This is artwork I included with my letter to the mayor. It’s intended to match the cool colors of the rainbow.

A few days ago, a federal district judge in Asheville, North Carolina declared the state’s marriage amendment to be unconstitutional.  This amendment to the North Carolina constitution, passed in 2012 by a margin of roughly 61 to 39% of those voting, affirmed marriage to be between a man and a woman.  The judge acted under an implied directive from the U.S. Supreme Court when it refused to accept an appeal from a decision of the 4th Federal Circuit Court, which overturned Virginia’s marriage amendment.  North Carolina falls under the 4th Circuit’s authority.

Asheville, then, is ground zero of the moment for our state on this issue.  And Asheville City Council, cheerleaders for “marriage equality”, hung a giant rainbow flag on the exterior of City Hall in celebration of the supposed legalization of unnatural marriage.  It created quite a stir here.

Some local conservatives claimed that City Council broke laws regarding requirements for public meetings, since the decision to hang the flag was made informally.  Another conservative leader (a former City Councilman) posted on his Facebook page a photo of City Hall with the rainbow flag next to a photo of City Hall hung with a Nazi swastika flag.  It got lots of attention.

I took a different approach and filed a formal request to hang a pro-life banner on the building. What follows is text of the letter I sent to the mayor:

October 14, 2014

Mayor Esther Manheimer
City of Asheville
P.O. Box 7148
Asheville, NC 28802

Greetings,

Please consider this letter an application to display a Life Advocates banner on the side of Asheville City Hall on Friday, October 31, 2014, between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

The banner is approximately thirty feet long and four feet high.  It is made of a durable vinyl fabric with a black background and white letters that say “STOP ABORTING CHILDREN!”

It is the same banner we carried in Asheville’s Sesquicentennial parade some years ago.  Because abortion violently destroys the lives of millions of pre-natal human beings, and is government protected and sponsored, it is the foremost human rights issue of our day.

In an informal session, Asheville City Council recently designated the City Hall as a Limited Public Forum, making the exterior of the building accessible to the public for visual displays.  Federal case law is consistently explicit that in these circumstances, government is prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

We would like the banner displayed to the same extent and in the same position or higher on the west side of the building that a rainbow flag was displayed on Friday, October 10.  With assistance and supervision of the City, we will ensure that the banner is affixed to the building in such a way as to be safe for the property and pedestrians.

The date for our requested use of the building coincides with a protest on the public sidewalks around Planned Parenthood’s proposed new killing site on 16 McDowell Street, which it expects to open within the next few months.  The protest, which we call “A Presence of Truth and Prayer” will be Saturday, November 1, “All Saints Day” from 9:00 a.m. until 12 noon.

Sincerely, Meredith Eugene Hunt

Copies sent to: City Councilmen and Vice Mayor, City Manager, Asheville Attorney, Parks and Recreation

LIFE ADVOCATES PO Box 19205 Asheville, NC 28815 828-575-7300

Here’s a link to a local TV news story on our request.

While a couple City Councilmen have expressed themselves on the matter, we have yet to receive an official response.  A friend of mine made an inquiry and was told the City’s legal department is doing some research.  I will file an update next week.

-Meredith “Mick” Hunt

Note: a title for the monarch butterfly photo is “complexity in smallness”.  I took it on the Blue Ridge Parkway this fall.  Click to enlarge.

Mick Hunt is the Director of Life Advocates and a regular FAB contributor.

by Mick Hunt

If you’re quiet and listen, you might hear their voices.

When I looked across the arena at the Roman Coliseum during a torrid August afternoon in 2009, I tried to imagine the scenes of death from so many centuries ago. I tried to hear the echoes of blades on shields and the mobs cheering as blood flowed into the sand.

I imagine people feel the same somber wonder and horror when they visit other certain historical sites around the world, death camp sites such as Dachau, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, and the transport camp, Terezin.

At least two such tragic historical sites are located within Asheville, and the city is about to add another to its recommended tours.

One: The corner of 900 Hendersonville Road is now only a parking lot for a spiffy office building, but during the ‘80’s and into the early ‘90s, they aborted pre-natal children there in a low, squat building. Thousands of pre-natal children died in this sleazy, sordid place. The state of North Carolina tore it down to widen the road, and the business moved to the edge of Biltmore Village.

“Birds sang, the sun shone, flowers grew, and prayers rose up, but the laws of nature were not violated.”

