Reproductive Rights Under Assault

If you live in California, you’re probably received this automated phone call:

Female narrator: “Diana Lopez received a chilling phone call from her daughter.”

Diana Lopez: “She had been taken from school to Planned Parenthood to have an abortion.”

Narrator: “The boyfriend’s mother had taken Lopez’s daughter to the clinic.”

Lopez: “They wouldn’t even let me see my daughter--she needed me! Then a supervisor threatened to call the police and have me arrested. I couldn’t help her!”

Narrator: “Help protect our daughters. Vote yes on Proposition 73. November 8th.”

Throughout the 1960s when abortion was illegal, I ran a free underground service, referring those who sought help to a humane and courageous doctor. Although there were occasional calls from mothers for their daughters, every single one of the young women under 18 who contacted me directly did not want their parents to know. In each case, there would have been hell to pay.

Now, at the end of that propagandistic telephone pitch, a man speaks so fast--the audio equivalent of illegible print--that I had to play the message over and over again, yet it remained virtually impossible to ascertain what organization he said was behind it.

Whatever happened to “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”?