Transcripts

KATE WILLIAMS: Among the concerns voiced at the press conference were ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, child care, and affirmative action jobs programs. But the topic that created the most discussion was women's rights for safe and legal abortions and the moral climate existing in the Twin Cities that caused the burning of the Planned Parenthood facility. Women's Rights Coalition coordinator Susan Voss compared the local freedom of choice supporters struggle to the Civil Rights movement.

SUSAN VOSS: I'd like to make an analogy with the early Civil Rights movement, when Blacks were prevented from going to white churches, as they are to this day in Plains, Georgia, when they were prevented from having coffee at lunch counters where they wanted to have coffee, from using restrooms. And then, all of a sudden, from voting, and then all of a sudden, four little Black school children are blown up in a Sunday school.

Who provided that moral climate? Who really lit the fuse? Was it just one sick mind, or was there a whole moral climate there, which condoned that kind of racism? I think that is similar here. When you have from the pulpit, every Sunday for eight years, hollering that women who avail themselves of a constitutional right are murderers. When you have graffiti and rocks and bricks and gunshots sprayed on the windows of Planned Parenthood facility to the point where they have to have a laminated glass in it, then I think, yes, there is a moral climate. And these people must take some moral responsibility for it. This is not to say that any member actually lit that fuse, but I think that they provided the very fertile breeding ground for the sick mind that did that act.

KATE WILLIAMS: Susan Voss, Women's Rights Coalition coordinator Betty Benjamin from the Abortion Rights Council, said she was appalled that those who opposed abortion would destroy a building. She said they need to redirect their energies.

BETTY BENJAMIN: As we listen to the rhetoric of those who oppose abortion, and we watch their actions, you begin to conclude that their real concern is for a fetus, which they've never known, they've never seen. If they would exert half as much effort in working for family planning to prevent these unwanted pregnancies, there would be fewer abortions. The very thing that they're opposing would begin to disappear. Truly, if their claims for respect for life are sincere, then they ought to be in the forefront of research on birth control and providing family planning.

KATE WILLIAMS: Betty Benjamin, Abortion Rights Council. Kit Briggs, Planned Parenthood Board President, said while the fire damaged building, suffered nearly $250,000 worth of damage, the board of directors unanimously decided that they will restore the Highland Park facility. I'm Kate Williams.