Two: Train tracks surrounded the new building that was located in an industrial zoned area. It featured a narrow waiting room on steel girders spanning a dirty, limpid creek. Weeds grew up the walls of the building, and on one side, old roofing material made the siding. Steel bars guarded broken window. The abortionists drove in from Tennessee and South Carolina. It was a back alley abortion mill with a sign hanging in the front alley.

On a Saturday afternoon in November, 1998, I showed up as usual with my “Let Your Baby Live. We Will Help!” sign, but no one else came. No other pro-life people, no abortion workers, and no victims. I was alone. A sheet of white paper had been taped to the front window. For the first time ever, I walked onto the property and to the front porch. The note said the place had closed permanently.

I remember months later seeing a monster garbage truck parked in front, rocking back and forth. An industrial shredder on wheels. A few years later another business moved into the building, a non-profit called Save the Children. That’s right. I stopped once just to look around inside, and I asked the people there a few questions. I wanted to, but didn’t ask if they ever heard the echoes of screaming children. Sometime later, the owner tore the building down, leaving rubble, and piles of weed-covered earth, now in view of nearby spiffy office buildings.

Three: Apparently, the abortion center on Asheville’s Orange Street is closing now. A volunteer escort recently said so in an article titled “The Last Shift” that appeared June 15 in an online publication called The Asheville Blade. So, by the end of this month we’ll have another historical site of sorrow and death to add to the itinerary. Maybe “Save the Children” will buy the building and move in. Maybe someday this terrible place will end up like all the others, in rubble and fading memories.

My late acquaintance, Kentucky poet laureate James Still and I once ate lunch together nearly every day. I could never find his source, and I may not have the quote down perfectly, but he one day he said, “Birds sang, the sun shone, flowers grew, and prayers rose up, but the laws of nature were not violated.” He was talking about Dachau, which I know he visited. Maybe the quote was his own, a fragment of an incomplete poem.

My friends and I spent many, many hours on the sidewalk in front of Femcare–when thousands of people ignored, dismissed, ridiculed, or cursed our offers of help and appeals to moms and dads to let their babies live. Thousands of mothers carried their children passed us into the doors to be killed.

An independent observer watching the passers-by might suppose the middle finger to be an international sign for “choice.” But many people expressed support, too, as they walked or drove by. Our presence was always, usually, more a quiet vigil than a protest. I’ve watched and listened to starlings, crows, doves, pigeons, and hawks. Last Saturday, a noisy mocking bird entertained and annoyed us with his crazy song list, more of cacophony than symphony.

Prayers rose up. But not enough prayer and not enough people praying. On occasion a mother changed her mind and left with her baby alive.

Femcare is closing. A better name for it is Femkill. Though, what you call it is irrelevant now because it’s closing. What’s important is the killing probably is moving to another place—to a building on McDowell Street owned and operated by Planned Parenthood.

North Carolina law says it’s a felony to “destroy” “unborn children” unless the act is done by a licensed physician “in a hospital or clinic certified by the Department of Health and Human Services to be a suitable facility for the performance of abortions.” We often bring posters to the sidewalk depicting a 10 week child who was destroyed by abortion. This is what Planned Parenthood intends to do in its new building. It’s bloody, violent, and evil. There is no suitable facility for this.

So, are we nostalgic about our upcoming last shift at Femcare? Are we jubilant? No. Just feeling sadness and resignation. We’ll be shifting to McDowell Street, if necessary. Unique human beings, persons in embryonic or fetal form, will be destroyed in that place. And someday even it will be a ruined historical site where, if you’re quiet and listen, you might hear their voices.

Echoing in your conscience.

Mick Hunt is an FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the southeast and elsewhere.  This article is a response to “The Last Shift,” which was written by an abortion escort. Read the story here.

Meredith Hunt and the other CBR volunteers are the true reporters and journalists at Berea College.

CBR volunteer Meredith Hunt reports on CBR’s recent Choice Chain at Berea College.  Hunt is a veteran GAPper, having taken our Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) to more than 50 universities.  Read more of his thoughts and works at www.lifeadvocates.blogspot.com and www.chaoticterrain.com.

God Made All Peoples
By Meredith Eugene Hunt

Taking our handheld “Choice” signs to Berea College on Friday, November 8 was a homecoming for me.

When Fletcher told me about the GAPs planned for Northern Kentucky U, Eastern Kentucky U, and the U of Kentucky, it seemed natural to go to nearby Berea on the extra in-between day.   That weekend, quite literally was Homecoming at Berea.  Since my youngest son is now a student there, my wife and I, both of us alums, have special impetus to become involved in the college again.

