Anti-abortion protests continue in Louisville this week as the fundamentalist Christian group Operation Save America is in town for its annual conference.
Wednesday, the group was joined downtown by another anti-abortion group, Created Equal, that set up a jumbotron with graphic images purported to be fetuses.
There were counter-protests by abortion rights activists at the park Wednesday, as well as downtown workers on their lunch break eating at nearby picnic tables.
Erin Meiners said she was prepared for the graphic images, and she even tried to get off work to join the abortion rights protesters.
“It’s a lot of propaganda to forward their own agenda and it’s doing a lot more harm toward what they want to see happen than it is good," she said. "There are things that they could do differently that would be less polarizing.”
Across the park, Duane Hale drank a Mountain Dew on a bench.
“I believe in the Lord Jesus and everyone should have a chance to live," he said. "Other people have their opinions but I still say let the kids live.”
But Hale also said he believes abortion should be allowed in certain cases, like rape or when the mother’s health is in danger. Those blown-up images of fetuses, however? Hale said he’s not OK with that.
“A lot of kids shouldn’t see this, it should be done in closed places instead of out in the public," he said. "I’ve looked at a few pictures, the leaflets that they gave me, and it’s kind of disgusting.”
Operation Save America and Created Equal are working to close down the last remaining clinic in Kentucky that provides abortion. Hale isn’t sure what his opinion is regarding efforts to close the EMW Women’s Surgical Center on Market Street. Like many other Americans, his views on abortion aren’t clear cut.
Almost 3 in 10 Americans view abortion as morally wrong but at the same time believe it should remain legal, according to a Gallup poll published July 20.
