A Test Of Our Resolve: The Religious Right's Attack on Freedom.

Though the majority of Americans remain to some degree pro-choice, the size and resolve of that majority has experienced a rapid decline over the past decade.

In a Los Angeles Times poll of 2,071 people conducted in June 2000, only 43 percent of the respondents expressed specific support for Roe v. Wade, compared to 56 percent in 1991. Reuters News Service, in reporting the story, stated:

   U.S. public support for Roe v. Wade has fallen in recent years ... the
   poll's findings appeared contradictory but quoted a researcher as saying
   that while Americans personally dislike abortion they believed in allowing
   people to make their own individual choices.

Also in June, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Stenberg v. Carhart late-term abortion case maintained a woman's right to choose by a hairline five-to-four margin and featured an uncommon and emotional reading from the bench of the dissenting opinions. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has declared, "I support a Human Life Amendment," a position that is part of the GOP platform. This can only mean that, if elected, Bush will work to establish in law that personhood exists at conception and, therefore, that abortion, along with methods of birth control that work as abortifacients--such as IUDs and mini-pills--must be criminalized.

How matters have come to this pass can be attributed to a number of factors. One of the most significant is that we live in a time when an entire generation has been spared the grim reality of illegal abortion. Today the public rarely encounters the horror stories of earlier years. Indeed, young people observing an abortion rights rally for the first time have been known to ask what the symbol of the coathanger means. And college students continue to be amazed when I tell the story of how, in 1963, while coordinating research as clinical director of EMKO Pharmaceuticals at a New York City hospital, I witnessed the death of a single mother of nine children; she had a coathanger imbedded in her uterus from a botched attempt to abort herself. That incident became a defining moment for me, marking the beginning of my abortion rights activism--specifically, my opening of the first U.S. abortion clinic in 1964.

Today, anti-abortion crusaders try to claim that the shocking statistics of the women who died at the hands of quack and back-alley abortionists are made up--that events like these never happened! But we who saw the suffering on a daily basis remember what it was like: women coming to us by the thousands with stories of coathangers and knitting needles, of douching bags filled with Lysol, bleach, and turpentine. Even one of today's leading anti-abortion activists remembers. Bernard Nathanson, M.D., a founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League but now a convert to Roman Catholicism and a staunch opponent of abortion, writes in his 1996 autobiography, The Hand of God:

   At least two-thirds of the clinic females ambulanced to our emergency room
   in the middle of the night, bleeding profusely and in severe pain, were the
   victims of botched illegal abortions, not spontaneous miscarriages....
   Those of us practicing gynecology no longer see the results of illegal
   induced abortion: the raging fevers; the torn and obstructed intestines;
   the shredded uterus requiring immediate hysterectomy; the raging infections
   leaving many women sterile, exhausted, in chronic pain.

He concludes, "Illegal abortion was in 1967 the number one killer of pregnant women."

Another factor accounting for the dwindling support for abortion rights is the superior organization of the anti-abortion movement and the undying vigilance of its activists. Back in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was handed down, I warned that the legalization of abortion would create a backlash where opposition forces would mobilize to fight for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision. But others, such as Al Moran, director of New York City Planned Parenthood, disagreed. He concluded that the battle had been won for good. Later he would write: "Most of us in the pro-choice community put our feet up and said, `That settles it.' We believed that a chapter in history had been closed and we began to go on to other things." But the anti-abortion side didn't rest. In 1973 the National Right to Life Committee was founded, and other organizations and activists followed.

And when any given effort failed, another was tried. Hard political lessons and more effective propaganda techniques were thus learned. That's how it was discovered that one of the most effective ways of combating abortion was to focus attention on rare, late-term procedures, giving them a new, infanticide-sounding name: partial-birth abortion. The debate thus shifted from women's rights to the rights of zygotes, embryos, and fetuses.

And now we see the battle intensifying as the anti-abortion side, aided by a more favorable media and goaded by a temporary Supreme Court setback, gathers its forces to assure its victory. I've witnessed some of the inner workings of this effort and will, in the remainder of this article, show you what I've seen--and what we need to do.