Years ago, when I was a Berea student, I attended a convocation at which the speaker spoke on abortion as a silent holocaust, and that presentation, I’m sure, was a factor in leading me into full-time pro-life work.  My son said that the college, having become far more liberal since then, would never have such a speaker now.  Not that they would boast of it, but Berea graduate Dr. Willie J. Parker (class of 1986) is an outspoken abortion advocate and practicing late-term abortionist.  He’s been the “medical director” of Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC and he is the 2013 winner of the “2013 George Tiller, MD, Abortion Provider Award,” whatever that is.  Parker is not only an abortionist but is also a “Christian,” he says.  He explained last year (May 27, 2012) in the New Jersey Star Register (link here),

In listening to a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, I came to a deeper understanding of my spirituality, which places a higher value on compassion. King said what made the good Samaritan “good” is that instead of focusing on would happen to him by stopping to help the traveler, he was more concerned about what would happen to the traveler if he didn’t stop to help.  I became more concerned about what would happen to these women if I, as an obstetrician, did not help them.

Parker doesn’t seem to notice that in the Good Samaritan story, he is the violent robber who leaves the traveler in the ditch, naked, and bleeding.

Berea College, too, projects a skewed, incomplete perspective on certain aspects of Christianity.  When college president Roelofs learned of our intention to bring Choice signs for students to see them as they crossed the highway that intersects the campus, he sent out a campus-wide e-mail.   In the e-mail he wrote these words:

“In 2003, our community (persons from Berea College, the City of Berea, local churches, and others) developed the following statement expressing our collective commitment to “love over hate,” and it seems appropriate to revisit this thinking:

“For God so loved the world .. . that’s all of us!  United and Diverse.  We believe all people have been created in the image of God and are loved by God.  We believe this divine origin and love invests each person with an inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  We believe God’s love toward us is not dependent upon our condition or actions.  God loves all because God is love.”

It seems clear from the rest of the letter that Berea College does not include children before birth in the human family.  That they are not created in the image of God, are not loved by God, do not have inherent dignity and worth that should be respected and cherished.  That love for pre-natal children is dependent on conditions.

Or maybe they weren’t thinking about abortion at all when they composed their statement.  Perhaps they should have been.  But that’s why we brought the images and printed arguments to Berea.

During our GAP tour I led a short devotional with the team each morning.  Before Berea, my text was, from Philippians 4, “Let your gentleness be known to all.  The Lord is near.”

The students who passed us were respectful.  True, a couple female professor types stood back out of brochure range as they waited for the light to change, but by-and-large everyone else was either friendly or receptive to our presence.  We handed out more than 1000 brochures entitled “Unmasking Choice.”  A black student asked one of our people, “Is this a religious organization?”  The answer essentially was no.  “That’s why your arguments are so cogent!” he said with enthusiasm and waving one of the brochures.  CBR is an organization of Christians, but we primarily make secular and scientific arguments as to why abortion is wrong.

Passersby (that is, drivers in vehicles) often responded, and most indicated strong support.   Berea is a liberal college in the middle of a rural, conservative region, and you could see that clearly.  A few people pulled over to get out and make a comment, or people just gave a thumbs up or called out encouragement.   A few didn’t know if we were for abortion or against it, but it’s hard to imagine how anyone could think  people who supported the choice to abort a child would show pictures of that dead child.  But some people get confused that way.  Innocent unsophistication, I guess.

We also had the Choice Truck driving up and down the road for most of the four hours we were there.  A US Marine Corps medical corpsman in dress uniform and at Berea for homecoming stopped to talk and thank us.  I spent a good deal of time talking with the director of campus safety.  He was my age and had had long experience as a police chief and with security for governmental leaders.

The editor of the student newspaper, The Pinnacle came by for a while.  He wrote an editorial that favorably compared our use of graphic imagery with a similar approach for issues important to him, such as war and mountain-top removal in coal mining.  He did however say that our “protest” was not much newsworthy.  “I didn’t see anything particularly timely or gripping about this demonstration,” he wrote.  “Did this particular group break any new information about abortion?  No they did not.”

Probably he’s right.  But it’s a sad state of affairs when the aborting of children in the womb is so customary, routine, and “old” that it can’t be news.   We are in a sorry condition when cogent arguments against the ongoing legal killing of children don’t break any new information.

In the instance of us bringing the graphic images to Berea College, we were the true reporters and journalists.  We were the media, the “guardian of the student’s right to know,” (echoing the byline of The Pinnacle).  This information about abortion was new to most of those students.  We brought that missing convocation out on the sidewalk, and hopefully some student will make a decision for life for her baby, or will someday become a pro-life activist, or won’t become another misguided Dr. Willie J. Jackson.  By advocating for children in the womb, we represent a missing element in the fulfillment of Berea’s motto, taken from the Bible, “God made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

Let’s go back again soon.

