Anti-abortion group targets Carlisle
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Article RatingAnti-abortion "billboard" trucks will bring a controversial election-year message to Carlisle streets Tuesday.
The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) plans to bring its anti-abortion message to town from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The message consists of 8- by 22-foot images of first trimester aborted fetuses juxtaposed next to the word "choice," says Mark Harrington, executive director of the group's Midwest region.
The images are on the sides of the trucks, which will continuously travel on downtown streets during the three-hour span.
"We targeted Pennsylvania because it is a battleground state this election year," Harrington says, adding the group's trucks will be traveling around the state until the November general election.
The organization's goal is to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, which upheld a woman's right to an abortion. The group is campaigning in key states in an effort to keep a sympathetic United States Senate, which approves the president's Supreme Court nominees.
Billboards "offensive"
Carlisle Mayor Kirk Wilson, who was unaware the billboards were scheduled to come to Carlisle until questioned, says he saw the organization's "billboard" trucks and a "billboard" plane with the abortion images in Harrisburg last week.
While "everyone has their own opinion and they have a right to do that," Wilson says he's "not certain that they do anything more than offend me."
"A lot of people think it actually hurts the cause," Wilson says, adding abortion is "an issue most people have made up their minds" about. "I think most people are offended by (the images)."
Wilson says the situation of someone coming to Carlisle with something "many (find) to be distasteful" is kind of like the Ku Klux Klan's Carlisle rally in 2000, though both deal with entirely different subject matter.
Candidates oppose abortion
Both Pennsylvania contenders for the U.S. Senate -- Republican incumbent Rick Santorum and Democrat Robert Casey -- strongly oppose abortion, but that's not stopping CBR from keying in on Pennsylvania as well as on states such as Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio. All four are considered key swing states in this year's battle to determine whether the U.S. Senate stays in Republican control.
In addition to the trucks, the group plans to begin using aircraft to tow a 100- by 35-foot banner with an anti-abortion message in the skies above key Pennsylvania communities.
While Harrington did not say if the plane will come to Carlisle, he did say the trucks will be very visible for Tuesday's lunchtime crowds.
He says the trucks keep moving for two reasons: "We reach more people by staying mobile and, if the trucks were to stop, it creates security issues."
He says the anti-abortion message prompts "quite a range of reactions."
"We've had pretty good support but we have people who get fairly angry that they're being subjected to these images.... On the road, you may get a thumbs-up, a thumbs-down or something worse. You can get the middle digit or even people throwing projectiles at you...."
Prompting reaction
Harrington says all of that is encouraging. "It's doing exactly what we want: to bother people in order to make them think" about abortion. The idea is to "motivate citizens to defend unborn children."
The trucks already have visited area communities such as Harrisburg, York and Lebanon. In addition to Carlisle, they are to visit Gettysburg and Chambersburg in the next few days, then move on to the Allentown region.
Harrington says the crews that keep the trucks on the road consist of CBR staffers and volunteers who support its message.
Supporters offer housing and meals to the staffers and volunteers as well as set up speaking engagements and networking opportunities with churches and other groups.
Harrington says, "Christians and religious people in general are our biggest supporters." He calls the support the group has attracted in central Pennsylvania communities "more than in most towns, probably."
FYI
According to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform website, CBR was founded in July 1990 as a privately funded, nonprofit educational corporation in Lake Forest, Calif.
The website says, "CBR operates on the principle that abortion represents an evil so inexpressible that words fail us when attempting to describe its horror. Until abortion is seen, it will never be understood."
The website further says, "CBR is strictly non-violent. We oppose violence against babies and against the abortionists who kill them. We do not engage in civil disobedience. All activities fall within the legal bounds of the First Amendment. Just as Dr. King sought to create a 'creative tension' to awaken the nation to the horrible injustice of segregation, we too are creating a 'creative tension' to awaken the nation to the horrible injustice of abortion."
On the Net:
http://www.cbrinfo.org