To fully grasp the influence that both anti-abortion ideology and repressive religion have come to exert in the United States, one needs to experience it first-hand and over time. Particularly, one needs to get close to the mainstream media and watch how they react when these issues come up. So let me compare an earlier time to the present in a way I find most revealing.

Thirty-four years ago, on August 13, 1966, I demonstrated outside St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City to protest the Roman Catholic church's position on reproductive rights. The New York Times reported, "The demonstration by Baird was the first protest that could be recalled taking place before the Cathedral itself." Then, on March 13, 1967, over 300 people joined me in a mass march there. The New York Times covered that story, too, even quoting my words: "Within the shadows of St. Patrick's, I say no religion has the right to impose its brand of morality on those of other religions.... We are here today to let the Church know we will stand united against those who oppose legalizing abortion."

I was back again on March 20, 1984, at the installation of John J. O'Connor as New York's eighth archbishop. United Press International headlined the story: "Archbishop Attacked by Pro-abortionist." But, more importantly, the wire service let me get across my point that, because O'Connor had been appointed by the pope, because the pope was the ruler of a foreign state, and because the Catholic church has a political agenda in addition to its religious one, therefore logic dictates that "O'Connor being an appointee of Pope John Paul II is required by federal law to register as a lobbyist."

Now compare that to events in the year 2000. It was just this past June 19 when Joni Scott and I demonstrated at the installation of Bishop Edward Egan, the late Cardinal O'Connor's replacement. We were convinced that Egan would take the opportunity to use the enormous media attention surrounding the event to attack reproductive rights and we wanted to be there to offer an opposing view.

Arriving at the church at 11:30 AM for the 1:00 PM ceremony, we encountered a frenzy of media. On Fifth Avenue there were twenty or more television vans; camera equipment lined the blocks opposite the cathedral. Twenty-foot bleachers had been erected with platforms to accommodate reporters from around the world. Hoards of police directed traffic and acted as security.

After a police lieutenant informed me that a wooden barricade had been set up on the southeast side of Fifth Avenue for the use of possible demonstrators from the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and others, Joni and I took our positions there. But inside this seventy-five-foot pen, we were joined by only one other picketer. Thus there were but three voices to sound in protest against thousands.

Eventually, starting from the Catholic Center on First Avenue, people began a most orderly filing into the church. From a distance it looked like black and red dominos marching in unison. But they were representatives of the 1.6 million Knights of Columbus worldwide. White plumes adorned their hats and their swords sparkled at their sides. Next in the grand spectacle came a thousand priests cloaked in alabaster gowns, over a hundred bishops and archbishops, and Bishop Egan himself clothed in magnificent embroidered white silk and holding a shepherd's staff. All marched into the church. Prominent guests entered from the opposite doorway, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, New York Governor George Pataki, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former New York Mayors David Dinkins and Edward Koch, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, and Senate hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick Lazio. It took an hour before the entire procession of 4,000 was inside.

Outside, uninvited spectators stood listening to the ceremony and the music of the choirs that blared from loud-speakers in an apparent suspension of New York's municipal noise laws which motorists are required to obey.

During our five-hour demonstration, some people shook our hands or gave us a "thumbs up." But, mostly, we had to endure indignant stares and incendiary remarks. One priest made a gun gesture with his hand and finger and pretended to shoot. Another priest shook his head yelling, "Baird, you're a walking abortion!" Still another priest hissed at us like a snake. A number of people took the opportunity to debate the abortion issue and tell us we were doomed to hell. In one particular encounter that expanded into a broader range of subjects, Joni asked the young father of a six-year old son, "What if your son was gay?" The answer came back pointedly: "I'd kill him!"

A variety of media--including Associated Press, the New York Times, and local television news teams--interviewed us. But of special note was the warning I received from longtime Fox News reporter Christopher Jones. Prior to our television interview he said, "Bill, go easy on the church, otherwise your statements will never get on the air."