We passed out more than 1,000 pro-life brochures in just a few hours at Berea College.

A Choice Truck at Berea College expands our reach many-fold.

FemKill Fundraiser

Abortion industry fundraising events are a great venues for pro-life activism.  Here is a story from Mick Hunt of Life Advocates in Asheville, NC, describing his work at a Femcare (abortion clinic) fundraiser.  You can read the complete story and see more photos on his blog (Part 1 here and Part 2 here).  Mick is a faithful CBR volunteer and uses CBR Choice signs in his work in North Carolina, as seen in the photo at right.

FemKill Fundraiser
by Meredith Hunt, Life Advocates

Yesterday evening, fourteen of us stood in front of the entrance of the Millroom to greet financial donors of the Asheville business that aborts prenatal children on Orange Street.

Amy Renigar, Executive Director of Girls on the Run of WNC (GOTR) attended the fundraiser.  The GOTR website says, “Amy Renigar joined the GOTR team in June 2012 because of her interest public health and passion for creating a world where all girls (and women) are empowered to become their best selves.”  Ann Pfaff, an outspoken abortion supporter, is on their Board of Directors.  This organization runs programs in elementary schools all over the region, including at Veritas Christian Academy.  Go to it’s website to learn of its numerous local sponsors, many of whom would not wish to be connected with the violent deaths of prenatal children.  Groups such as Rotary Club of Asheville, Earth Fare, Diamond Brand Outdoors, and so on.

City Councilman Gordon Smith passed by me with an acknowledgement, “How are you, Meredith?”  I nodded.  Then he turned back and said with a grin, “You have raised so much money for them in there.”  Something like that …  Money.  This got me thinking.  The people at this event were pretty committed and not likely to be influenced.

But not everyone is this way.  Many people still have a functioning conscience when it comes to abortion.  Or at least they can have a normal reaction.  When we were winding down, I took Eric and Starla with me around the block to the other side of the building, which is the front of Asheville Pizza and Brewing, the business that owns the Millroom, which was either rented or donated for the Femcare fundraiser.  Asheville Pizza has an outdoor dining patio that is right next to the sidewalk and last night it was full of people eating.

We had faced the large posters of a mangled, bloody 10 week pre-born child toward the customers no more than two or three seconds before we had a diner in our face, confronting us.   None of the Femcare supporters acted like this.  People are more upset over an impediment to their appetite then they are about children being slaughtered and about a fundraiser for such atrocities in the same building in which they are filling their stomachs.  They demand that we behave decently when this horrible outrage goes on day after day, year after year (out of sight, out of mind).  But at least they react.  One of the managers called the police and when an officer came we chatted a few minutes.  I wonder how much money we could raise for Asheville Pizza and Brewing.  It would be a new twist to “Brew and View.”

Notorious celebrity Cecil Bothwell’s contribution to dialog was to practically shout that one of the protestors should “repent of your self righteousness!”  I wonder if he can explain “self-righteous” in a way that doesn’t include his own attitude?  This accusation dodges talking about what’s really right or wrong.

We’ve won the argument but lost where it counts.  So says Meredith Hunt in the Asheville Citizen-Times, responding to the recent cover article by Time magazine.  Link to Hunt’s entire op-ed piece here.  He explains

Time magazine’s Jan. 14 cover story proclaimed, “Abortion-rights activists won an epic victory in Roe v. Wade. They’ve been losing ever since.” This statement is wrong on the only scale that matters. Forty years after Roe, prenatal children are still being aborted legally in our country.

While abortion seems entrenched into our culture, in the realm of reasoned argument, the abortion choice movement has lost the game entirely.  With the advances in observing the life of children in the womb, the work to educate university students on the true nature of abortion, and the logical arguments that demonstrate the humanity and personhood even of an embryo, abortion-choice rhetoric shows itself to be empty.  It’s strong on absurdities, non sequiturs, false history, and demonizing characterizations of pro-lifers.  If you add to our intellectual victory the network of nonprofit agencies that serve women in a crisis pregnancy and confirm the compassionate heart of pro-life ideas, the defeat of the abortion choice position is total.

The problem is, legal abortion isn’t dependent on sound jurisprudence or moral reasoning.  It never was.  “Pro-choice” efforts in those directions have been no more than gauze over the power to kill.  They’re an illusion to make the terrible seem less terrible — to comfort people so they can do what they want, and to mislead the desperate.

Link to Hunt’s piece here.