On the whole, I thought last night's Frontline program on The Last Abortion Clinic was good, even uplifting. The opportunity for the American public to see what goes on at a pregnancy resource center was worth putting up with the typical pro-abortion propaganda—I could scarcely believe I was really seeing that.
Though the narrator made it sound somewhat as if it was once a "strategy" of the movement to blow up abortion clinics and violently protest (whatever that means - perhaps they were refering to the rescues wherein pro-lifers sat "violently" in front of clinic entrances and then "violently" went limp when dragged away by police), they did show how much attention has shifted towards PRCs, something the public too often knows nothing about.
The one part of the program that really got to me - though I wasn't sure whether to laugh at the ridiculousness or scream at the dishonesty - was that phone call at the "anonymous" abortion clinic outside MS, during which the director pretends to talk to an abortion-bound mother about her religious faith and how that bears on her decision to abort. Please.
I thought the show overplayed the role that the MS legislature has played in reducing the number of abortion facilities in the state. I laud all their efforts, but clinics are closing because of grass-roots pro-life activism more than new laws, many of which post-date the closing of most of MS' clincs.
I wish they's have shown more sidewalk counseling. All we got to see was what I'm sure a lot of viewers would call "harassment"; you can't see that it's not until you see an abortion-bound mother stop and talk, look at literature and then decide to go check out the PRC.
They also overlooked the importance of Mississippi's Face the Truth Tours—a statewide campaign to graphically expose the ugliness and injustice of abortion, run by Dr. Beverly McMillian, a former abortionist who opened the first abortion clinic in the state and is now working to close the last.
I take heart in how much the program has upset the pro-abortion movement. They're in a state of despair this morning. The bottom line of the show is that we're gradually winning the abortion war, and, as the clinic operator sad at the very end, they're losing.
If Frontline meant for this to rally the pro-abortion troops, I don't think it will work. If nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure. We've seen this out on the streets—the pro-abortion movement just hasn't got the stamina to keep up with us.
They promise to dog our every move, but we only see them once in a while. When we do, they stand in a little chattering cluster with silly hand-made signs while our people spread out and stand alone with their large, clear signs. They can't handle solitude; we can because we know Christ is always with us.
We're winning because we have had the grace to keep going in the face of tremendous odds these thirty-three years. "The Last Abortion Clinic" showed a pro-life movement that is committed, untiring and encouraged; the pro-aborts are no less committed, but they have lost heart.
-Eric Scheidler
Communications Director, Pro-Life Action League
