NC Reverend encourages people to touch dead fetus at abortion protest
JACKSON — Supporters and opponents demonstrated Tuesday outside Mississippi’s only abortion clinic to mark 40 years since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling established a nationwide right to abortion.
Opponents also held two events at the state Capitol, including one where people carried a small white coffin up the outside steps and prayed for an end to abortion. The Rev. Philip “Flip” Benham of Concord, N.C., national director of Operation Save America, said the coffin contained an aborted fetus he calls baby Daniel.
“God, we just want to say for little Daniel that we’re sorry,” Benham said.
The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, stood near the open coffin and encouraged people to take photographs and touch the fetus.
The clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is in the city’s Fondren neighborhood, an area with trendy clothing stores and restaurants. Lawn sprinklers ran steadily at the clinic and at an unrelated business across the street, keeping anti-abortion demonstrators at a distance in the chilly weather. The clinic sits on a small hill, and the abortion-rights demonstrators stood near the building and above the sprinklers.
Look I get it. I know the pro-life movement is very passionate about their cause. I myself do not believe abortion should be used recklessly and measures should be taken to prevent unintended pregnancies and births.
But there have to be limits. A child size coffin WITHOUT an actual deceased child in it would have made the exact same point. Why the need to turn a deceased baby into a political tool?
At what point do we say this has gone too far?
Are we there yet?
Have we passed it maybe?
I just don’t know.