I Get Mail

Yesterday, I received the following email:

Dear friend,

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, approximately 1 out of 3 women in the United States will have had an abortion by age 45. You may be surprised, as were we; but it’s fair to say that the majority of Americans have either had an abortion or know someone who has experienced an abortion.

“Abortion” – the word stopped you for a moment, didn’t it?

Typically, the reactions that surround this word impede any reasonable discussion on the topic, especially the real feelings of those who have been touched by an abortion experience.

Please keep reading.

After 35 years of polarization and judgment, Michaelene Fredenburg is looking to change this. Using the Internet to provide a confidential space and support resources, Michaelene has created a safe environment for men and women who have been touched by an abortion experience. And she can relate to what they need. She’s been there.

The outreach Michaelene created acknowledges that each person’s abortion experience is unique - some positive, some indifferent, some negative. However, a common thread weaves through every story. It is this common thread that has created the outreach’s name - Abortion Changes You. These are words echoed by the hundreds of people Michaelene has spoken with over the years whose lives have been touched by an abortion experience.

I invite you to visit AbortionChangesYou.com. I am certain you will be surprised by the experience. After visiting the website and exploring the interactive content and amazing drawings, poems and stories that have been contributed, people from different abortion perspectives have remarked that it’s a “breath of fresh air.” This is not about debate. It’s about personal experiences that people have regardless of their beliefs or political views on abortion. The link to the movie mail is as follows: www.abortionchangesyou.com/aboutus. I also encourage you to visit www.abortionchangesyouresources.com to download the movie and banner ads for use on your blog.

Michaelene has also authored a book that will be released in early May. Changed: Making Sense of Your Own or a Loved One’s Abortion Experience is as unique as the Abortion Changes You outreach. Combining a collection of very different stories from people who have had an abortion experience with creative elements such as the Healing Pathways and a journaling component, this book creates a new standard for issue-inspired literature. These stories come from both men and women and provide a rare expression of feelings and perspectives following an abortion experience.

“Abortion” – it doesn’t have to be a word we avoid. This is a real opportunity for a conversation with your audience that will inspire, encourage and equip them.

Best,

Andrew Long

Sound friendly enough, doesn't it? Well, given my clear stance on abortion and my record vehemently defending choice, I was both skeptical and curious. Just who is Michaelene Fredenburg?

Turns out, she is an anti-choice activist from San Diego who is one of the darlings of Lifesite and folks like Jill Stanek. Hardly the person to change "35 years of polarization and judgment" - she has been one of the causes of it. Check out even a small number of those sites from the Google search - she is anti-choice and fighting for an end to a woman's choice in the US.

My reply:

Mr. Long,

With all due respect, please do not try to peddle your dishonesty with me. It only took me a few minutes on Google to find out who Michaelene Fredenburg is. It did not take long for me to discover she - and you, I assume - is nothing more than an anti-choice activist trying to peddle the unfounded nonsense about abortion causing mental anguish in people like fathers who don't actually have abortions. I suppose you have to grasp at something now that the abortion-breast cancer link has been proven completely false.

In other words, stop using stealth and subterfuge to try to force your agenda and opinions on people. Stop trying to "trick" people into thinking you and your organization are something you are not. You are an anti-choice organization but you know saying that will get you (rightly) ignored.

In my books, that makes you and your organization nothing but liars and cowards.

I am proudly and fiercely pro-choice. If you don't think abortion is right, don't have one. That is your choice.

I promise you that if you or anyone else tries to tell my daughter or wife what they can or cannot do with their bodies, you will be resisted and fought by any means necessary. Freedom of choice and security of the person are not negotiable.

Please do not contact me again with your lies. Your email address is being added to my spam filter. That is the price of dishonesty. I'll ask you to kindly remove my email from any lists you may have.

Good day.

And Mr. Longs quick reply back:

You completely missed the point of the email, and the nature of the outreach. It’s not about anti-choice –- it’s about pro-choice – and about some of those pro-choice people who may need help after an abortion.

I’m sorry your own personal agenda clouds something good. I couldn’t find the will not to respond, but out of respect I will remove your email address and you will not be contacted again.

And my final reply to him:

"and about some of those pro-choice people who may need help after an abortion.

"

Right, by someone so openly anti-choice that she is the favourite of the so-called "pro-life" sites and has testified before the US House of Representatives about her anti-choice views?

You really don't know when to stop lying?

No, I didn't miss the point of the email at all.

Good day.

Yes, once again another attempt at trickery and subterfuge. Another example of dishonesty and outright lies to further their own "personal agenda". Clearly honesty and ethics is something these people know nothing about.

And Andrew Long? Who is he?

Why Mr. Long is the Production Coordinator with the Maximus Group. Who are the Maximus Group? Why they are a "specialized and full-service communications marketing agency" who sell PR marketing of "Catholic or other authentically Christian products/messages to the secular world".

It seems then, based on all of this, that this email was part of a paid PR campaign to spread and promote a specious, unfounded connection between abortion and mental health of both women AND men, via stealth and subterfuge - by seeming to be part of a supposedly non-partisan group that is, in reality, the whole cloth creation of the Catholic anti-choice movement.

So, beware. And if you receive (or have received) a similar email from Mr. Long (or one of his co-workers) , be sure to let him know we are on to them.

I'll say it again, just to be really clear:

If you don't think abortion is right, don't have one. Feel free to do all you can to make the choices other than abortion the one chosen. Just stop thinking you can tell other people what they can do with their body and stop lying about your true position and intent.