Aided by August’s scorching heat, the sienna- and iodine-colored images of dismembered fetuses seem to sear into the sidewalk in the 100 block of University Avenue. Anti-abortion advocates, some carrying signs, others holding religious objects like crucifixes and rosary beads stand on both sides of the entrance to Planned Parenthood’s Rochester office.
When a blue pickup truck pulls out of the lot, a protestor yells at the driver and passenger, “If you had an abortion, you just murdered your baby.” The startled driver says that they were only there for a medical exam and birth control.
“From people who kill babies?” the protester says. “Why would you go to a place that kills babies for that?”
Such exchanges — and much worse — are common outside Planned Parenthood’s facility. Almost every week, regardless of the weather or the time of year, as many as a dozen anti-abortion advocates gather at the facility’s borders to protest.
Officials at Planned Parenthood say that they are used to the demonstrations. But it’s not just the facility and its clients that are affected. Neighbors, including some residents of the pricey Grove Place neighborhood, have to live with the demonstrations taking place right outside their doorways.
The protests are also just blocks away from the YMCA and the Eastman School of Music. Customers of businesses from University Avenue to East Main Street regularly pass by the sometimes-volatile scene. Even children, teachers, and parents from School 58, one of the city district’s most popular schools, were, until recently, at risk of viewing the disturbing photos. (The school is undergoing construction and is currently vacant.)
Attitudes toward the anti-abortion protesters from nearby residents and business owners range from extreme anger to indifference. Some say that they are exhausted by the protesters and don’t want to rile them.
One resident who has lived in the Grove Place neighborhood for several years says she’s fearful that she might hit one of the protesters when she backs out of her driveway. Some residents say that while they don’t like the protests, they understand that the protestors are exercising their rights.
One resident new to the neighborhood says that she doesn’t agree with the protestors’ views on abortion or women’s rights. They have right to protest, she says, but “What about our rights as homeowners? Don’t we have a say in this?”
An owner of a newly built town house says that she was aware of the protests before she bought the property. She and her husband moved from the suburbs to be near the city’s nightlife and downtown restaurants. She has no regrets about purchasing the town home, she says, but she might feel differently if she had small children.
Grove Place resident Jim Martin says that the protests are part of the urban landscape, and that they aren’t as bad as they used to be
“This might seem strange to someone used to living in the quiet of the suburbs, but this is the city,” he says. “Ninety-nine percent of them are not a problem. They’ve got a point of view they believe in fervently. Most of the time all they do is pray. Sometimes on Saturday mornings they’ll sing Ave Maria. How can you be upset about that?”
Two local real estate brokers, who asked not to be identified, say that even though they’re not required to disclosure the situation, they might tell potential buyers to proceed cautiously. It might not be easy to re-sell the property, they say, even though Grove Place is considered a highly desirable neighborhood in the city.
There are many options for buyers looking in the $200,000 to $300,000 price range, they say, that won’t come with protestors attached.
Some businesses have also been adversely impacted by the protests.
One employee of a business close to Planned Parenthood says that some customers with young children won’t come when the protesters are out because of the graphic images displayed.
Planned Parenthood officials say that they have tried to be good neighbors, but that there’s only so much they can do.
“We can do what is in our control,” says Planned Parenthood spokesperson Erin Cabral. “We do our best to communicate with our neighbors. If we know something is going to happen, we want to limit the chaos for them.”
When the national anti-abortion group Operation Save America held a conference in Rochester in late July, officials at Planned Parenthood expected them to join forces with local anti-abortion protesters. So they alerted neighbors about the possibility for larger-than-usual protests, Cabral says.
Planned Parenthood doesn’t encourage counter-protesting, she says. The main objective is to manage their business effectively, Cabral says, which includes providing a safe environment for clients and employees. But that has taken decades and has involved long and complicated legal responses.
“They [protesters] are not allowed to block access, they can’t be in our driveway, and they can’t trespass,” Cabral says.
During heated public demonstrations in the early 1990’s, some protesters tried to physically block access to Planned Parenthood.
