They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe. In a column two days before the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Chris Slattery of Expectant Mother Care-EMC FrontLine, which runs numerous pro-life pregnancy centers in New York City, was mentioned in a story here at PJ Media. On the day after the Dobbs decision, the New York Times published an article about Slattery’s life-saving work in New York City, the abortion capital of the world as he calls it.
The story’s headline pointed out that there are more active pro-life pregnancy centers in New York City than abortion clinics. All good publicity for a noble cause? Slattery soon received a call from a man in Brooklyn wishing someone would shoot him in the face. Then in his Bronx location, there was “an invasion of our clinic by four people screaming and yelling.” Their menacing behavior “scared the hell out of my staff.” In another office across from Borough Hall in Brooklyn, instead of entering the 12-story building where their office is located, vandals graffitied the sidewalk in front of the building, calling it a “fake clinic.” Tell that to the tens of thousands of mothers who have brought their babies to term using the that clinic’s services since 1999; enough children and now grandchildren from clinics around the city to fill Madison Square Garden, according to Slattery. He said today in Manhattan, a pregnancy center he is not associated with was also attacked. “All its windows were smashed in. Thankfully there’s been no firebombing,” he said, referring to the recent firebomb attack near Buffalo, New York.
By the Monday after the Dobbs decision, Slattery was holed up with FBI agents and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force to help coordinate protection for him, his family, and his employees. These employees, primarily women, are now living in fear. Who would have thought assisting pregnant women would be a job where you could lose your life? Welcome to the rotten apple and the reign of terror in the wake of Dobbs.
Slattery said the meeting with law enforcement was quite productive. He received many positive tips on staying safe and beefing up security. Local police have set up camera surveillance to protect his home. Who would have ever thought being pro-life in America meant you had to live in a modified witness protection program?
Related: Psst…Americans Actually Agree With the Principles of the Dobbs Decision
“The problem must be more widespread than we know,” Slattery said. ”I’m hearing stories about vandalism every day.” There is also picketing outside churches, like the picket last Sunday in Peekskill, NY, which he learned about today. He was at the small New York city to unload a tractor-trailer full of diapers for mother and their babies. He said you don’t usually see picketing by pro-abortion street activists in places other than big cities like New York.
In addition to protecting his own family and facilities, he was able to share information with law enforcement about another possible threat coming this Saturday, July 2, in New York City’s Chinatown. Every first Saturday, there is an 8 a.m. mass at the historic Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott St. Afterward, people peacefully walk the short distance to Planned Parenthood’s clinic on Bleeker St. and pray for an end to abortion. This was Margaret Sanger’s flagship Planned Parenthood clinic, which opened in the early 20th century. New York being New York, they have even named the intersection after this eugenicist and racist. She is the fine lady who wanted more children from the fit and less from the unfit, and called those she considered mentally or physically inferior human weeds. Life unworthy of life, as they would later call it in German.
In some recent months, pro-abortion activists have shown up towards the end of the church service. They’ve crowded the street outside the church and prevented people from walking to the clinic. While police were present, they stood down and allowed the mob to block people from going to pray.
Slattery has now heard that the people blocking the street plan to show up earlier than usual this week. He fears without proper security, some may attempt an invasion of the church. If so, he said, that would transfer jurisdiction away from New York State and New York City. “Under FACE, Freedom of Access Clinic Entrance Act, there is a provision that invading a church is a federal offense,” he said. If this should happen, he hopes the Feds will do more than turn a blind eye as New York City Mayor Eric Adams has. There is little question about where Adams’s sentiments lie. In the wake of Dobbs, Adams credited his ability to become mayor to his girlfriend getting an abortion. Three of his deputy mayors also talked about their abortions.
This is not the first time the Old St. Patrick Cathedral has been threatened in its history. “Dagger John” Hughes, archbishop of New York, authorized men from the Ancient Order of Hibernians to surround the Cathedral when nativist forces in the 19th century were poised to burn it down. He is reported to have told the mayor at that time that New York City would burn like another Moscow if any Catholic churches were destroyed. Unlike in Philadelphia, where similar mobs were destroying churches, none were burned. In fact, the cathedral in Philadelphia was built without stained glass windows for fear they would eventually be smashed by the mobs.
We live in a more diplomatic age than that of Dagger John’s. Let’s hope a sufficient police presence will keep the streets of New York safe as the rage over Dobbs continues to demolish things in its wake. And as the 2022 elections approach, let’s hope we don’t see another 574 left-wing riots as in the runup-to the 2020 election.
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