The media had received copies of my press release and letter to Egan requesting a peace meeting aimed at reducing the anti-abortion hate speech that foments a climate of violence. In that same letter, I reminded the bishop of his recent handling of child sex abuse by priests at his Bridgeport diocese, wherein he denied the culpability of the Catholic church by claiming that priests are "independent contractors" and hence solely responsible for their own conduct. Naturally, Egan couldn't have responded favorably even if he'd wanted to. As an appointee of the Vatican, he is required to obey the pope on birth control, abortion, and other issues.

So our worst fears materialized. The next day an avalanche of media coverage was diffused worldwide revealing that the new archbishop had indeed used his installation to attack abortion rights. In the June 20 New York Post, the headline read, "Egan Era Begins with Pro-Life Crusade." He was quoted as asking rhetorically, "May we stand idly by while the being within the mother is killed?" And, afterwards, the archbishop commenced imposing his religious dogma on New Yorkers: June 27 brought a page-one story in the New York Daily News headlined, "Egan Raps City Schools: Says They Teach Wrong Moral Values; Urges Private School Vouchers for All Students."

Besides Egan, his predecessor O'Connor was quoted. Readers were reminded of remarks the latter made shortly before his own installation. According to the newspaper, "O'Connor infuriated Jews when he likened abortion to the Holocaust." He reportedly said, "Hitler tried to solve a problem. The Jewish question. So kill them. Shove them into ovens. Burn them. Well, we claim unborn babies are a problem so kill them. To me it is really precisely the same." O'Connor was also quoted from 1984: "I don't see how a Catholic in good conscience can vote for a candidate who explicitly supports abortion."

Yet, despite the many media interviews we protesters conducted, there was a complete news blackout on all that we said and did. This was a novel experience for me. Never before had a demonstration of mine at St. Patrick's, large or small, gone unreported. And so I suggest that this may be a reflection of our times--the incredible success of the anti-abortion movement and perhaps a media more interested in the package a message comes in than the message itself.

Ten days after Egan's installation, Joni Scott and I arrived at the twenty-seventh annual National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) convention in Arlington, Virginia. As I noted in the May/June 2000 Humanist, for the past twenty-seven years I have attended these conferences, both to peacefully demonstrate (securing some of the media attention that would otherwise go exclusively to the anti-abortion side) and to get a glimpse of what direction the anti-abortion movement will be taking in the coming year.

Joni and I found the 2000 convention buzzing with excitement over George W. Bush's run for president, confident that he would "reclaim" the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Christianity. Page one of the official 2000 yearbook promoted him, stating, "Bush opposes the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand and [he] supports a constitutional amendment to protect unborn children." The yearbook also said, "Bush will appoint judicial conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court who will strictly interpret the constitution."

In the exhibit area, busy conference booths sold bumperstickers and literature with such slogans as "Abortion: The foundation on which to build a violent society," "I Am a Survivor of the American Holocaust: Born After January 22, 1973," "Stop the violence! (abortion is violent)," "Abortion ... the ultimate child abuse," and "Real Doctors Don't Kill Babies." One bumpersticker quoted Mother Teresa: "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Speaking of Mother Teresa, I was given copies of her speeches in which she said things that might surprise many. For example: "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child." However, with so many orphans longing to be adopted, Mother Teresa's following words could be construed as cruel: "We are lighting abortion by adoption.... And we have a tremendous demand for couples who cannot have a child--but I never give a child to a couple which has done something not to have a child."

At the booth of Priests for Life, Father Frank Pavone requested his usual photo of the two of us together. (Later, he even came outside to witness Joni's and my demonstration--leaving television reporters' mouths agape at the sight of the leader of Priests for Life helping me tie my protest cross together with twine!) Also at Pavone's booth was Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) a former pro-choice advocate wooed to the anti-abortion side. She said, "Hi, Bill, we're praying for you," and then made a reference to the conversion of the apostle Paul. "I know that you are on the road to Damascus."

