Anti-abortion trucks spur protest
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Daniel Mootz and Eugene Stockton-Juarez, both 14 and Carlisle residents, lead a group of pro-choice protesters as graphic pro-life trucks drive through the Square Tuesday. (Karissa Zimmer/The Sentinel)
Emma Rhodes of Gardners stops on the Square to talk to Jane Muller-Peterson and Dave Stramd, both of Carlisle. (Karissa Zimmer/The Sentinel)
It was anti-abortion versus pro-choice during lunch hour Tuesday at the Carlisle Square.
A small fleet of delivery trucks brought grisly, mural-sized depictions of aborted fetuses to downtown Carlisle between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
While a plane buzzed overhead with a pro-life message banner in tow, the trucks fanned out across the borough to deliver a message from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.
The trucks’ 8-by-22-foot images of purportedly first-trimester fetuses next to the word "Choice" drew negative reactions from people who saw them.
‘Just shock value’
"It’s just shock value," said Geary Ritter of Carlisle, who was sitting on a bench at the Square reading a book. "They’re going to hurt themselves more than they’ll help themselves."
Another man, Art Colbert, sat at bench across the street wearing a hat that read "Christ is King."
Colbert said while he thinks the pro-life group was free to conduct its campaign, he doubted its effectiveness. "There’s gotta be another way," he said.
A soon-to-be junior at Dickinson College, Kate O’Donnel, called the billboard campaign "outrageous."
Some people pointed at the trucks Tuesday as they went through town.
Pro-choice protesters
About 10 pro-choice activists gathered at the Square with picket signs that read "Freedom to Choose" and "Pro-choice is not pro-death."
"Keep abortion legal!" shouted David Strand of Carlisle, a political science professor at Dickinson College, as the first truck drove by.
The counter-protest was organized by two Carlisle area students.
"I feel strongly that women should have equal rights, including the right to control their own body," said Daniel Mootz, who will be a freshman at Carlisle High School this fall.
He said he thinks silence on the issue would amount to complicity.
Eugene Stockton Juarez, also entering ninth grade this fall, called the mobile billboard campaign "a sick way" to sway public opinion.
"People should be able to make up their own minds through dialogue and debate, not through fear-mongering," he said.
Strand said women should be able to make their own decisions about whether to continue a pregnancy. He criticized the billboard campaign’s organizers for "not engaging anybody in political debate."
Wants ‘water cooler’ talk
Mark Harrington, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Midwest, says the billboards will generate plenty of "water cooler" discussions about abortion.
"It does stimulate dialogue," Harrington says. "It’s just not the type of conversation they (pro-choice advocates) want."
He says the group uses visual images to convey complex messages about the issue.
"Debate alone is not sufficient to describe the horror of abortion," he says.
Harrington says about 20 percent of Americans oppose abortion and another 20 percent favor choice. The remaining 60 percent comprise "the mushy middle" where people don’t really have an opinion, he says, adding the billboard images are often the first time many undecided people have seen a picture of abortion.
Carlisle police received some phone calls from people complaining about the trucks but no reports of problems, says dispatcher Robert Hays.
Harrington says someone threw a soda container at a truck but he knew of no other incidents.
