THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240298
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Defensive, embarrassed and often angry about abortion clinic attacks that many say have damaged their movement, an estimated 45,000 anti-abortion activists marched peacefully from the White House to the Supreme Court on Monday.
``I came because of the violence, the wackos. I thought it was time for me to come forward,'' said the Rev. Joel Palser of Virginia Beach, chaplain of Regent University.
Palser was among almost 150 South Hampton Roads residents who hit the road before dawn to take part in a noontime rally and the ``March for Life'' marking the 22nd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortions.
The walk up Constitution Avenue is an annual event. It came this year as the anti-abortion movement celebrates growing clout on Capitol Hill but finds its public image suffering because of violent attacks on abortion clinics, including Norfolk's Hillcrest Clinic.
A relative handful of radicals have defended clinic violence as justified to prevent what they consider the murder of unborn children. But sentiments such as Palser's were the order of the day for Monday's gathering.
``The bombers and the assassins are not part of our movement!'' shouted Rep. Robert Dornan, a California Republican, in what was perhaps the most enthusiastically applauded line of the rally.
``You don't fight evil with evil. You have to fight it with love and compassion and insults,'' Dornan said.
Despite the peaceful rhetoric, Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, charged that the rally could help create an atmosphere that could provoke violence.
Speeches ``equating abortion with `murder' and the Holocaust make these perilous times for women and abortion providers,'' she said in a written statement.
In the crowd, the Rev. Andrew Jackson, associate pastor of Kempsville Presbyterian Church, said ``most pro-life people were in shock'' over the recent spate of violence directed at abortion providers. The ``whole context of violence'' made him feel it more important than ever to be part of a lawful demonstration, Jackson said.
The rally crowd - part religious revival, part political demonstration and all shivering in the January sun - filled the Ellipse, a grassy area between the Washington Monument and the White House. The anti-abortion movement has a reputation for being straitlaced, but Monday's gathering also included a contingent from the ``Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians.''
There also were scenes of street theater. A man dressed as the Grim Reaper circulated through the throng. He was followed by an ``abortionist,'' his medical scrubs splattered with blood. Along a string held between the two were the dismembered and bloodied limbs and torso of a doll.
At the edge of the multitude, volunteers handed out signs: ``The CHOICE is LIFE,'' and ``STOP ABORTION NOW'' (shaped like a stop sign). But many demonstrators brought their own handmade placards, with slogans like:
``Impeach the Czarina & her husband too''
Or banners like:
``TO END ABORTION STOP SEXUAL HEDONISM START SELF RESPECT WITH CHASTITY''
The Hampton Roads contingent was a mix of march veterans like Jackson and newcomers like Beth Patton of Virginia Beach and her daughter, Emily, 11.
She once considered herself ``pro-choice,'' Beth Patton said, but her views evolved until, this year, she found she ``just wanted to join in the whole movement'' against abortion.
Patton said she is not discouraged by failure of years of demonstrations, letter-writing, political campaigns and lawmaking to make abortion illegal again. The public will change as she did, she predicted. ``We're just not stationary. . . . I see that in my life.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Riding a bus to Washington early Monday are Emily Patton, 11, left,
and her mother, Beth Patton, of Virginia Beach.
KEYWORDS: ABORTION DEMONSTRATION
by CNB