During our daily lunch hour demonstrations, we were confronted by angry anti-abortion proponents. A number of Teens for Life members banded together, screaming at us while the media recorded them. As at the installation of the archbishop, we endured moral condemnation and chastisement. A man drove by sticking his head out of his car window, his face red with rage, shouting, "Baird you're a fornicator!" Others referred to us as "murderers" and proponents of a holocaust. Another woman gave us the thumbs down and yelled, "Burn in hell!" Overall, I noticed this year a decided increase in the level of anger. This was probably due to the week's Supreme Court decision on late-term abortion that upheld a woman's right to choose.

During the convention, Pavone gave Joni and me tickets to the prayer breakfast at which he and Christian Coalition president Pat Robertson were scheduled to speak. This was a unique event; at no time in the past had the NRLC placed on the same platform speakers representing the two richest and most powerful religious movements in the nation, Roman Catholicism and Christian fundamentalism. Both men affect millions of television viewers through their weekly shows. And both advocate politicized and conservative forms of Christianity.

Pavone was the first speaker at this event, and his agenda became immediately apparent:

   There never has been a national election more important than the one we
   face this year. It is not going to be business as usual, particularly in
   the churches. We need to reaffirm again and again that we as believers who
   look forward to the world to come ... have our citizenship in heaven.... We
   are called to testify to the truth and one of the places that we testify to
   the truth is the voting booth.... The church does not dictate the policies
   of the nation. The church proclaims the truth of God to which these
   policies must conform.

To audience yells and whistles he added:

   We don't set up the voting booths but we don't cease to be Christians when
   we go to the voting booths, and everyone out there who wants the church to
   keep quiet about public issues had better get used to something.

Then, angrily emphasizing each word, he declared, "We as believers are not going to settle for second-class citizenship!" Sounding grave, he went on:

   The number of lives being legally destroyed in this country ... would be
   equivalent to the following events happening every single day. You remember
   the TWA flight 800 tragedy in New York? Five of these crashes every single
   day, seven Oklahoma City bombings, and 110 Columbine high school
   shootings--all these events combined every single day. That's how many
   lives are being taken by abortion. Any politician who's going to stand up
   and say, "Oh well, I'm not in favor of banning abortion," might as well
   stand up and say, "Columbine High School shootings? That's fine with me!"
   That's why it's a political issue.

Then he delivered a tacit, or not so tacit, message to Catholic legislators and politicians:

   Anybody who claims to serve the public and is going then to turn his or her
   back on the very public that he or she is supposed to serve is a living
   contradiction and is unworthy of public office.

(Of course, with that logic, a Jehovah Witness legislator should vote against any funding for blood transfusions in city hospitals.) Not stopping there, Pavone went on to address church-state separation directly:

   What about the separation of church and state? Let's pose a hypothetical
   situation and a new religion comes along and, as part of their worship
   service, they have the torture of a five-year-old child. Do they have the
   right to believe as they want? Yes! But would it be an infringement on the
   separation of church and state if the government stepped in and said, "You
   can't torture little children as part of your worship service"? Then why
   does the separation of church and state require the church to allow the
   state to torture little children?

This was greeted by loud applause. Next, with increasing intensity he proclaimed:

   I'm going to tell you brothers and sisters what those who say we have the
   freedom to believe in the right to life but not the freedom to change
   public policy on the issue [are doing]. They're asking us to be hypocrites!
   ... When someone is perpetuating violence on an innocent victim, it is
   precisely when we disagree with the perpetrator that we have to intervene
   to stop the violence."

At this point, Pavone dramatically whispered:

   Priests for Life are undertaking in the next few months an unprecedented
   campaign to awaken Christians to their political responsibility.... The
   document [the U.S. bishops] issued in November of 1998, Living the Gospel
   of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics--by no means should you think
   this is a challenge issued to Catholics alone.

He then read from the statement:

   We urge those Catholic officials who choose to depart from Church teaching
   on the inviolability of human life in their public life to consider the
   consequences for their own spiritual well being, as well as the scandal
   they risk by leading others into serious sin.... No public official,
   especially one claiming to be a faithful Catholic, can advocate for or
   actively support direct attacks on innocent human life.

