Posted on 10/22/2001 1:45:44 AM PDT by toenail
Background reading:
Pro-Life Activist's Encyclopedia
Brian Clowes, 1995
"Perhaps the most spectacular example of a 'victim' of illegal abortion was provided by a Los Angeles man named Frank Mendiola.
Mendiola's extremely graphic "Silent No More" story was a big hit among pro-abortionists, and NARAL even used it as the centerpiece of one of its national fundraising letters. This appeal, which was signed by Executive Director Kate Michelman, played on the emotions of readers by listing a cluster of highly suspicious and very anonymous 'victimization' stories, including one that read: "Frank, who wept as he told of his beloved twin sister, who bled to death from an illegal abortion after being brutally raped at the age of 14."
Mendiola, a well-known sodomite [who cares? -toenail] and pro-abortion activist in the Los Angeles area, had been very much in demand at pro-abortion rallies, where he would read his letter written to President Reagan about how his sister 'Rose Elizabeth' died from a botched illegal abortion. Mendiola sobbed about how "She bled to death on a kitchen table. Yes, Mr. President, on a kitchen table."
It was not long, however, before Mendiola's story began to come apart at the seams. According to the December 10, 1987 issue of the Los Angeles Times, Mendiola called in numerous bomb threats to clinics, abortionists, and even his own home so that "... you people, the media, will come down with a harder line on those people who are harassing the clinics."["Pro-Life Action League Helps Expose Pro-Abortion "Bomber."" The Advocate (publication of Advocates for Life Ministries), Portland, Oregon, May 1988, page 10. Also see Patt Morrison. "Pro-Choice Activist Faces Sentence for Phony Threats to Bomb Clinics." Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1987.]
Mendiola was given a one-year suspended sentence because, as the judge put it, he had "good intentions." Imagine any judge suspending sentence on any pro-lifer for threatening to bomb an abortion mill for "good intentions!"
Pro-aborts packed the courtroom in Mendiola's support. Many members of the "Committee for Reproductive Rights" appeared at his trial, and Sherna Gluck of the CRR said that "Clearly, the whole thing is very sad. I just feel very badly for him. He is a very fine person, and I guess the worst one can say is he is just confused. I'm sure it was [done] with the very best of intentions."[6]
Further investigation into Mendiola's background revealed that he had been lying about his 'twin sister' dying on a kitchen table, because he no twin sisters -- in fact, he was an only child!
Even when Mendiola was exposed and confronted with his lies, he merely altered his story to say the person who really died of an illegal abortion was "a sister's friend," and that "I was her voice."
Naturally, he refused to identify the person in question.
This incident helps illustrate the incredible arrogance of pro-abortionists who will continue to lie like rugs even when they are caught, and shows how out of touch with reality they really are.
Mendiola's bogus story helps to call into question all of the other pro-abortion propaganda stories of women who died of illegal abortions before the procedure was legalized. It is estimated that at least 95 percent of these "Silent No More" stories are complete fabrications, as proven in Chapter 59, "Maternal Death Due to Abortion."
Additionally, this dramatic case confirmed what pro-lifers have asserted for many years: That pro-abortionists threaten violence against their clinics in order to discredit pro-lifers."
Seemingly incapable (or unwilling) to be objective about the recent threatening letters to abortion clinics, the authors (I refuse to sully the name "journalists") have left quite a few questions unanswered. On the off-chance that they or the WP staff might be lurking, I have a few questions that might be posed or considered in follow-up stories:
1) Warm-up question: What was the Reichstag Fire?
2) Who was Frank Mendiola? [That one's easy; just look above.]
3) What did David Martin (Concord, CA, 1990) do to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, and why?
4) Who was the prime suspect (statue of limitations has expired) in the April 22, 1991 arson of Alan Weisenberg's abortion clinic in Woodbridge, New Jersey?
5) Judging by the shallowness and propagandist tone of your "article," did you perform any research at all, beyond quoting the accusations of abortion clinic profiteers?
6) Do you have a list of all "victim" clinics the letters were mailed to (I'd really like to see it.)?
7) Were clinics of certain affiliations (PP, NCAP, NAF) disproportionately represented?
8) If so, among clinics that received letters, were there any nearby clinics not receiving letters who might stand to gain by rescheduled abortions? If so, are they financially/organizationally linked?
9) In general, who did not receive threatening letters, who would almost assuredly have been targetted had the letters been sent by an anti-abortion person or group? For instance, did Warren Hern's office in Boulder, Colorado receive a letter? The geographic area mentioned (East and Midwest) is very vague. If the letters were mailed, why not send them to the West Coast?
10) Do you have a single piece of evidence that anti-abortion activists were involved? If not, why did you report it as though it's a foregone conclusion?
11) Would it have hurt you to have just quoted one pro-life spokesperson? Your Al-Qaeda tripe was pathetic. They kill innocent people; so do abortionists. They imprison religious dissidents; the U.S. imprisons religious dissidents (see the recent case of Rev. Weslin, sentenced to five months in federal prison for kneeling and praying in front of an abortion clinic). Balance, people. Objectivity. Why did you not quote one single pro-life spokesperson?
Junior-high-school-quality reporting.....
12) From the minimal 'facts' given in the article, it appears as though Planned Parenthood received the bulk of the letters. How are their donations coming along in the last week? Were they hurt or helped financially? And the others?
13) Is it entirely outside the realm of possibility that pro-aborts sent the letters to discredit pro-lifer's in general, and (off the top of my head) Bret Schundler in particular? [I wonder if McGreevy will make a point of it in their debate Tuesday?]
14) Given that abortionists dismember live babies for money, is there anything they and their comrades wouldn't do?
~98,000 dead in NYC from abortionists in 1998
And surprise of surprises! Abortionist Leroy Carhart asks Bush to fight 'religious terrorists' Now isn't that just a bona-fide 100% surprise?
That article is reasonably balanced, but they don't mention that far more violence (~6x) is committed by the pro-aborts, not even counting the babies they rip apart.
I used to believe that.
Have you read Mark Crutcher's Access: The Key to Pro-Life Victory, from Life Dynamics? Here's an excerpt I posted in another thread. All things considered, I'd rather have a pro-life person in a public position. If it's a choice between a pro-life Democrap and a pro-life Republican, I'd rather have the Republican. But I've abandoned all hope that the Republican party will actually make any difference at all.
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