Abortion Advocates Memorialize Wrong People by Georgette Forney, Special to the RLM News

[Editor’s Note: Georgette Forney is the Executive Director of the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life. She will also be addressing the Right to Life of Michigan Legislative Day crowd on May 14.]

Creative ideas to capture media attention have always entertained me. People come up with a variety of antics and activities to promote this or that cause.

But I just read about one that takes the cake!

A group that identifies itself as “Refuse & Resist!” is touting March 10th, as the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. They chose March 10th because it is the day Dr. David Gunn, an abortion doctor, was killed. I must say that while I’m sure the group’s motivation to memorialize this man and raise morale amongst clinic workers is reasonable, the logic of their effort escapes me.

The organizers suggest a variety of activities focused on honoring “those who put their lives on the line daily to make choice possible, without abortion providers, there can be no choice” on their website. My favorite suggestion is “Use your imagination to help create a climate at clinics where women, doctors and staff can hold their heads high without feeling ashamed or fearing assault.”

I never realized the man who performed my abortion shared the shame I felt from having an abortion. If shame is common, shouldn’t we question why? What struck me about this appreciation day was that they had to wait until 1996 to institute it, because it was 23 years of legalized abortion before one of the abortion providers was killed.

This is where the irony comes in for me. Within the first year of Roe vs. Wade, Kathy Murphy, a 17-year-old from California, died from a legal abortion. And in the 30 years since, hundreds of more women have died; thousands have experienced long-term physical complications and millions have suffered from fertility problems. (Did you know according to a study published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 6% of women who have abortions become sterile?)

For hundreds of women, choosing abortion was their last choice and for millions of others, abortion was their last reproductive choice.

Why don’t we have an appreciation day for women who have died from abortion? Why aren’t their lives worth memorializing?

I don’t know the answer, maybe the truth is too scary to promote! Maybe we’re afraid to acknowledge that although we thought making abortion legal would make it safe, it didn’t.

Maybe we should create an appreciation day for those who are working to make it unnecessary.

Doctors don’t deserve to die for performing abortions and women deserve better choices than abortion.

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