WEST ALLIS — Controversial and disturbing. Those are a few of the words critics are using to describe a new DVD circulating in West Allis. It’s an anti-abortion disc that’s designed to shock and inform people about abortion. Some think the video is gruesome and in poor taste. But the people behind it say, it’s absolutely necessary.
The Lenich Family saw two people going door to door one Saturday afternoon.
“I thought actually somebody thought it was trick or treat,” said Michael Lenich. “I didn’t know if it was anything political.”
It wasn’t about Halloween and it wasn’t about the election. But those same people left a DVD hanging on their door.
“I put it in the DVD player last night and found out it was all about abortion,” said Michael Lenich.
“Turned out to be a very graphic,” added his mother Frances Lenich.
“It’s not Hollywood fiction when we see that graphic abortion images we understand it’s a horrible thing,” said Jason Storms, the director of the anti-abortion group “Tell the Truth Project.”
Storms agrees, the film is graphic, but he defends the controversial work.
“From a child of 6 to 7 to 8 years old and on up, I think this is an important part of their educational development,” said Storms.
We asked him if he’s shown this particular film to his children, and Storms said he did.
“And that’s our hope is that people will see that even from a young age they will recognize life is precious and life in the womb is precious,” added Storms.
Anti-abortion protestors were cruising the streets in central Williston Friday, showing large, bloody images of aborted fetuses.
A group called Missionaries to the Preborn displayed 5-foot tall photographs of preborn babies developing in the womb and “those murdered by abortion,” according to a press release from the group.
Several members of the group were seen protesting at the intersection of 2nd Avenue West and 11 Street West around lunchtime. The group also protested at the intersection of 2nd Avenue West and 26th Street West later in the day.
The photos got the attention of many who drove past, but some Williston residents it was a bit too much.
The arguments about abortion don't really change but the tactics do. Opponents contend they've been censored, and that's why a group of men and women spent Thursday in Bismarck displaying graphic photos of aborted fetuses.
"We come before you with humble broken hearts. We're here grieving over the murdering of baby boys and girls," said Cal Zastrow into a megaphone.
They call themselves the missionaries of the pre-born, and they are on a five state tour to try and end abortion.
"Every one of them murders a baby with a beating heart and measurable brain waves," Zastrow added
Motorists traveling along Bismarck Expressway at midday Thursday were greeted at one busy intersection by protesters holding graphic abortion photos.
About 50 members of the anti-abortion group Missionaries to the Preborn took to the intersection of 26th Street and Bismarck Expressway from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Group members held five-foot tall signs showing first- through third-trimester abortion photos and handed out literature to stopped vehicles.
Missionaries to the Preborn is based out of Milwaukee. Event organizer Jason Storms said there were about 50 people participating, a mix of out-of-state people and North Dakotans.
"I'm sure there's going to be people who are a bit turned off," Jason Storms said. "But don't blame the mailman for delivering mail you don't like."
A Milwaukee anti-abortion group is making news in Fargo, N.D., where its members are shouting at clients heading into the state's only abortion clinic and displaying graphic and, some complain, disturbing pictures.
The group, Missionaries to the Preborn, is targeting the Dakotas and Wyoming in an attempt to create "abortion-free states," according to news accounts.
A group calling themselves Missionaries to the Preborn may have caught your eye today as you drove down 13th Avenue South in Fargo. The group carries around oversized pictures of aborted babies, trying to get their message of its injustice across.
The anti-abortion advocates travel around the country, trying to spread their message. A message that is pretty painful look at. Whether you think the idea of showing an aborted fetus has the potential of making a memorable campaign or not is up to you. But this group, Missionaries to the Preborn, claim to be trying to use the most effective medium available.
One of their members Jason Storms says the use of pictures can be very powerful, "a picture is worth a thousand words and they're seeing what the abortion doctor, right here is Fargo, does to make his money. It's something that most people don't want to look at."
An outspoken anti-abortion group is blanketing Fargo-Moorhead with graphic and disturbing images. "Missionaries to the Preborn" is condemning what it calls "The American Holocaust."