A federal district court injunction attempted to strike a balance between the protesters’ First Amendment rights and the rights of women and reproductive service providers in Western New York. The injunction created a buffer zone preventing protesters from being any closer than 15 feet from doors, driveways, and walkways to Planned Parenthood’s Rochester office.
But the injunction also allowed up to two protesters at a time, often referred to as “sidewalk counselors,” to access the sidewalks within the buffer zone. A new injunction issued in July 2000 removed all access to the sidewalk closer than 15 feet from Planned Parenthood or any other reproductive-related medical facility in Western New York. It remains in place today.
But protestors are permitted to use a megaphone one day a week. On Thursdays they can be heard rallying against Planned Parenthood, and calling to people in the parking lot. They often peer through bushes along the fence as clients and others get in and out of their cars.
Added to the scene are the drivers along University Avenue. Some honk their horns in support of the protesters, while others flip their middle finger and curse.
“We’re not going away,” says longtime protester, Mary Jost. “We’re in a battle. We’re in a war to save lives.”
Jost is the director of the Focus Pregnancy Help Center, located just a few doors away from Planned Parenthood. The nonprofit collects used children’s clothing, toys, books, and sometimes food and baby formula to donate to pregnant mothers.
Jost, like many of the protesters, is a devout Roman Catholic who says life begins at conception. Planned Parenthood kills human life, she says, while her organization confirms and celebrates human life.
The help center provides free pregnancy tests, Jost says, and counseled more than 1,000 pregnant women last year — trying to convince them to have their babies.
“We provide emotional support,” she says. “If you have a problem, we’ll try to solve it.”
Jost says that many mothers return to the help center to show her their baby or toddler. They thank her for talking them out of the abortion, she says.
“They show me the child that they almost didn’t have,” she says. “People don’t realize that when you have an abortion, you kill generations of people. And they would be members of your own family.”
Jost is not apologetic for the disruption that the demonstrations may cause nearby residents and businesses. She says she wouldn’t want continuous demonstrations outside her home or business, but “I would never live near a place that performs abortions.”
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2013.
I think it’s ridiculous that they can get away with showing those photos- we have rating systems for movies to keep our children from seeing disturbing things, only to see images of dead fetuses if you happen to drive by.
While I support their right to protest, I do not think it is right that they can show those images. Plus a few of them use those posters to block your view if you are trying to pull out and have almost caused quite a few traffic accidents!!!!
I wish the author had provided a little more context for the Focus Pregnancy Help Center and other “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are usually fronts for anti-abortion groups that provide misleading or outright inaccurate information to women seeking abortion, and often set up shop very close to Planned Parenthood affiliates to exploit confusion. In many cases, the CPCs lure poor women in with a free pregnancy test by leading the women to believe that they are abortion providers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_pregnancy_center
I agree with Ella. Their protest signs should be subject to the same regulations as any other form of media. I was furious when they were at 12 corners a few weeks ago and my 3 year old wanted to know “what’s on the picture that those people are holding”. I find it hypocritical that they are so hell bent on protecting “life” but seem to stop caring about it once someone is born. Protect the fetuses but not the toddlers seems like a pretty awful agenda to me.
JR – Your idea of a crisis pregnancy center is very misunderstood. These pregnancy centers give women all the information they need to make an informed choice – something every woman deserves. Women so often walk into a Planned Parenthood because they feel that abortion is their ONLY choice. Crisis pregnancy centers help women see all their choices and offers the women the support she really needs. They are here to help the women and their babies during pregnancy AND after by connecting the women with adoption agencies if that is their choice, providing free clothing, free formula and baby food, free maternity and baby clothing, free diapers, free baby furniture and more. On top of all this, they even provide counseling and loving support to women who come to them who regret and are suffering from a past abortion – something Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer since they deny that women are negatively affected from abortion. I’m just writing this so people know what being pro-life really means. Thank you. -Ellen
I just want to correct an error in my previous post. I said Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer counseling to women who regret their abortion, but they do in fact refer women to someone who does. Planned Parenthood does hold the position though that women experiencing emotional problems after an abortion is rare. It isn’t rare and I think that position does a great disservice to the countless women who do suffer from having an abortion and are in need of loving help. Thank you. -Ellen
If you found yourself living across the street from this Little Auschwitz, would you really begrudge a few brave souls who dare to stand outside the gates to give voice to all the innocent victims?
