Abortion activists mark anniversary

The article below is the coverage that the Connecticut Post gave OSA-CT in their Mourning of Remembrance (links to the Bridgeport street report) lamenting 32 years of unabated child killing.

  http://www.connpost.com/Stories/0,1413,96%257E3750%257E,00.html 

Abortion activists mark anniversary

MICHAEL P. MAYKO mmayko@ctpost.com
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 -

BRIDGEPORT

A bitter wind ripped through the Rev. Philip "Flip" Benham's hair as he turned to look at the shuttered former home of the Summit Women's Center abortion clinic on Middle Street.

"In 1991 there were 2,000 freestanding abortion mills," Benham told nearly three dozen anti-abortion supporters gathered around him shortly before noon Tuesday. "Today there are just 726. Imagine that. Something is going on in the heart of this nation."

With that, Benham threw down the gauntlet for the start of a series of annual anti-abortion and abortion-rights demonstrations. They come as the nation marks the 32nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that set the stage for legal abortions.

On Saturday, Stanley Scott, a 79-year-old Roman Catholic, will lead his 15th demonstration against abortion outside the Brien McMahon Federal Building on Lafayette Boulevard .

"We're doing it two days earlier so as not to interfere with the march on Washington ," said Scott, who hopes to have at least 50 people there.

Come Monday, tens of thousands will descend on the nation's capital for the annual March for Life demonstration.

It will begin at 8 a.m. at the Holiday Inn on the Hill, where Archbishop Henry Mansell of the Hartford Diocese, which includes Milford , will celebrate Mass.

At noon , anti-abortion groups will gather at the Ellipse of the White House to hear President Bush speak by telephone. Other anti-abortion leaders and legislators will speak before the group marches to the U.S. Supreme Court building.

Tuesday's demonstration in Bridgeport began with sixty people gathering at 7:30 a.m. with a two-hour prayer vigil outside Summit 's new home on 3787 Main St .

Tuesday's vicious wind ripped two graphic posters off Scott's van and blew them down Main Street , where passing cars ran them over.

After four hours in the cold, Scott said, "I couldn't feel my right foot. But I do this for the babies who can't speak for themselves."

Still, he said, "we saved three babies today."

Scott maintained two women told him they "just couldn't do it."

That would bring to 1,335 the number of women talked out of aborting their pregnancies at Summit during the past 15 years, according to Marilyn Carroll of Milford and Carmen Vazquez of West Haven , who head the Connecticut chapter of Operation Save America.

"Not one is sorry she kept her baby," said Carroll, whose group offers the women help with food, clothing and counseling.

"There used to be abortion four days a week," Carroll said. "Now, it's down to two days a week."

But the clinic also moved from Middle Street to this more secure site with a fenced-in parking lot, limiting the anti-abortion activists' access to clients.

Still, Benham, director of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, believes "the heart of America is changing."

He cited results of a recent Zogby poll showing Americans' view of abortion is changing.

"Sixty percent now believe abortion [should be] illegal in most cases. Seventy-two percent believe abortion is wrong. Fifty-one percent believe abortion is murder," he said.

He then looked to the sky and prayed that "this year is the last year a child dies from abortion here."

Michael P. Mayko, who covers legal issues, can be reached at 330-6286.