Posted on 11/10/2003 4:26:51 PM PST by Lexinom
Boycott Blocks Construction of Abortuary in Texas
Steve Brown, CNSNews.comThe willingness of some Texas pro-lifers to mix their personal views with their professional lives has blocked the construction of a $6.2 million abortion clinic in Austin.
Monday, Nov. 10, 2003
San Antonio-based Browning Construction, one of the largest such companies in the state, pulled out of the contract recently after a key contractors balked at the project because it was going to house a Planned Parenthood clinic where abortions were going to be performed.
"We have requested that the construction contract be terminated because we are unable to secure and retain adequate subcontractors and suppliers to complete the project in a timely manner due to events beyond our control," read a statement by Browning Construction.
Chris Danze, president of the Austin-based concrete contractor Maldonado and Danze Inc., launched a boycott in August when he learned for whom the building was going to be constructed.
"When I saw that, I said to myself, OK, they're going to build a new building, which means they're going to need subcontractors, suppliers, many of which I know because I'm in the building business," Danze told CNSNews.com.
Danze, who along with his wife, Sherry, is a pro-life advocate who has often provided counseling and shelter to troubled pregnant teens, then sent a letter to several of his construction associates from whom he buys supplies or to whom he sells concrete.
"I respectfully told them that if they participated in and cooperated with Planned Parenthood in building that abortion clinic, that I would no longer do business with them," Danze explained. "The response was very positive. They said: 'We're with you. Not only that, but we're going to help you and call around to some of our other construction folks, concrete plants particularly, and ask them not to participate.'"
Events soon snowballed and gave birth to the Austin Area Pro-Life Concrete Contractors and Suppliers Association, an informal affiliation of every concrete supplier within a 60-mile radius.
"About a week after that, we wrote 750 letters to all the businesses in San Antonio that could be identified as construction-related that might provide services, and we asked them not to participate in the construction," Danze said.
Ground broke on the facility Sept. 23, and media reports of the boycott surfaced. Planned Parenthood initially dismissed the effort. "It will not delay the start of this project," Glenda Parks, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, told News 8 Austin in September.
However, Danze said, boycott participants then began contacting builders who had signed to do work on the project.
"We'd call the boss and say: 'Did you know this is an abortion clinic? Do you know what they're going to be doing in there?' Some of them said, 'Yes, I don't care.' Others said: 'No, I didn't, thanks for calling. We're out of here,'" Danze said. "That's where it's gone for the last four or five weeks. We've had support from national and state pro-life groups, local businesses."
'Grassroots Uprising'
But the lynchpin, Danze said, was the "huge grassroots uprising in Austin" once the churches got involved. He said church planning and building committees wanted names of builders who were involved in the construction of the Planned Parenthood clinic and those who had refused to get involved when they found out the nature of the project.
"Those planning committees got involved and said: 'Who's working over there? I know that guy. He wants to help me build my church. Well, he's not going to build my church if he's building that abortion clinic,'" Danze recalled.
"They started making calls, and suppliers started bailing out. The plumber bailed. You know he started the plumbing job, had all his pipes installed in the foundation, but he told Browning, the general contractor, he quit. He can't afford it. He can't afford to lose church work."
According to press reports, some contractors received 1,200 phone calls. But Browning's bailout Nov. 4 sparked an outcry from the pro-abortion crowd, as well as several politicians.
'Health' Care
"This is not a simple demonstration of free speech rights," Danielle Tierney, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region, told the Associated Press. "This is denying people affordable health care and reproductive rights."
Yet Elizabeth Graham, spokeswoman for Texas Right to Life who called Danze a "true American hero," said Planned Parenthood's statement simply was not true.
"Planned Parenthood will tell you that in Austin only 5 percent of their business is abortion and the rest of their business will be for providing women's health care, contraception and the like. Planned Parenthood is America's number one abortion provider. Most of their business is on the sale of abortion, their tax forms indicate that," Graham told CNSNews.com. "There are enough clean [non-abortion] women's health care providers in the Austin area that Planned Parenthood does not need to build a new $6.2 million facility."
Still others questioned the legality of the boycott.
"These people have gone way beyond the boundary and violated the very tenets that make our community strong," Gus Garcia, former Austin mayor, said at a press conference Tuesday, joining others in charging the boycotters with "illegal activities."
"There's nothing illegal about it at all," Danze replied. "They can't cite one thing we did that was illegal. We made phone calls, and we were polite. If they have evidence, then they need to call the district attorney."
Mark Proeger, the college pastor at Austin's Hope Chapel, said the media and "pro-abortion crowd" wanted to make the boycotters look like "small extremists." But he thinks this is only the beginning of a bigger movement, an idea on which Danze agreed.
A Shock to 'Abortion City U.S.A.'
"I didn't raise a dime to do this, it was mostly through e-mail, which is a very powerful tool," Danze said, adding that he would like to see the movement go national. "Austin, Texas is the most pro-abortion city in the South, bar none. This is a city that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on city-funded abortions. This is the San Francisco of the South.
"For the grassroots effort here to shut this thing down, even if it's only temporarily, is incredible, and it's not just because of one person. It's thousands of people," Danze continued. "This is Abortion City U.S.A. ... this is in their backyard. This is punching them right in the nose. The point is - if it can work here, it'll work anywhere."
The boycotters, including Danze, Proeger and Graham, vowed to continue the fight until Planned Parenthood abandoned the project, something the pro-abortion organization told reporters would not happen.
Copyright CNSNews.com
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Alright Madame Mengele, even if one were to accept the sick and very duvious proposition that abortion is one segment of healthcare, WTF GIVES PEOPLE A "RIGHT" TO IT???? You want healthcare, YOU pay for it at least that's the way this country used to view such things.
I love it!!! LOL
I hope this does go national!!!
I bet construction contractors tend to be more conservative than the population as a whole. Lots of them are civil engineers. I doubt many of them were sociology or journalism majors in college. Any way would you want some leftist who doesn't believe in objective truth designing and building the buildings you go inside every day? I don't think so.
When my then, teenage daughter, wanted to know what I thought about abortion, I drove her through the parking lot of a Planned Parenthood Clinic. I asked her to look at the expensive cars parked in the spaces reserved for the Medical Director and the Executive Director of the clinic. I asked her if she thought this was the rich doing favors for the poor. She didn't think so, was her reply; "It's the other way around".
Good for her and good for these boys in Texas. More power to 'em.
Note this, "I didn't raise a dime to do this, it was mostly through e-mail, which is a very powerful tool," Danze said,
Using the power of the Internet, this man spread the word very fast.
If I were selling concrete, and an order came in for construction, I would fill it without thinking.
BUT, if I had been forwarned that it was for an abortion-mill, I would NOT sell that concrete.
It would be terrific if we all refused to do business with the merchants of death.
Why, it's just more INTIMIDATION practiced by the VRWC!! And Dashle must be deeply saddened and disappointed.
SO9
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.