An ex-anti-abortion evangelist on life as a pro-choice 'traitor'

[niyad]

(a LONG, interesting read)

An ex-anti-abortion evangelist on life as a pro-choice ‘traitor’

American Reverend Rob Schenck made a name for himself denouncing ‘baby killers’. Then he changed his mind.


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Reverend Rob Schenck, right, with former US President George W Bush at a fundraising event in 2002 [Courtesy of Rob Schenck]
By Tyler Hicks
Published On 7 Jul 20237 Jul 2023

The dentist was worried. During the checkup, he’d noticed the kind of significant damage often caused by years of gnashing and grinding one’s teeth. “Are you experiencing any stress?” he asked his patient. “Yes,” said Reverend Rob Schenck. “A little bit.”
Shortly after this visit to the dentist late last year, Schenck, a 64-year-old evangelical minister who lives in Washington, DC, opened his email and discovered multiple messages: some confused, most critical. The reverend doesn’t try to hide his email address, so most days his inbox fills with messages dripping with vitriol.

“When I hear from the right, it’s usually to call me some form of ‘traitor,’” he says. “The other side is a little skeptical of my late-in-life conversion.” It happens in person, too, nearly every time Schenck makes a speech or public appearance. One woman, for example, told him, “You did a whole lot of damage. You did a lot of bad stuff. You hurt a lot of people.”

Once a famous anti-abortion activist, Schenck (pronounced “Shank”) is now openly pro-choice and highly critical of the role he played in ending national abortion rights in the United States. It’s a remarkable heel turn for someone who worked to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 United States Supreme Court ruling that enshrined the right to an abortion. As a staunchly conservative evangelical leader, Schenck personally befriended and lobbied judges who sat on the court, and was part of a group that paid “Jane Roe” roughly half a million dollars to say she had changed her view on reproductive rights. Roe, whose real name was Norma McCorvey, challenged abortion law in what would become a landmark win for abortion rights. Then, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, she claimed that she had changed her stance on the procedure, before confessing that she was lying.

The reverend also trained “thousands” of protesters to block the doors to abortion clinics. In one infamous incident in July 1992, Schenck was arrested for, as he puts it, “thrusting an aborted foetus” at presidential candidate Bill Clinton. Schenck and his associates approached Clinton and presented the foetus — procured illegally from a pathologist in Tulsa, Oklahoma — while faking interest in an autograph. Like many of his other stunts, it led to Schenck being arrested.


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https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/7/7/an-ex-anti-abortion-evangelist-on-life-as-a-pro-choice-traitor

[ShazzieB]

1. I read the whole article with great interest and very mixed feelings.

Last edited Fri Jul 14, 2023, 02:58 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm glad Schenck came to his senses, but he did a LOT of damage to a lot of people and contributed to ruining a lot of lives. His actions also contributed to some lives (like Dr. Slepian's) being unjustly ended. You don't have to pull the trigger yourself or even directly tell someone else to do it to bear responsibility for contributing to the conditions that lead to such events.

I don't know how you can wipe the slate clean after the things he's done, but then, I don't think he expects to be able to do that. Sometimes, after making terrible mistakes, all you can do is admit how wrong you were and try to make better choices going forward. That seems to be what he's trying to do. He needs to work harder at it, though. If he wants respect from anyone in the pro-choice community, what he needs to do is devote himself to trying to educate the people he led astray about the facts and realities he's come to recognize himself. Write books, give speeches, take the most public stand possible for the things he now claims to believe. I think he's doing some of that, but not enough.

He also needs to apologize, personally and publicly, to as many of the multitudes of people he's hurt as possible. He says he doesn't expect to be forgiven, which seems realistic, but I'd like to see a lot more remorse from him. Then maybe I'll be able to take him more seriously.

[niyad]

4. Absolutely agree!

[Kath2]

2. He has seen the light.

But that does not undo the misery he helped to inflict. He, the Bushes, Trump, Republicans, the radical right and, especially now, the Supreme Court have blood on their hands and have done irreparable damage to thousands of lives.

[niyad]

3. Exactly. And the carnage will continue.

[Kath2]

5. Sadly, I agree.

After 50 years of protesting, marching, writing letters, advocating, having one-on-one conversations, posting on social media, being a clinic escort and being proudly pro-choice 24/7 this is where we are. Really? At age 65, I am tired, mad as hell and infuriated. This all needs to change now. It is so disgusting.