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Locals participate in anti-abortion and abortion-rights rallies

From left, Colleen Miner, Erin Leader, Theodore Leader, 2, Lucy Leader, 4, John Conklin, 7, Isaac Leader, 6, Emma Conklin, 8, Ellen McBride and John McBride attended a local Life Chain anti-abortion event on Sunday. Miner organized the event, a link in a nationwide series of rallies held Sunday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

SARANAC LAKE — Locals rallied for and against abortion rights this weekend at events in Glens Falls and Saranac Lake, both part of nationwide movements taking sides on the controversial issue as it is discussed by the U.S. Supreme Court, lower courts and activists around the country.

Life Chain

A string of around 25 anti-abortion activists stood along the edge of River Street in Saranac Lake on Sunday afternoon, a local link in the annual Life Chain event which is held across North America on the first Sunday of October.

From left, Margot Gold, Suzanne Gold, John Berhaupt, Elizabeth Clarke, Alisa Endsley, Steve Erman, Parmelee Tolkan and Kathleen Recchia travelled from Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, Keene and Jay to Glens Falls on Saturday to attend an abortion-rights rally, a local march in the nationwide Women’s March: Rally for Abortion Justice held that day. Tolkan said there were around 150 marchers at Crandall Park in Glens Falls. (Provided photo)

Event organizer Colleen Miner, of Saranac Lake — who also co-chairs the Ogdensburg Catholic Diocese’s Respect Life group with her husband John — said she knew of events in Massena, Potsdam and Plattsburgh on Sunday, too.

“We stand out for an hour just as a silent, prayerful witness,” John said.

“The signs do the talking,” Colleen said.

Colleen said she’s organized retreats for women who have had abortions and heard their stories of regret.

She’s also passionate about the issue as a mom and grandmother. Colleen has three daughters and eight grandchildren. Obviously, she said, she’s counting the one her daughter Ellen McBride is currently carrying, due in January.

Dan Salley came from Keeseville to attend the anti-abortion Life Chain event in Saranac Lake on Sunday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

Women’s March

Parmelee Tolkan of Lake Placid attended a branch of the Women’s March: Rally for Abortion Justice at Crandall Park in Glens Falls on Saturday with a contingent of eight people from the Tri-Lakes area.

She counted around 150 in the abortion rights rally and around 15 counter-demonstrators across the street.

She said because abortion rights are mostly well-protected in New York, she was not execting the turnout at the event Saturday.

“I would think … that people would be complacent,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

Tolkan said she comes from a long line of abortion activists. She said her grandmother and great-grandmother played parts in the founding of Planned Parenthood in 1916.

Divide

Abortion is a contentious issue, with strong and hard feelings on both sides. Anti-abortion advocates believe hundreds or thousands of babies are being killed every day through legal abortion; abortion rights advocates believe people’s rights to make decisions about their bodies and their health care are threatened by a potential rollback of these laws.

There’s not much ground for compromise.

“I think for a lot of us who are pro-life or pro-choice … there’s no middle ground,” Claudia Fennell of Saranac Lake said at the Life Chain event. “I believe that abortion is baby killing. … It’s a sad state of affairs.”

“I think it’s the worst sin in America,” Dan Salley of Keeseville said at the Life Chain event.

John said the event was not to attack people who have had abortions.

“We can love them both; the woman and the child,” John said.

He believes there are better ways to deal with unexpected pregnancies than “eliminating the problem.”

“I don’t hate anybody. Even the pope said you can understand sometimes why women have them, so I’m not condemning any woman,” Salley said. “But the sin has got to stop. God is not going to continue to bless our country if we don’t stop.”

Salley said he’d like the landmark abortion Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade to be overturned, but he would not want people put in jail because of that.

The response from motorists passing by was mixed. Some honked their horns or gave thumbs up. Some who drove by shouted “It’s my right to choose!” out their windows. Others just threw up middle fingers.

A blob of cells or a soul?

Tolkan said a fetus does not become a human until is is able to survive outside of the womb.

“It doesn’t have a soul,” she said. “It’s a blob of cells.”

Fennell said a fetus is “more than a glob of cells.” She said it has the potential to be a fully-grown human. She opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, which are sometimes exceptions for anti-abortion advocates. She said she used to be OK with that, but a speaker on a Catholic radio station changed her mind.

She said the circumstances do not matter; “It’s still a child of God.”

Salley said if an egg is fertilized it becomes a human, unless stopped by humans or nature.

“It’s not your body. It’s another body living in your body,” Salley said.

Religion and science

Tolkan said abortion is a “bedroom issue” and that it is not the government’s business to decide their choice.

“Your religion preaches that to you, and I totally respect it; but your religion, under our constitution, should not be imposed on other people,” Tolkan said.

Most attending the anti-abortion rally had religious affiliation, but they said that religion was not always the reason for their stance on abortion. Religion definitely plays a part, too, McBride said, but she contends that the science is on their side.

Salley pointed out that a developing fetus has a distinct DNA from the mother’s DNA.

McBride said a fetus starts having a heartbeat at five to six weeks into pregnancy, which science uses to mark the change from an embryo to a fetus.

She said the growing fetus is dependent on the parent’s body, but she believes it is a separate body.

McBride was raised in a anti-abortion house, but as she grew up she got to make her own decision. She heard the abortion rights arguments and said she’s still “firmly pro-life.”

“Some of my best friends are pro-choice,” McBride said. “It’s difficult sometimes, but we’re really respectful of each other.”

Supreme Court

Abortion has become a topical issue in the past months as Texas, in May, passed a law banning abortions after six weeks. The Supreme Court chose not to block this law or rule on whether this is constitutional.

A federal judge is expected to soon decide whether to block this law after President Joe Biden asked him to suspend it.

The Supreme Court’s 2021-22 term begins today and includes a case over a proposed Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks.

Since Roe v. Wade, the court has allowed abortion as a right up until around 24 weeks.

Activists are keeping an eye on these decisions. Colleen said she tries to remain positive. She said the Biden administration is “not friendly to pro-lifers,” but John said he’s “heartened” by the current makeup of the Supreme Court justices.

“We have a majority of justices who do see the value of human life,” he said.

But he said their event Sunday was not meant to influence these upcoming decisions. He hopes the court makes its decisions on the law, not on what opinions are most popular.

Tolkan feels several Supreme Court justices shouldn’t be there, because of the way the then-Republican-majority Senate blocked former President Barack Obama’s court nominations but “pushed through” former President Donald Trump’s for conflicting reasons.

Both sides of the debate believe they have the majority of people behind them and feel that people in power oppose them. But polls asking if people identify as “pro-life” or “pro-choice” are often split right down the middle. Gallup, a non-partisan polling organization, most recently found that 49% of people identify as pro-choice and 47% identify as pro-life, a flip from 2019’s numbers. A graph showing trends since 1995 shows the two sides flip-flopping in popular opinion but getting closer and closer to a 50/50 split each year.

The National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion organization, estimated in 2020 that there had been 62 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

The Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights organization, estimated that 52 million abortions were performed between 1973 and 2011. There has not been new data from the institute since then, but it estimates just under 1 million abortions are performed each year.

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