Abortion foes drive point home

[Guest guest]

<h3>Abortion foes drive point home</h3>

<h4>Trucks emblazoned with graphic images of fetuses shock some commuters.</h4>

 

July 25, 2001

 

By JEFF COLLINS

The Orange County Register

 

 

The fight to outlaw abortion moved recently to Southern California's freeways, where a convoy of anti-abortion truckers is merging into rush-hour traffic and displaying graphic billboards showing aborted fetuses.

 

The campaign, now in its fifth week, has provoked angry calls and obscene gestures, as well as a handful of freeway near-misses and howls of protest from abortion-rights activists.

 

But a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol said the commuter crusade appears to be legal, and local law enforcement lets convoys pass with little notice.

 

 

 

"I guess it's a freedom of speech issue," CHP spokeswoman Nanci Kramer said.

 

Campaign organizer Gregg Cunningham of Yorba Linda said the month-old "guerrilla marketing" effort is a uniquely California way to reach a captive audience stuck in rush-hour gridlock.

 

"We're a car culture here," Cunningham said. "If people are going to live in their cars, that's where we'll go to engage them."

 

Cunningham, director of the Southern California- based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, is hoping eventually to take his freeway signs nationwide.

 

Before launching its campaign here, however, the group prepared by thoroughly researching traffic laws and by sending more than 100 "pre-emptive letters" to district attorneys and police chiefs throughout the region threatening litigation if anyone interferes with its free-speech rights.

 

The pictures, Cunningham concedes, are graphic, repulsive and impossible to overlook.

 

And his group is girding to battle for their right to use them.

 

 

 

They wear SWAT body armor and carry military-style ballistic helmets in their cockpits during convoys. Their vehicles are equipped with video cameras fore and aft. And two-man contingents of off-duty police officers accompany them in unmarked police-style vehicles.

 

"If we're lawfully exercising our First Amendment rights and somebody assaults us, they're going to be arrested, they're going to be prosecuted and they're going to have a criminal record," said Cunningham, 54, a former Pennsylvania legislator and an ex-assistant U.S. attorney.

 

 

 

The convoy starts at 6 a.m. daily at the group's 12,000- square-foot warehouse in Santa Fe Springs. The location is kept secret for security reasons.

 

 

 

Signs show bloody embryos and fetuses with fully formed limbs and chest cavities, saying they were abortions occurring anywhere from seven to 11 weeks of gestation.

 

 

 

"CHOICE," the signs say, along with the group's phone number and Web address.

 

One recent morning, the motorcade looped through Orange County along the Riverside (91), Costa Mesa (55) and San Diego (I-405) freeways before heading west into Los Angeles, the heart of the Hollywood mind-set, Cunningham said.

 

 

 

Heads swiveled and jaws dropped open as the trucks rumbled past. People gestured and necks craned. At one point, a van hit the brakes to avoid a collision with rubberneckers.

 

 

 

Some motorists waved to show their support. At least two made obscene gestures. Others called the number displayed after reaching their destination.

 

"It's a very effective marketing campaign," one caller said.

 

 

 

Another asked where to send a donation, adding, "I think what you're doing is great."

 

 

 

But others exploded in anger, some complaining that the signs might give their children "bloody nightmares."

 

 

 

"What (expletive) ... is the matter with you people?" one caller said. "Is that what people should be looking at first thing in the morning?"

 

 

 

"I found it personally offensive," said a third. "I think your cause is worthy, but I think those trucks are disgusting. I also think it's a driving hazard."

 

 

 

Cunningham said he isn't afraid of making people angry.

 

 

 

Every social movement in America, from abolitionists to the civil-rights movement, achieved change by confronting society with graphic images it didn't want to see, he said.

 

 

 

"I'll put this picture in your head, and no matter how angry it makes you, you'll never get it out," Cunningham said.

 

 

 

He said the multimillion-dollar campaign, funded by private donations, reaches about 400,000 people daily.

 

 

 

The reason: "The freeway system is the last place where you can't turn the page or change the channel."

 

 

 

The 11-year-old Center for Bio-Ethical Reform made headlines in recent years by taking graphic images of aborted fetuses to about 30 college campuses. The group has gone to court when public universities tried to block their right to be there.

 

 

 

Plans call for towing banners behind planes at beaches and sports events and picketing businesses backing pro-choice causes.

 

 

 

While placing anti-abortion signs on freeway trucks is new, Orange County abortion-rights advocates say the pictures and tactics aren't.

 

 

 

"It's distasteful and very inappropriate for children to see," said Linda Schwarz, co- chairwoman of Pro-Choice Orange County. "It's a low kind of tactic."

 

 

 

Critics maintain that the images are distortions - tremendously enlarged to cause greater impact, Schwarz said. Jon Dunn, president of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, said labels give inaccurate embryo and fetal ages to make them appear more developed.

 

 

Cunningham denied that inaccurate ages are used.

 

 

 

Ultimately, critics said, the campaign is bound to offend more people than it persuades.

 

 

 

"I certainly don't think it's an effective strategy," Dunn said. "It doesn't much matter to me whether they put (the pictures) on posters or on trucks."