Texans generally aren’t shrinking violets. Theirs is the lone
star state, after all, home of Sam Houston, Ross Perot, LBJ and
George W. Bush. To this day we still remember the Alamo, in part
because they wouldn’t let us forget. And now, thanks to a few
brave, fed-up Texans, the national pro-life movement has a few
reasons to smile. Recent successes show us the ability of one
person to set in motion serious change.
It all began when Chris Danze, a 48-year-old concrete foundation
contractor, decided to oppose a massive 10,000-square-foot, $6.2
million Planned Parenthood abortion mill being built in Austin.
Planned Parenthood dubbed it “The Choice
Project,” and anticipated little protest. They expected a
procession of signs and bullhorns, and then a return to business as
usual. To get an idea of usual, consider that the franchise’s more
than 1,000 clinics performed almost 230,000 abortions in 2002
alone.
Determined to give them a fight, Danze organized a
letter-writing campaign which promised contractors who helped build
the complex that they’d never find work in this town again. By
November 2003, hundreds of subcontractors had agreed to the
boycott, starving the project of lumber, cement, plumbing,
portatoilets, windows, roofing, insulation, you name it. Planned
Parenthood officials, after initially scoffing at the boycott, were
stunned to see construction of the facility grind to a halt.
Eventually concrete supplier Ramon Carrasquillo broke the picket
line and poured the foundation this January, mostly because his
company, Rainbow Materials, Inc. was drowning under $17 million of
debt. Other subcontractors signed on, but only on the condition
that Planned Parenthood conceal their identities. Trucks now pull
up to the site with black tape over their logos. Planned Parenthood
heralded this as a great victory for choice, even posting pictures
of “beautiful concrete” on the website.
Tragic as this may be, it is no longer socially acceptable to
get in bed with Planned Parenthood in Austin. Contractors have to
slink in, hiding their identities like businessmen on a seedy
fling. And Danze & Co. may not be finished yet. If scouts
uncover the identities of the contractors, they add them to a
mailing list of over 60,000 locals, who have promised never to
employ them again.
IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH, last July, the Bluebonnet Council of the
Girl Scouts in Waco decided to co-sponsor a Planned Parenthood sex
education conference entitled, “Nobody’s Fool.” The “educators”
passed out a book to young girls with chapters on masturbation and
homosexuality. The book, which was graced with the Girl Scouts
logo, included images of couples having sex and a boy properly
wearing a condom. The council went on to name Texas Planned
Parenthood Executive Director Pam Smallwood their 2003 “Woman of
Distinction.” They planned to co-sponsor the conference again this
year.
None of this sat very well with John Pisciotta, a Baylor
University economics professor, who took ads out on a local
Christian radio station urging a boycott of Girl Scout cookies. He
cited Danze’s Austin boycott as his inspiration.
Before he knew it, the national media picked up the story.
Horrified parents began pulling their children out of the Scouts.
Several troops collapsed completely for want of recruits. Finally,
despite early defiance, local Girl Scouts Director Beth Vivio
announced that the group would not sponsor such a conference again,
ever.
Woman of Distinction Pam Smallwood lashed out at the boycott and
the Girl Scouts surrender to it. “The children of Central Texas now
have been given the clear message that the bullying tactics of a
few are more successful than an informed democracy,” she said,
betraying a complete lack of irony. After all, was it not Planned
Parenthood that encouraged the nationwide picketing and boycott of
Wal-Mart over the company’s refusal to carry the morning after
pill?
PRO-ABORTION FORCES ARE attempting to put the best face on these
setbacks. A spokeswoman for the group in Austin calls Chris Danze,
“the best thing that’s ever happened to our fund raising.” Oh, and
by the way, Girl Scout cookies are having a banner sales year,
another spokeswoman adds.
Danze and Pisciotta both acknowledge the financial damage they
can inflict is limited. The true value of the protests, they say,
is in getting the message out nationally and showing pro-lifers
that there is a way to fight back.
But this unprecedented resistance has to be making pro-choicers
nervous. Add to the Texas boycotts the pro-life movement’s
increasing use of ultrasound technology, the popular support of the
Partial-Birth Abortion ban, and the shocking news that Roe V.
Wade was nearly overturned in 1992, and it starts to look like
a rational uneasiness.
Further, poll numbers coming out of the abortion-friendly Center
for the Advancement of Women last summer indicate that 51 percent
of American women believe abortion should be either banned
completely or permitted only in special circumstances, while only
30 percent favor abortion on demand.
These are not right wing numbers. This is the emerging political
reality. The President can lecture all he wants on what the country
is or isn’t ready for (a week before signing the partial birth
abortion ban, Bush told reporters that he didn’t think “the culture
has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress
would totally ban abortions”), but the groundwork for a more honest
debate of the issue is being laid, even as our elected officials
attempt to run from it. Once again, individuals will drive the
debate, not the President, not the courts, not our legislators.
An anti-war professor once publicly hoped that American troops
would face “a million Mogadishus” in Iraq. In a kinder, gentler
spirit, I would like to see Planned Parenthood face a million
Austins. I would like to see this peaceful, reasoned revolt take
root in communities across America as a viable means of opposing an
evil that has for too long gone unanswered.
Shawn Macomber is a reporter for The American Spectator. He runs
the website Return of the Primitive.