Greeted by applause and cheers, he continued:

   And then [the Bishops] talked to the voters, "The arena for moral
   responsibility includes not only the halls of government but the voting
   booth as well.... "We, as an association, have taken the words of this
   document and quoted the small passages I have just quoted for you and we've
   prepared bulletin inserts camera ready that we are sending to each and
   every priest in this country to publish in his parish bulletin. And that's
   not just for Catholic Churches! We will send quotes to any and every
   church, institution, group that wants to use them; we will send you this
   document. We will give you anything and everything that you can possibly
   use.... To get this message out, we are furthermore gathering together
   signatures of some of our priest members from every single part of the
   country, taking the words I have quoted for you and putting them together
   with our signatures and putting it as a full page ad in the New York Times.

To give you an idea of the financial resources that this effort represents, a full-page ad in a weekday edition of the New York Times costs $85,395 for nonprofit groups. Pavone concluded:

   To those who are Catholic and pro-choice, stop being a contradiction to
   your church! And to those who claim the name of God and stand up and say
   it's okay to have little babies killed, I say stop being a scandal to the
   gospel of Jesus Christ.

Without missing a beat, Pat Robertson was immediately introduced. Lauded as an attorney and Yale graduate, founder of the Christian Coalition, and host of the 700 Club, he was in an ecumenical mood, having forged an alliance with the Reverend Jerry Falwell only a month earlier. (As the July 5 Charleston, South Carolina, Gazette reported, Robertson joined Falwell in his "$18.6 million drive to mobilize 35 million Bible-believing Christians to elect George Bush.") Now Robertson was joining forces with Pavone and declared to the conference:

   We were shocked this week when the highest court departed from
   constitutional precedent, from human reason, from any kind of theological
   base, and took the ultimate step in the destruction of human life and
   equated Roe v. Wade with infanticide. We were revulsed [sic] when we
   consider that this Court overturned a law of the sovereign state of
   Nebraska that was intended to stop partial-birth abortions.... It has been
   said that this election that is coming up in November may be one of the
   most important in 100 years. It is not maybe. It is! The next president
   will undoubtedly have the opportunity to select three judges to the U.S.
   Supreme Court, and before God Almighty we must replace some of the liberal
   judges with those who see the Constitution as it was written by its framers
   and will restore to us constitutional democracy in America. This election
   is vital for every single Christian in this country.

His next remarks contained numerous factual errors that went unchallenged despite numerous attorneys being present:

   The case of Griswold v. Connecticut came down in 1954. [Actually, it was
   initiated in 1961 and decided in 1965.] In that case, William O. Douglas,
   who was a Yale law professor, determined a radical departure from
   constitutional precedent. The case dealt with contraceptives and the law of
   Connecticut said that it was illegal to purchase contraceptives in
   Connecticut. Well, Mr. Griswold [Estelle Griswold, a clinic director, was a
   woman] wanted to buy contraceptives and was denied the privilege. But he
   [Justice Douglas] searched the Constitution diligently and found no mention
   of contraceptives [audience laughter] either in the original body or in any
   of the subsequent amendments! So he went to the Fourteenth Amendment and he
   said, "I see it!" And his fellow judges said, "What do you see?" And he
   said, "I see a penumbra!" And they said, "What is a penumbra?" Well a
   penumbra is an almost shadow that is cast in the middle of a solar eclipse!
   [Laughter] Well there's nothing in the Constitution about solar eclipses
   either! [Laughter] But he says in the penumbra of the Constitution there is
   a right to privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment. And the judges said, "It
   is?" and he said, "Absolutely. I'm a Yale law professor; I should know?
   [Laughter] On the strength of a penumbra, the Court struck down [but only
   for married couples] the Connecticut law against the sale of
   contraceptives. Total invasion of the state's rights! ...

   But then in 1973, Justice Blackmun dusted off Griswold v. Connecticut and
   he said, "We have a constitutional right to privacy." How did he get the
   constitutional right? It's not in the Constitution, it's in the penumbra.
   How come there's a penumbra? Because five judges said there was a penumbra!
   [The Griswold decision was actually seven to two, not five to four as
   Robertson implies.] ... The Supreme Court said a woman has the right to
   privacy and therefore has a constitutional right to have an abortion
   performed, and they went beyond that, though, and said an unborn child is
   not a human being under the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
   Constitution, the very amendment that sprang the penumbra that gave women
   the right they said it took away, the right of the unborn child.

