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Antiabortion groups dominate within county

The Right to Life chapter's new leaders say they encounter little opposition and are striving to recruit teens.

By ELENA LESLEY
Published January 30, 2006

Though he could barely speak, Jerome Bombly managed to utter a few words.

"You will take over, won't you?" the ailing antiabortion leader asked his vice chairman, Gayle Stokes. Just a few days earlier he had been diagnosed with a fatal heart condition. She assured him she would.

"It was the only thing he said," Stokes remembered of her last visit with Bombly in the hospital. "That's what was on his mind."

Bombly died in July. Six months later, with Stokes' accession to leadership, Citrus' Right to Life chapter is strengthening its mission. This at a time when the ever-present abortion debate is center stage in Washington, D.C.

Though abortion rights proponents nationwide celebrated the 33rd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade on Jan. 22, many fear the historic ruling may be threatened if Samuel A. Alito is confirmed onto the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Planned Parenthood is strongly against the confirmation of Alito," said Tiahna Larsen, director of external affairs for Planned Parenthood of North-Central Florida. "He has done nothing at this point to assure Americans he will uphold the right to choose."

Even more than usual, the country is polarized, caught between two sides that seem unwilling - or unable, ideologically - to compromise. Citrus is no different.

Despite the split, vocal abortion rights advocates are somewhat rare locally. Because of a predominantly conservative and religious population, the county houses one of the state's heartiest antiabortion contingents.

A few months before he fell ill, Bombly was elected president of Florida Right to Life. In March, the organization will hold its statewide banquet at the Citrus Springs Community Center in his honor.

The event will be preceded by the first "Bike for Human Life," a cross-Florida trip being organized by Citrus resident Ron Hawk.

"Jerome was dedicated to life. He had a driving passion," said Stokes of the advocate, who had 10 children of his own. "We're just trying to carry on his legacy."

The new leadership doesn't lack for fervor.

"The heart of this is a basic spiritual issue between good and evil," said Hawk, who was recently elected to Citrus' Right to Life board. "If you turn around and say it's not a baby, then you can't say you're pregnant."

Local board members do not support abortion under any circumstances, even in the case of rape, incest or the pregnancy threatening the mother's life.

"I understand there may be complications in the life of a child if they no longer have a parent," Stokes said. "But when my children were small, if I had to choose to save my child or myself, I would have chosen my child."

Participants in Citrus' annual Right to Life rally, held Jan. 23 in front of the Historic Courthouse, echoed similar sentiments. Speakers blasted embryonic stem cell research and assisted suicide.

But abortion was the real draw.

Nearby tables displayed literature on the topic, ranging from pamphlets comparing America post -Roe to Hitler's Germany, to testimonials from women who had undergone abortions and think the fetus felt pain.

At the Life Choice Care Center's display, passers-by could hold rubber models of fetuses at different stages of development. The figures were obtained from another antiabortion organization.

"We are here to recognize 33 years of what I believe has become a huge stain on our nation," Pastor Greg Kell of Cornerstone Baptist Church told the audience. "We're aborting a county a year in our state."

Right to Life's local core of about 12 people put on the event. Though the number of very active members is small, the group's Citrus mailing list exceeds 1,000 people.

During the time she has lived in Citrus, Stokes said the antiabortion movement has encountered little opposition, aside from a bomb threat at one banquet. When members participate in the National Life Chain Day, standing on busy streets holding anti-abortion signs, "we generally get just honks and thumbs-up," she said.

In addition to organizing public events and distributing fliers at churches, the chapter also lends support, behind the scenes, to local abortion alternatives offices.

There are no abortion clinics in Citrus County. But several offices steer women away from the procedures and support them if they choose to give birth.

Bombly actually helped found one of them, the Pregnancy Crisis Center, now known as the Pregnancy and Family Life Center.

"When women come to us and abortion is looking attractive, we try to talk them out of it," said Marilyn Chisholm, a counselor at the center. With paintings of Jesus and religious sayings decorating the walls, the office makes no secret of its Christian leanings.

"When women have an abortion, it's like they black out that life is important," Chisholm said. "It diminishes our country when life becomes so unimportant."

The office also runs sessions for women who have had abortions. As speakers remarked at the Jan. 23 rally, who better to champion the cause than women who have actually terminated a pregnancy and regret the decision?

The experience can be especially traumatic for women who don't undergo general anesthesia, Chisholm said.

"I think a lot of women are pressured by other people" to have an abortion, she said. "They don't realize what it's actually like to go through it."

Using stories of other women, counselors are often able to persuade those that visit the center to keep their babies, or give them up for adoption.

But that doesn't mean Citrus women aren't having abortions.

Planned Parenthood in Gainesville gets a significant number of calls from Citrus, Larsen said. The group generally refers women to clinics in nearby counties.

Though Larsen supported the services some abortion alternatives clinics offer to mothers, she cautioned that women must choose their organizations carefully.

"Those places aren't always medically accurate," she said. "Sometimes they don't give factual information."

In such cases, those who suffer most are the poor and uninformed, said Ruth Anderson of Sugarmill Woods, the former manager of the federal Women's Program of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Despite her residence in a conservative county, Anderson is a stalwart supporter of abortion rights. She thinks others in Citrus hold her views, but have been lulled into a sense of complacency.

"All many young people have ever known is their rights," she said. "If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, I think a lot of pro-choice people would be energized."

Should the Supreme Court reverse the ruling, Anderson said the issue would go to the states. While some would most likely retain protections for abortion rights, a good number would obliterate them, especially in the South.

It comes down to a question of equality, she said.

"Wealthy women will always be able to get an abortion. If they reside in states where it's illegal, they'll just go to New York or Chicago, like they did before Roe, " she said. "The poor and trapped will again have to resort to dangerous, illegal procedures or have unwanted children."

Anderson called the Bush administration's decision to halt U.S. funds to agencies abroad that offer abortion ... "hideous," and warned Americans that a reversal of Roe could again make U.S. women "second-class citizens."

"Why should anybody be able to say, even if it's just cells there, that a poor girl has to have (a baby)?" she asked. "Young men and women need to wake up."

The next battleground for abortion will be America's youth. While little is being done in Citrus to promote reproductive rights among young people, Right to Life is aggressively reaching out to them. The organization recently elected its first teenage board member, Cami Plaisted of Inverness.

"There's a misconception that Right to Life isn't an organization for teens," she said at the Jan. 23 rally. "For the first time, the organization is very focused on recruiting them." Plaisted is helping make the group's Web site more teen-friendly, and board members hope activities like the bike ride and annual oratory contests, which includes the possibility of scholarship money, will attract more teenagers.

"I know it's an old cliche, that children are the future," Stokes said. "But they are. And they're our future leaders."

[Last modified January 30, 2006, 00:32:10]