Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 29, 1995 TAG: 9505030018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUE ANNE PRESSLEY THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
He calls her Norma; she calls him Flipper. He wants her to read the Bible; she wants him to stop referring to women as ``girls.''
It is hard to imagine two more unswerving opponents than the new next-door neighbors at 9222 and 9224 Markville Drive.
Norma McCorvey is a small, determined, wise-cracking woman better known as ``Jane Roe,'' whose demand for a safe and legal abortion led to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade. She is the marketing director at A Choice for Women, a clinic at 9222 Markville that has been offering abortions since 1991.
Flip Benham, a former bar owner, is a minister who is director of Operation Rescue National, the anti-abortion crusade that, in his words, ``unashamedly takes up the cause of preborn children in the name of Jesus Christ.''
He and his workers are getting organized in their new national headquarters at 9224 Markville, separated from the abortion clinic by a thin wall. They have mounted a new sign alongside that of the clinic's - ``LifeChoices Inc.'' - and seem to be relishing the widespread news-media notice that the strange situation has produced.
``We're at the very gates of hell, where child sacrifice takes place,'' said Benham, 47, who explained that the group's lease at another location in Dallas had just expired and insisted that the recent move was ``not orchestrated. We said to ourselves, `Nobody could possibly believe what God is doing.'''
Norma McCorvey has her own thoughts about that and has warned Dallas police that they had better come quickly should she summon them. In the meantime, she seems to enjoy sparring with Benham, whom she has known ``for eons,'' she said, as a noisy and persistent fixture in the abortion-protest movement. Her description of Operation Rescue's first demonstration in their shared parking lot is typical:
``Some radio reporter called, and I said, `We're getting down to the nitty-gritty. We've got four women coming in, and the vultures are all over them.' She said, `What do you mean, the vultures?' I said, `The O.R. people. Operation Repulsive.' She said, `Did you know you're on live?' Well, no, I would've been more serious, but it was just too funny what was going on.''
Benham's response: ``Norma knows we love her.''
The women who telephone A Choice for Women have no idea that the employee who introduces herself as ``Norma, your new friend'' is also perhaps the most potent symbol of the abortion-rights movement, whose own troubles eventually made it possible for them to seek a legal end to their unwanted pregnancies.
``All I'm going to recommend,'' said McCorvey to a caller from Oklahoma, ``is for you to come in and let us see what's going on with your body. If you choose to have your termination here, we'll be more than glad to have you as a patient. If you choose not to have a termination at all, we'll support that, too.''
Benham and his Operation Rescue workers say they hate to think about ``the violence'' taking place on the other side of that wall; McCorvey says she likes to picture ``old Flip hovering over there with a glass to his ear.''
In their first few days together, she has visited next door quite often, offering Benham what she calls her Bible, the Book of Runes with its stones marked ``breakthrough,'' ``partnership'' and ``protection''; he countered, as he always does, with scripture. They agree that their pasts have much in common, coming from the same ``hippie'' generation. He tells her she is ``lost'' and looking for something new; she says she doesn't ``trust Flippo, but I will listen to him.''
Although both McCorvey and Benham seem genuinely to enjoy their ongoing, curiously good-natured debates about abortion, each is aware that there is no more divisive, inflammatory and sometimes violent issue in American society.
Benham insists Operation Rescue does not support clinic bombings and killings.
``You don't solve the problem of murder by murdering others,'' he said. ``We wrap our arms around the cross, not our fingers around a trigger.''
by CNB