Abortion Protestor: "It is wrong to kill a baby don't you know"
This is how abortion protestors out of Wisconsin hope to shut down the state's only clinic. "Missionaries to the Preborn" lining Main Avenue and South University in Fargo, carrying large, graphic images of what they say are aborted fetuses.
Jason Storms - Wisconsin Protester: "There is only one abortion clinic here and we would love to see this become an abortion free state."
Read more at WDAY
By
JOHN GRABER, The Findlay Courier, Findlay, Ohio,
August 11, 2007
The
pro-life group Missionaries to the Preborn were
back in Findlay Friday, spreading their message
with four-foot-tall photographs of aborted fetuses
at the intersection of Tiffin Avenue and Bright
Road.
The
group had tried to display the signs at the intersection
on July 31, but were forced to leave by local
law enforcement officers. The group then filed
a lawsuit against the city in U.S. Northern District
Court in Toledo, claiming their first and 14th
amendment rights (the right to free speech and
the right to due process and equal protection
under the law) were violated because they were
told they needed a permit to demonstrate and said
they were then given the runaround when they asked
how to obtain a permit.
City
officials say they were opposed to the group's
demonstration because they were creating safety
problems with their photographs and running out
into traffic, not because of the content of their
message.
The
Milwaukee-based group filed for a restraining
order against the city on Aug. 3 in order to be
allowed to demonstrate again. City officials then
relented and agreed to allow them to demonstrate
at the intersection, but the group has not yet
dropped its lawsuit.
"I'm
going to speak to the lawyer next week,"
group leader Pastor Matt Trewhella said Friday.
City
leaders later said last week the group did not
need a permit and in fact called into question
whether or not the group was ever even told that.
However, everything went off Friday without a
major problem for either the city or the group.
"They
definitely did it the way it was supposed to be
done so there were no problems," Mayor Tony
Iriti said Friday afternoon.
Hancock
County Sheriff's deputies went out and asked the
group to move a trailer they had parked on Westgate
Drive, which the group did.
The
Findlay Police Department got about 30 calls and
the mayor's office got around another 15 calls
complaining about the graphic nature of the pictures
the group was displaying.
"I
have no problem with their cause, but the way
they're going about it, it's disgusting,"
said Scott Andru, who owns Andru's Fine Diamonds,
one of the businesses the group was demonstrating
in front of. "Anybody can believe in whatever
they want to believe in, that's totally fine,
but to protest on the No. 1 street in Findlay?
I mean, I've seen I don't know how many near-accidents
out here."
Andru
said he called Iriti to offer his support after
the Aug. 3 article in the Courier about the group's
lawsuit.
"I
mean, Findlay is a good town," Andru said.
"It's a good, safe town. The last thing we
need is a bunch of pictures of this making the
Toledo news or, you know, it's going to be all
over the place."
Heidi
Barilla, who works at a neighboring business,
also said she felt the group had a right to spread
their
message but did take issue with the signs of decapitated
and mutilated fetuses.
"How
do you explain that to a child?" Barilla
said.
Trewhella
said the pictures are necessary to portray the
violent nature of abortion.
"We've
never found a pretty picture of an abortion yet,"
he said.
He
claims abortions have declined by 50 percent in
Wisconsin since his group took to the streets
with their message. He said he is sensitive to
people's concerns when it comes to children, but
he feels it is necessary for them to see the pictures,
too.
"Some
people think it's wrong because of children being
out in public," Trewhella said. "One
of the things we point out in (the group's pamphlets)
is, at the end of World War II our American GIs
took the men, the women and the children (in Germany)
and marched them past the remains of those who
died in the death camps the actual remains
... The reason they took the men and women in
was they said you were all partly responsible
for having tolerated this. The reason they took
the children in, they said it was because they
don't want the next generation to do what that
generation had done.
"We
don't go out of our way to show children (the
pictures), but yeah children do end up seeing
it," he continued. "My children have
seen it. I actually have 11 children. All of them,
(at) around age 3. They all said the same thing,
'What happened to the baby,' when they saw the
pictures. I just explain to them that our government
allows bad men to do this to the babies. It's
always part of our prayers after that, our family
prayers. We pray that the babies stop being killed."
