Pro-choice forces win court case against phony clinics

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... abortion rights A unique victory was recently achieved when the California Superior Court ruled that "fake clinics" in California are deceiving people. It permanently enjoined the Free Pregnancy Center and the Robert Pearson Foundation from false advertising and deception. In addition, they may not engage in any conduct likely to deceive the public regarding abortions.

Below is an interview with Ann Menasche, a long-time activist in the fight for equal rights and one of two attorneys representing pro-choice advocates in the case. The other attorney is Julise Johanson. Gretchen Mackler did the interview for Socialist Action.

Socialist Action: Ann, how did you get involved in this case?

Ann Menasche: We were contacted by Carla Abbotts, a woman who had gone to a Free Pregnancy Center for a pregnancy test and was given more than she bargained for. She was shown a degrading slideshow depicting bloody fetuses and women dying from abortions.

The slide show clearly presented abortions as being very life threatening. The center staff also persuaded her not to choose abortion. She would not have gone to seek advice at the center had she known what the outcome would be.

S.A.: The pro-choice movement is aware that many of these so-called pregnancy centers are set up and supported by Robert J. Pearson. How did he figure in this case?

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Oppression, and the Reproductive Rights Network-organized the event.

Braving windy, sub-freezing weather, Boston NOW President Ellen Convisser summed up the militant fightback stance of the crowd. "Last year we celebrated the anniversary [of Roe v. Wade]," Convisser said. "But this year we are commemorating it. There's nothing to celebrate now, we know that, with all of these attacks. We are mobilizing."

Demonstrating their willingness to physically defend a woman's right to choose, the pro-choice forces rallied near four major family planning clinics. These clinics have been the sites of repeated stand-offs between defenders of women's rights and Operation Rescue.

Chicago Proclaiming, "We won't go back to the days of back-alley abortions," some 500 pro-choice demonstrators marched from the Illinois State Building to two fake "abortion clinics" in the Loop. These clinics advertise free pregnancy tests and counseling, but tell phony horror stories about abortion in order to deny women access to it. • March organizer Cathy Christeller, director of Women Organized for Reproductive Choice, was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune. She pointed out that the Supreme Court decision to decide whether a Missouri law restricting access to abortion is constitutional poses "a tremendous threat" to legal abortion.

"Does the right wing control the courts? Yes," Christeller said. "Do they have the majority of people behind them ? No."

Cincinnati Over 400 people filled a United Auto Workers union hall to hear from two former nuns who challenged the Vatican's anti-choice position.

The speakers, Barbara Ferraro and Patricia Hussey, were among the "Vatican 24," a group of nuns who signed a 1984 signature ad in The New York Times titled "A Diversity of Opinion Regarding Abortion Exists Among Catholics." Ferraro and Hussey, the only two nuns who refused to recant their pro-choice sentiments, were finally forced to leave their convent.

Ferraro and Hussey remain convinced that people must fight for the right to dissent. They called on women, in particular, to be "adult moral decision-makers" when it comes to reproductive rights.

Cincinnati NOW President Shirley Rosser addressed the crowd and urged a massive Menasche: Robert J. Pearson is a multi-millionaire who has embarked upon a crusade to turn the clock back to the days of dangerous self-induced abortions. He has developed the "Pearson Method" of thwarting women's right to abortions.

He gives workshops around the country helping the anti-abortion cause establish their deceptive clinics. His manual outlines in detail how to get the abortion-bound mother into the centers through false and misleading advertising and telephone techniques. He presently boasts of having 200 such anti-abortion centers throughout the nation.

S.A.: Has this case attracted support for the pro-choice movement?

Menasche: Definitely yes, and more than that, it uncovered a horror story which our case helped to expose. After we announced to the press that we and the Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights (CDRR) were going to file suit against the Free Pregnancy Centers in court, we were contacted by the San Francisco Police Department.

An incredible story unfolded, considerably strengthening our case.

A young Chinese high-school student had gone to the center in San Francisco to seek an abortion. At the center, she was given the run-around, deceived and misled by a staff person over a period of weeks. When she finally realized that the center was not prepared to offer her an abortion she was too far into her pregnancy.

The center staff realized that this misled turnout for the April 9 demonstration in Washington, D.C. A collection was taken to defer the cost of bus tickets from Cincinnati to Washington for the march.

San Francisco Shouting "Illegal Abortion, Never Again!" over 200 pro-choice activists gave up watching the home team in the Super Bowl and instead marched past a phony "abortion clinic" to the Federal Building, where they held a spirited rally.

The Bay Area Coalition Against Operation Rescue (BACAOR), organized the event, which was co-sponsored by Planned Parenthood, San Francisco Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), and San Francisco NOW.

Sylvia Weinstein, 1988 Socialist Action candidate for Board of Education, was one of the speakers at the rally. She told the crowd about the stakes involved in abortion rights. "We're talking about women's lives," she said.

Weinstein said the question was not whether overturning Roe v. Wade would stop abortions, but how many women would die from botched, illegal abortions if the decision was overturned. Weinstein and other speakers urged pro-choice activists to mobilize for April 9 both in Washington and in San Francisco.

Elsewhere In Los Angeles, more than people piled into a room designed to hold 150 to attend a pro-choice rally organiz ed b! NOW. Pro-choice actions also took plar ie in Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Seattle, and several other cities. Young woman was not going to return to her parent's home. They contrived a letter detailing a phony story about her receiving an out-of-country scholarship. She was to use this letter to deceive her parents so she could be sent out away to have her baby.

Her mother, through the assistance of a YMCA translator, uncovered the lie and reported it to the San Francisco Police Department, who referred the matter to the S. F. District Attorney's Consumer Fraud Division.

S.A.: Now the courts have ruled that the Free Pregnancy Centers and the Pearson Foundation are restrained from deceptive anti- abortion advertising practices. They must not imply that they are prepared to conduct abortions or that they are a medical facility.

Also, they cannot operate their slideshow without a disclaimer indicating abortion is a safe medical procedure. Do you think we've seen the last of these clinics and their deceptive techniques?

Menasche: This case is going to be appealed by the anti-abortionists. Meanwhile, we need to build a real pro-choice coalition from a broad spectrum of feminists, family planning clinics, pro-choice organizations, lesbian and gay groups, and the labor movement. We need a large visible statement in support of women and their right to choose.

This case has put a dent in the anti-abortion movement, and it sends a signal that women are prepared to fight for their right to choose. We need to rebuild the women's movement. Stop losing ground, and start gaining ground.