You are on page 1of 4

The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)

July 7, 1989 Friday Metro Edition

'BABY CHOICE' TAKES PROTESTS A STEP


FURTHER
BYLINE: MELANIE HIRSCH The Post-Standard

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 943 words

It was still early Thursday morning, early enough that the rush of rush hour
hadn't started, so Sarah Mendez took advantage of the silence and swiftly
revealed her secret to the waiting crowd and cameras.

Nestled in the middle of a tiny makeshift white "casket" Mendez held was a
20-week-old fetus that had been stolen from a Midwest pathology lab for use
at anti-abortion protests like this one.

As the crowd outside the Onondaga County Courthouse watched, Mendez


pointed out the translucent head, the eyelashes, and the tiny fingers and toes
of "Baby Choice," a graphic symbol of anti-abortion sentiment.

"The compelling site of her (the fetus) tells the whole story," said Mendez's
colleague Gary Leber, who heads the Binghamton chapter of Operation
Rescue, an anti-abortion group that has lent out the fetus for abortion protests
from Los Angeles to Buffalo.

"It was grisly exploitation was what it was," countered Judi Doherty, public
affairs manager of the Planned Parenthood Center of Syracuse.

Four days after a Supreme Court ruling allowing states to dramatically reduce
the right to an abortion, anti-abortion protesters and abortion-rights advocates
are facing off with renewed vigor.

And as the stakes get higher, the tactics change.

The demonstration Mendez took part in Thursday -- which ultimately led to the
arrest of Mendez and 13 other people on trespassing charges -- marks the first
time an aborted fetus has been used in a public abortion demonstration in
Syracuse. Two years ago, a group attending a private prayer breakfast
sponsored by the Syracuse Right to Life Association viewed another fetus.
Although anti-abortion leaders say use of the fetus was justified to prove a
point, abortion-rights advocates view the practice as a gimmick long on
melodrama and short on facts.

Ninety-one percent of the 1.6 million abortions performed in the United States
every year are done in the first trimester, or 12 weeks, according to the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The fetus displayed Thursday was
a second-trimester fetus aborted when a saline solution was injected into the
amniotic fluid, protest organizers said. Several dark patches of skin were
burns caused by the solution, Leber said.

State Health Department officials say protesters may have broken public
health laws by parading the fetus on a march from the courthouse to the East
Genesee Street office of the Planned Parenthood Center.

The fetus used in Thursday's demonstration was one of 11 fetuses stolen from
a Midwest pathology laboratory in 1985, said Leber of Operation Rescue. An
abortion clinic was taking the fetuses to the lab to be incinerated, but an
employee stole them and gave them to an anti-abortion group, Leber said.

The same fetus was used in Los Angeles "rescues" sponsored by Operation
Rescue founder Randall Terry and his colleagues this spring. Group leaders
caused a media protest then when they refused to answer reporters' questions
after unveiling the fetus, saying they would let the fetus speak for itself.

Faith Schottenfeld, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department, said


officials believe it may be the same fetus that was used in an Operation
Rescue protest in Buffalo.

The state's hospital code requires that all fetal tissue over 20 weeks old from
hospital abortions be turned over to a licensed undertaker for burial or
cremation. The same is true of fetal tissue that is spontaneously aborted
during a miscarriage. Under state law, fetal tissue less than 20 weeks old must
be incinerated.

The state's Anatomical Gift Act allows fetuses to be donated for medical
research at an approved medical institution.

State officials said they could not know for certain if state law was violated
because they do not know the exact age of the fetus, where the abortion was
performed and how it was obtained.

"Putting it in a jar with formaldehyde and using it in a demonstration doesn't


fall under our guidelines," Schottenfeld said.

Leber said Operation Rescue will eventually bury the fetus as it has buried
several of the other fetuses. "We don't do it as a media splash or exploitation
of this baby," he said. "We do it to show America the results of abortion."

Abortion-rights leaders don't accept that argument.


"If these people have such respect for life, why don't they bury it?" said
Planned Parenthood's Doherty.

"It's easy to use pictures or objects to prove your point. But how do you take
a picture of someone's rights? How do you take pictures of fear and
desperation (of women carrying an unwanted pregnancy)? That's a little
harder. We could show police photographs of a dead woman lying in a pool of
blood on a motel floor who died after an illegal abortion, but there's a part of
you that says don't stoop to the same tactics."

Syracuse University professor Fred Frohock, who has lectured and written
extensively on abortion, believes displaying the fetus could eventually backfire
because it draws attention away from the civil disobedience of the protesters
themselves and, through repeat showings of fetuses, blunt the very response
anti-abortion groups seek.

"They say they pattern themselves after the Civil Rights movements in the
'60s, but you didn't see Civil Rights leaders carting around the bodies of their
dead," Frohock said.

Operation Rescue leaders see the fetus, however, as a symbol of their quest to
educate the public.

"What we're saying is, 'This is a human life. This is a baby that sucks its
thumb,' " said Jayne Marotta of Syracuse, secretary of Operation Rescue of
Central New York. "We've said it and said it and said it. Now we thought we'd
show it."

SUBJECT: ABORTION (93%); PROTESTS &


DEMONSTRATIONS (90%); REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CLINICS (89%); MEDICAL &
DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORIES (89%); PATHOLOGY (89%); COUNTY
GOVERNMENT (75%); TRESPASSING (74%); HEALTH
DEPARTMENTS (64%); CRIMINAL TRESPASS (64%); ARRESTS (64%); PUBLIC
HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (62%); PUBLIC HEALTH & WELFARE LAW (60%); HEALTH
CARE POLICY (60%); DECISIONS & RULINGS (53%); SUPREME
COURTS (52%); RELIGION (50%);

ORGANIZATION: PLANNED PARENTHOOD CENTER OF SYRACUSE (55%);

CITY: LOS ANGELES, CA, USA (58%);

STATE: NEW YORK, USA (79%); CALIFORNIA, USA (79%);

COUNTRY: UNITED STATES (92%);

LOAD-DATE: February 12, 2003

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: DICK BLUME/The Post-Standard; Sarah Mendez holds a makeshift


'casket' containing the body of an aborted; fetus during Thursday's anti-abortion
demonstration outside the County; Courthouse. Color.

You might also like