Trewhella
said his group received mostly positive feedback
from motorists.
"We've
had a few people pull over and thank us,"
Trewhella said. "We don't solicit donations
but we've gotten a few."
Missionaries
to the Preborn have traveled to more than 450
locations around the country spreading its pro-life
message. Members recently have been touring Ohio
and have conducted similar demonstrations in Defiance,
Toledo, Lima, Springfield, Kettering, Dayton and
Cincinnati.
While
the group's Web site www.missionariestopreborn.com
does tout the fact that demonstrators
who face criminal charges intend to "respectfully
plead their cause before the courts," Trewhella
said they do not purposefully go out seeking lawsuits.
"Absolutely
not," he said. "When we're done with
this tour, we will have done this in over 500
cities and towns in 34 different states now, and
during all that time we've only brought three
lawsuits in all those cities. In the other two
cities we were arrested, they arrested 50 to 60
of us right off the streets and took all of our
photographs."
Contact
staff writer John Graber at:
(419) 427-8417
johngraber@thecourier.com
Anti-abortion
activists use graphic pics to
make a point
From
Toledo, Ohio CBS Affiliate WTOL-11, Aug. 10, 2007
FINDLAY
-- Drivers were warned of what they were about
to see. The sign read: "American Atrocities
Display Ahead."
Despite the warning, drivers were upset.
"I've got kids in the car. Think I want to
have them drive down the street and look at dismembered
things?" one driver complained.
The problem? A group of protestors met at lunch
to protest abortion. And the pictures they used
to make their point were -- graphic.
For one-half mile along Tiffin St. in Findlay,
anti-abortion activists from Wisconsin displayed
large graphic photos of aborted fetuses. Last
week, Findlay officals had blocked the protestors,
claiming the group needed a permit.
The group went to Toledo Federal Court, claiming
their first
amendments
rights had been violated. Findlay officials backed
off.
"It
is a victory for free speech and that's one of
the silver linings of what we can do. If you don't
exercise your rights you tend to lose them,"
said Mark Trewhella, one of the protestors.
But drivers passing by the busy intersection could
care less about free speech. They stop and confront
the protestors, claiming the pictures are disgusting.
"You're absolutely right it's disgusting,"
said Mary Rivard to a driver. "You need to
know what abortion is. You need to know what our
country condones."
Protestors say they're used to the harassment
but say it's worth it for a cause they believe
in.
"This is what our country says is legal,
and if it's disturbing, then there's a problem
with that," Rivard said.
2005
"For many activists, the anti-abortion campaign is a religious crusade: One group,
"Missionaries to the Preborn," says the practice amounts to the slaughter of helpless
babies, murder and a "crime against humanity."" (
KWTX 7/20/2005)
2003
2002
"But Pastor Matthew Trewhella of the anti-abortion Missionaries to the Preborn, said
government officials finally are "stating the obvious." "Fetuses are unborn children.
It's about time the government acknowledged their humanity," he said." (
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2/1/2002)
2000
Iowa Telegraph Herald: May 17, 2000:
1999
Journal Sentinel: July 20, 1999
Harvard Crimson, May 5, 1999
"More powerful is the introduction, in which Nathanson shows the abortionist's tools and explains how they are used. Anyone would be sickened by his description of how the fetus's skull is crushed with a pair of forceps when it becomes too large to be suctioned out of the uterus...By the time I left the common room, I was ready to consider re-opening the book on my views on abortion."
1998
"The partial-birth abortion strategy was designed to: a) emphasize the horror of
partial-birth abortion to the general public by, b) introducing legislation to outlaw
it, thus c) exposing pro abortion legislators who would oppose the legislation for the
brutes that they are, causing them to be unseated. This was a sure win (so we were told),
and once partial-birth abortion was outlawed, then we could move on to outlawing other
forms of abortion." -Matt Trewhella (director of Missionaries to the Preborn, Milwaukee),
Life Advocate, January/February 1998 (as quoted by the World Socialist Worker)
