Opposing viewpoints: Taking it too far?

South Bend, located counterintuitively in the northernmost part of the state, recently sparked controversy when anti-abortion protesters announced their intention to erect a prayer chapel next to a women’s center which also performs abortions.

While at first glance, this may seem to be a strictly local concern, this isn’t some 50-person town surrounded by cornfields. It is the fourth largest city in Indiana.
 
This should not be seen as a simple regional matter but as indicative of the prevalent attitudes and beliefs of a large segment of the state’s population.

Women’s Pavilion is a nationwide organization which provides a number of services and procedures for women, such as gynecological and obstetrical care. However, abortion is also one of the procedures offered.

This has long made the site a target for anti-abortion activists who protest outside and accost people entering the building, as the over-zealous are known to do.

They have already begun raising the $250,000 necessary for the purchase and renovation.

This is neither a question of religion nor one’s own personal religious beliefs. Rather, it is a question of antagonism.

If the creation of the chapel means that those who protest in front of the Women’s Pavilion now have a designated area from which they can pray quietly and offer religious counsel to the curious and conflicted.

What we cannot condone, under any circumstances, is the continued harassment of women using Women’s Pavilion.

Activist leader Shawn Sullivan said he believes that the chapel will “maximize prayer efforts,” gives us little hope.

We suspect, although we sincerely hope we are wrong, that these prayer efforts are in fact continued public demonstrations and harassment and the new chapel becomes not a sanctuary, but a staging ground. 

This proposed chapel represents a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of women’s health.

It’s not as if Women’s Pavilion has a drive-through abortion window and a McDonald’s style sign proudly proclaiming “Billions served.” Rather, they provide a number of services for women.

The woman, called a slut, accosted as she enters the building begged to choose life, may well be there to pick up birth control, be screened for disease or even be there to deliver her baby.

These clinics catch cancerous tumors, treat diseases and birth children.

Those opposed to abortion on religious or ethical principles might find that $250,000 can be better spent funding adoption programs, and those who simply want to publicly denounce the sinners and harlots will never appreciate the full tragic irony of building a prayer chapel to threaten a lifesaving institution.