About that bloody fetus picture you found on your car . . . | Opinion
So, on Thursday night, I came out to my car after working out at the downtown YMCA to find a picture of a bloody fetus sticking out of the side window.
It’s not really something any of us need to see at that time and place.
But after living in Wichita for 25 years, I was not exactly shocked — this is after all the home port of the “Truth Truck,” a moving van plastered with giant bloody fetus pictures that anti-abortion activist Mark Gietzen drives all over town.
But the flier did spark my curiosity.
On Facebook for the past few days, pro-choice people I know had been talking about taking fetus fliers off cars and pulling up yard signs posted along city streets.
The fliers and signs are the work product of a national group calling themselves abolitionists, who are meeting here this week.
If you’re not familiar with them, they’re the wing of the anti-abortion movement that thinks organizations like Kansans for Life and Operation Rescue are too soft on abortion.
The bloody fetus flier I got, printed on cardstock, said BLEEDING KANSAS in big letters on the front. On the back was a message, of questionable accuracy, about the state of abortion law in the Sunflower State.
So on Friday morning, I went over to the downtown Hilton Garden Inn, where the abolitionists have set up their headquarters this week, and talked to several of them.
The recurring theme of those chats is they’re not “pro-life,” they are anti-abortion through and through.
They believe strongly that the Bible and Jesus call them to advocate for a complete ban, from the instant of fertilization — and anyone who gets an abortion or performs one should be prosecuted for murder. They have a bill in the Kansas Legislature, House Bill 2181, which has seven co-sponsors but hasn’t moved an inch since January.
You may find that an extreme position, especially in a state that just last August soundly rejected the “Value Them Both” amendment that sought to give the Legislature a green light to pass any regulations they want, up to and including a complete ban.
Abolitionists actually opposed Value Them Both because in their view, it wasn’t strong enough because it talked about regulating abortion, not prohibiting it, said Jared Burdick of St. George, a member of the Lighthouse Baptist Church and the leader of Abortion is Murder Kansas.
He started out pro-life and migrated to the abolitionist movement because, he said, the vast majority of abortions are done for the sake of convenience and he disagrees with the pro-life orthodoxy that the women who have them are also victims.
Of the 200 or so people involved in the abolitionist conference, only a handful are from here. I talked to Texans, Oklahomans, Missourians, even a Washingtonian. Mostly, they’re here to rally and practice their activism to take back to their home states.
During the day, they go out leafletting and marching. On Thursday, about 150 gathered to remonstrate (and no, I didn’t mean demonstrate) at the Trust Women Clinic. On Friday, contingents went around to area high schools and Wichita State University to wave signs and hand out fliers to students.
Each evening, they’re meeting in the basement of the Hilton, where they talk about God and abortions. There are lots of youngish couples with a whole lot of small children in tow.
It’s been peaceful so far, and part of the focus of their evening sessions is an exhortation to remain non-violent and not engage in anti-abortion vigilantism.
Everybody I talked to seemed to recognize that Wichita has a traumatic history of anti-abortion violence — especially the 2009 murder of Dr. George Tiller in his church — and the last thing they want is for something like that to happen on their watch.
So hopefully, we’ll get through this weekend with nothing more than some disgusting fliers on our cars.
The abolitionists will be gone by Sunday evening and things will probably get back to Wichita normal, where the only bloody fetus pictures are on the sides of a moving van.