How can any complaints against these protesters be taken seriously?
Planned Parenthood must regularly dispose of body parts- like the tiny hand the protesters are showing.
Why take issue with the image, but not with what is proves?
Planned Parenthood kills and dismembers tiny human bodies, that is a fact.
Following a surgical abortion, clinic workers gather the remains of the baby and measure the size of his or her feet, in order to document gestational age.
City is concerned with preserving the right of PP to dismember tiny human bodies for profit. They are concerned with the fears of bad drivers, who may have to look twice in order not to hit people on a sidewalk. They are concerned with protecting people from knowing what they are about to do before they do it.
City is questioning the first amendment rights of citizens with whom they disagree with politically.
This has become a routine with City- avoiding the discussion of what abortion really is.
If you don’t like seeing images of the violence abortion causes, then take issue with what abortion is.
If you want to defend the violence of abortion, of its perpetrators and profiteers like Planned Parenthood, then do it openly. Defend the image of the severed hand! Defend those who make money cutting it off!
Every complaint of this article pales in comparison to the truth of what these protesters are showing. Don’t move next to a Planned Parenthood, if you don’t want to know what they do.
I think Carlin said it best.
“Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re preborn, you’re fine; if you’re preschool, you’re f***ed. “
I prefer Mother Teresa (over George Carlin)- she called abortion “the greatest threat to peace in the world,”- she was a perfect model of the pro-life mission: reverence for all human life- from conception to natural death.
A desire to end the violence of abortion does not mean a hatred for all other humanity- it is a mission of inclusiveness- to expand human rights to the entire spectrum of human life.
The problem is, Chi, that the pro-life sentiment seems to fade away after birth. Where is the moral outrage that children in this country die of perfectly preventable illnesses because their parents cannot afford healthcare? With many of these movements relating to the Catholic church—how pro-life is an organization that protects known child abusers? Would these same protestors stand outside a prison and protest the death penalty? In my experience, not many of them would.
These protestors aren’t pro-life, they’re anti-women.
What George Carlin did that Mother Teresa didn’t was point out the hypocrisy of these myopic groups. When these groups spend as much time protesting poverty and the widening gap between the have and the have nots—maybe they’ll have the merit to invoke Mother Teresa.
Kara-to speak in generalities about what “most” pro-life people are doing or not doing is not an argument- it is a convenient and entirely subjective distraction. It is an attempt to avoid the reality of a discussion of what abortion is.
Over 300,000 people protest the capital on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade every year- This is just a minority of the millions of people in this country who profess to be pro-life. How can you possibly know what millions of people are doing or not doing? Or what they believe about the death penalty or healthcare or anything?
This article counters your argument- it shows that among these protesters are women looking to help other women to keep their babies- for nothing in return.
Planned Parenthood makes a billion dollars a year on abortions! They sell abortions. These protesters are not selling anything. Who has the altruistic motive here? PP takes your money, kills your baby and then sends you on your way. People like Mary Jost are helping women (pre and post natal) with every possible issue- food, clothing, housing, you name it, to keep mothers and their babies together or to find an adoptive home- to help women give their children life and to meet both of their needs- at birth and beyond.
Many women who protest PP have had abortions and suffered tremendously and want to stop other women from experiencing the same pain. They want to eliminate the crisis for these women, not to eliminate their baby.
I am aware that there are few among us like Mother Teresa- she is the ideal to strive for- but, being against abortion, does not mean you want to see children die, or to be molested or any other possible tragedy. Many of these protesters are mothers- did they abandon their own children after birth, caring only for them in utero?!
The problem is, that it is very hard to defend the images of abortion that these protesters are showing. The Pro-choice solution is to divert the issue and demonize those who are trying to show this reality.