Religious folks played (#surprise) role in take-down of Beverly Hills late-term abortion clinic — GetReligion
Dupont advertises itself as providing “all-trimester abortion care” and it describes third-trimester abortion as a three-day procedure for “evacuation of the uterus.”
I could go into the specifics of what the Dupont clinic could do –- if it offered abortions past 27 weeks (the start of the third trimester), it would be the first clinic in the state to do so –- but I am going to skip over the almost complete void in reporting on whom these opponents were and how they managed to persuade a city council to back off at the last minute.
Looking at their site, I see a letter from the Rabbinical Council of California, a group of Orthodox rabbis, opposing the clinic.
In April, protesters projected “MURDER MILL” on the side of the building on Wilshire. A week later, three spoke at a City Council meeting.
Tasha Barker, a Sacramento paralegal and harp instructor, called in to argue that the clinic was different from others in California because it performed abortions past fetal viability. “Right on their website, it says they’ll perform these abortions for no reason at all.”
“That’s their mission — to offer abortions in the third trimester at will — and most people, whether they be pro-life or pro-choice, agree that that is abhorrent,” Barker said, urging a pause in building permits. “I’m asking you to consider how extreme this clinic is.”
A few days later, DuPont found out the city had suddenly withheld permits for the clinic.
Barker, by the way, got her legal certification from Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy, a Christian institution in Fresno. And according to the Survivors Facebook page, she was aided in her fight against the proposed clinic by Omid Shabani, a Jewish lawyer.
On July 18, a handful of protesters attended the City Council meeting.
“Unfortunately, DuPont has come into the city and it’s an all-trimester abortion clinic that has caused the dark cloud to creep in and sweep over the city,” Tim Clement, outreach director for Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, told the mayor and council members. “I would like to have a sit-down with you and talk about maybe celebrating rather than protesting.”
More than a week later, Clement said, he and his attorney met the mayor, deputy city manager, city attorney and a detective via Zoom.
“Everything is supposed to be hush — like, I can’t speak about it,” Clement told protesters at a July 29 public rally. “But we came to an agreement.”
Now that’s interesting. Who is this guy?
Well, he has a seminary degree from a Reformed institution and once helped a girlfriend get an abortion. If you want to watch Clement saying these exact words, click on the above video starting around the 34th minute. Also listen to the very Christian nature of the music sung after he spoke.
Reading further in a pro-life publication, there are some two dozen abortion clinics already in the Beverly Hills area; where this one stood out was in the lateness of the procedure. Reading the Beverly Press gives one more details about the matter, but little about the protestors themselves. Quoting an anonymous doctor, it said:
By appearing to influence Douglas Emmett’s reversal in a state and city that projects a pro-choice image, the anti-abortion activists have logged a big win, she added.
“It’s a feather in their cap showing they had power to shut down a clinic literally on the brink of opening,” the doctor said. “It really does dishearten me … the precedent this might set for other clinics that want to open up in liberal parts of the country.”
Again, who were these folks and didn’t any reporter have the shoe leather to interview a few of them? We are talking Journalism 101, at this point.
To maintain a steady stream of protestors outside the building for the proposed clinic took months of cooperation among anti-abortion groups — and who else? The above video shows there were a bunch of people apparently representing multiple churches — and maybe a few synagogues — involved. But I didn’t see any of that reflected in the coverage.
There’s been enough abortion protests in the past 50 years for reporters to know there’s a faith community in there somewhere. It never hurts to look for them.
FIRST IMAGE: From the Facebook page of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.
