestors are not only violating the rights of women seeking an abortion, but their rights just to enter clinics.

"It's none of their business, but they make it their business," he said. "They think they know a lot more than they do."