From all of this, Robertson concluded:

   We can no longer be slaves to an unelected majority of five people on the
   Supreme Court of the United States. It's time for us to stand up and to be
   counted, and this election, ladies and gentlemen, is the time for your
   voices to be heard. [Applause] Father Pavone said so eloquently that before
   Jesus Christ, before God, all things are possible .... And we here today in
   solemn assembly need to affirm once again that we will not give up the
   fight until every child in America is safe in his mother's womb. [His?]

Robertson's speech was met by a standing ovation.

So now we can see the full picture: a uniting of conservative Catholics and Protestants in a forthright and unabashed public campaign to elect a candidate for the presidency--one who will change the Supreme Court for the express purpose of outlawing abortion and perhaps even bringing back state laws against contraception.

In the past, some on the pro-choice side laughed at and shrugged off such alliances--to our detriment. We can no longer. Fundamentalist leaders such as Pavone, Robertson, and Falwell have enormous power and wealth in the form of untaxed millions that they wish to use to gain political influence, to take away rights and liberties, to establish theocracy or its near equivalent.

And beneath all this lies the sad fact that, if all the money and volunteer energy spent to oppress women and force them into childbirth were spent on born children, our nation could enjoy a renaissance. Today, the United States ranks twentieth in infant mortality among industrialized nations. Fourteen million children in this country go to bed hungry every night. So if we can't take care of the children we have, how will a population explosion of unwanted children improve the situation? How will an epidemic of mothers victimized by back-alley abortions ensure that children are provided for?

When I first began my involvement in this cause back in 1963, I stressed the morality of abortion and birth control. I still stress it today. Abortion and birth control aren't just choices. They are moral choices. They are necessary choices. Those who care more about controlling the lives of others for the sake of salvation in another world cannot teach us morality. They aren't our exemplars. They can only teach how to make laws that will destroy our freedoms.

That's why we must work against that moral paralysis that causes many to succumb to the louder or more self-assured voice--that causes many to suffer a loss of will when desiring to challenge religiously motivated attacks against individual freedom and democracy. Whenever we--out of politeness or fear of giving offense--tacitly support authoritarianism, whenever we don't fight back hard enough, whenever we become unwilling to publicly name the source of the problem, we become part of the problem. The time has passed for allowing ourselves to be bullied into silence by cries of "anti-Catholic" or "religion-basher." Sectarian religious dogma codified into law violates the liberties of the religious and the nonreligious alike. We need to be able to say that loud and clear. For we stand at the threshold of living in an America where abortion is once again a crime.

And we must also remember how serious and determined the opposition to abortion really is. In mid-July, Garson Romalis, an abortion provider in Vancouver, British Columbia, was stabbed in the back in the lobby of his office. Years earlier he had been shot in the leg. This is what we are up against. It is not polite. And a polite response won't do anything but make us all victims in one way or another. We can be civil, yes, but also firm. Resolute. Determined. Organized. And involved.

Our nation and our freedom deserve nothing less.

RELATED ARTICLE: Priestly Politics

Page A7 of the July 21, 2000, New York Times consisted of full-page ad headlined "An Urgent Message for Lawmakers, Voters, and Those Running for Public Office from Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life." The ad continues: "As this election season intensifies, we consider it critical ... to bring to the attention of American voters, candidates, and all who hold elected office" statements by the U.S. Catholic bishops on abortion. After warning Catholic officials not to depart from church teaching, this plainly political ad concluded with a plea for "tax-deductible" contributions --which ought to raise a red flag with the Internal Revenue Service.

On the very same day, Pavone announced at a Washington, D.C., press conference the kickoff of a "political-media" plan to "activate believers in their political responsibilities during the 2000 election season." The campaign will include print and television ads, "phone banks to priests across the nation encouraging them to use the pulpit to highlight the important issue of life and the critical role it must play in the election," and "encouraging pastors in every diocese to use homily hints and bulletin inserts proposed by Priests for Life on the theme of political responsibility." Pavone stated that PFL's message has three themes:

* Catholics and all believers have the obligation to vote and should not claim to be believers if they aren't going to act like it.

