THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501080063
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Never has our resident radical Donald Spitz had such a handy platform to spew his hateful views.
Evidence had barely been collected in the Hillcrest Clinic shooting before he was holding court with the press.
And there he was again with a bullhorn in front of the jail, thanking John C. Salvi III, the man accused of gunning down abortion providers in Massachusetts. And again at the courthouse where Salvi was arraigned.
Our local boy Spitz popped up in newspapers across the country last week. The Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post. The Chicago Tribune. ``Abortion mills are in the business of chopping up little babies,'' he tells the San Francisco Chronicle. ``And it looks like they received a taste of their own medicine.''
The abortion debate will go on forever. No Supreme Court ruling, no murder, no law will make it go away. The debate reaches to the core, not just of society, but of each individual, to tug at beliefs of God, life, freedom and responsibility.
As the debate turns violent, the microphones point to Spitz and his angry band of extremists.
But do the Spitzes and the Salvis of the world speak for the pro-life movement?
No. They're only the loudest.
Mary Petchel's name didn't show up in any of those newspapers. She's against abortion, too. Uncomfortably sharing a movement with someone she couldn't disagree with more. The president of the local chapter of the Virginia Society for Human Life is, unequivocally, against violence of any sort.
She and most others in the anti-abortion movement work more quietly, get less press than radicals like Spitz and Salvi.
They are people like the volunteers in a group called Birthright. The volunteers don't picket. Don't seek publicity. Won't even agree to an interview that puts them in the same column with people like Spitz and Salvi.
For 26 years the volunteers have helped women facing unwanted pregnancies by giving them clothing, baby equipment, even finding places for them to live. ``Our arena is behind the scenes,'' says the director of the local chapter.
Behind the scenes media-wise, maybe, but right in the middle of the scene that counts most: supporting women facing unwanted pregnancies.
They do their work at the grass-roots level instead of using guerrilla tactics to shock a nation. And they remind us that the people on the far edges of movements don't speak for the masses in between them.
Those of us who support freedom of choice support the freedom of speech that allows Spitz and other extremists to spout their divisive words.
But their use of that freedom makes a mockery of why the right was established in the first place: To open the exchange of ideas.
Spitz throws up walls. Shuts down discussion. His words make us recoil instead of listen.
There are, believe it or not, issues that pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates can agree on. Fewer teen pregnancies. More adoptions. More support for women with unwanted pregnancies.
We may part company on the option of abortion, but join again on pursuing goals in non-violent ways.
But thanks to people like Spitz and Salvi, the discussion has turned to armed battle, a place where words have sadly been lost. by CNB