* Abortion is the preeminent human rights issue and cannot be tolerated by a civilized society

* No public official of any party or religion can responsibly take a "pro-choice" position on abortion.

He added that the PFL is "ready to spend $1 million on this effort."

The PFL's website reports that Pavone met with presidential candidate George W. Bush in May. According to Pavone: "I was happy to meet Mr. Bush and am grateful for his position on the right to life, which is a breath of fresh air for all of us who have suffered through the Clinton/Gore era."

On the same day as the Times ad, I appeared with Pavone on America's Voice cable network, pointing out that the PFL's planned million-dollar campaign is likely to fizzle because most U.S. Catholics are pro-choice. (A Lake Snell Perry and Associates poll conducted earlier this year found that 63 percent of Catholic women respondents agreed with the statement: "I may choose not to have an abortion, but I would protect other women's right to make that choice/not take that choice away from other women.") I added that in the 1996 election President Clinton won twenty-four of the twenty-five most Catholic metro areas and all twelve of the most Catholic states. In addition, Catholics voted 54 percent to 37 percent for Clinton over Dole, despite Clinton's solid pro-choice and anti-school voucher platform.

When Pavone charged that abortion is "violence" against fetuses, I countered that government action to deny women freedom of conscience in dealing with problem pregnancies constitutes violence against women who, unlike fetuses, are unquestionably persons.

Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, responded to the PFL ad with this comment published in the July 24 New York Times:

   Perhaps one of the most interesting facts about Priests for Life is the
   fact that it has so few members among the country's Catholic priests. After
   nine years of organizing, the group has attracted only 6,000 of the
   nation's almost 55,000 Catholic priests Ia mere 11 percent] as members of
   an organization whose position mirrors the official position of the
   Catholic church. Given the high priority placed on anti-abortion activism
   by many bishops and the pope, one would have thought most of the country's
   priests were card-carrying members. Perhaps there are a good number of
   Catholic priests who agree with the majority of Catholic lay people and
   believe that abortion should be legal and that the moral decision should be
   left to the consciences of pregnant women.

Clues to why Priests for Life attracts so few priests crop up on its website. The organization strongly supports Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which condemned all forms of contraception. As polls have consistently shown for over thirty years, the overwhelming majority of Catholics reject this view. Indeed, Paul VI promulgated this view against the advice of the majority of his advisers.

Another clue is the website's list of the "Top 100 Catholics of the Twentieth Century." Topping the list is Pope John Paul II, who led the group which persuaded Paul VI to ignore his advisers and condemn contraception. Next on the list is Mother Teresa, subject of Christopher Hitchins' expose The Missionary Position. Number seven on the list is Mother Angelica, the ultraconservative talk show host on EWTN. Number ten is Pope Paul VI. Number fifteen is Monsignor Josemaria Escriva, founder of the ultraconservative, semi-secret Opus Dei. Number twenty-eight is Thomas Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and a money-bags for various extreme right causes. Number forty-six is the Reverend Paul Marx, the controversial founder of Human Life International. Number thirty-one is none other than PFL's own Father Frank Pavone, described modestly on the list as the "Bishop Sheen of the 90s."

Priests for Life, then, represents the old, minority, ultraconservative wing of Roman Catholicism. It stands for cultural domination and authoritarianism, scorns women's rights and church-state separation, and is out of sync with the vast majority of Catholics in North America and Western Europe.

Edd Doerr is president of the American Humanist Association and executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty. He has authored or edited numerous books on church-state separation and First Amendment rights.

Bill Baird has been a leading advocate of reproductive freedom since 1963 and has won three U.S. Supreme Court cases on this issue. In 1993 he received the Humanist Pioneer Award of the American Humanist Association. Joni Scott is associate director of the Pro Choice League (prochoiceleague.com) in Huntington, New York, and is currently helping Baird with his autobiography. Both Baird and Scott are available for speaking engagements.