Chapter Four

Abortion and the El Train Ads

“Power is not only what you have, but in what your enemy thinks you have.” - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

I stood on the old wooden platform of the Howard elevated train line at the Loyola stop and waited for the train to arrive. I was headed for my evening theology class at the Loyola Water Tower campus located at the north end of the Loop. It was April 1979. It had been over a year since my arrest at Concord and six months since the short, even perfunctory bench trial took place in Cook County Circuit court. Our attorney Carmen Speranza planned it that way. We had asked for a defense of necessity—the common law defense whereby conduct that would otherwise be considered criminal is justified as necessary to avoid a public or private injury. For example, in case of fire, a person could break into a private residence in order to conduct a rescue. This person would not be guilty of breaking and entering, even if he had to smash a window or break down a door to get inside the burning building. Furthermore, the defense did not require that a threat to life actually exist—only that the defendant had a reasonable belief that such a threat did exist. In short, the law permitted a legal transgression for the sake of preventing a greater evil.

Carmen predicted that the lower court would deny us this defense; thus, he placed all of his legal strategy into winning a reversal on appeal, and he was confident that we would prevail.  Meanwhile, we were sentenced to a very lenient six months court supervision.  That sentence had come to an end at the beginning of April. I was frustrated by the conviction and the delay, yet all of us remained very hopeful that we, and most importantly, the unborn would have our “day in court.” The court supervision in no way interfered with my sidewalk counseling efforts—and this activity had become my principle pro-life routine—but—as I rode the el that day—this routine was about to be disturbed.

I enjoyed riding the el trains in Chicago. I looked forward to the free time to read a book or to have the rhythm of the train rock me into a light nap. Riding the el was actually a way for me and many other Chicagoans to chill out as the business day paused while the el transported us from one destination in the city to the next. On this particular Thursday, I ascended the stairs to the el train platform and stopped dead in my tracks. I felt as though someone had just punched me in the face. Standing before me was a large blue signboard. On it was written “Albany Women’s Medical Services,” and it advertised a “full-service reproductive health clinic.” While the facility hid behind euphemism, I knew Albany was an abortion clinic located on Elston Avenue. My mind was punctured by the thought that murder was being peddled on the el train lines.

While my gaze was still fixed on the poster,  the train arrived. The doors of the car folded open in front of me and, in a trance, I walked through and flopped down in a seat by a window. I turned my head. Out of the window I could still see the sign: stiff, immovable; it seemed to mock me and dare me. When the Howard el approached the Loop, it plunged its riders into a deep dark hole and, underground now, the cars twisted us through dank tunnels hidden in the bowels of the city. The Albany signs had been posted at nearly every stop along the line—even in the subway, the posters were hung at each of the stops. Here they were pasted up on metal backboards that were affixed to the very walls of the subway itself, opposite the subterranean platforms. Feeling as if a legion belonging to the enemy had defiantly invaded the town, I thought to myself, “How would we get them?”  I was already plotting a way to destroy the abortion clinic’s advertising venture. The signs on the elevated portion of the line could be simply blotted out with the old-fashioned spray paint method. A sign could be painted out quickly and easily in the darkness of night, as long as no one was standing nearby.

But the use of spray paint would not be a swift enough method of obliterating the signs on the subway walls. A person standing across the track would be out in the open and easily seen by others who might come along to wait for the train. Some means of blotting out the sign, something that would only take seconds, would have to be devised. I thought of pasting pro-life flyers over the name of the clinic and the clinic’s phone number, but it would be far too clumsy to handle flyers and glue at the same time. It occurred to me that I had half a roll of contact paper at my apartment, the kind that simulated wood. If the contact paper was cut into rectangular strips wide enough and long enough to cover the abortion clinic’s name and phone number, all a person had to do was jump down into the subway gully, cross over the rails, and slap two of these precut strips over the name and phone number. The backing could be peeled off before descending into the pit. The whole job would not take more than seven seconds from start to finish.

The subway mission, though, would be dangerous. First, there was the obvious danger of being hit by an approaching train. However, els are extremely noisy.  The rattling and screeching of cars coming down the line can be heard several hundred feet away. There would be plenty of time to do what needed to be done before any trains arrived. Secondly, a person had to get down into that subway gully and cross over the tracks. Anyone in Chicago who regularly rides the el eventually hears about the infamous "third rail," which runs alongside the second track and is understood to be the live rail—alive with electricity that powers the el.  To touch the third rail was potentially lethal.

I recruited two people to help obliterate the abortion center ads. The first volunteer was Anna, a young woman in her early twenties who lived in a sparsely furnished, one-room apartment across from St. Ignatius Parish. Ironically, Anna was going to a trade school to learn lettering for sign-making.

The other person was my friend Jerry Zealy, also in his twenties. As a devout Catholic, he was the head of the St. Ignatius chapter of the Legion of Mary. Jerry came from an interracial home—still rare enough in the late seventies—and he happily described himself as "bright-skinned." He had light gray-green eyes and curly, reddish-brown hair. He was nice-looking with a wonderful, handsome smile.

But Jerry did not smile very often. He was a tormented soul. His mother died when Jerry was ten years old, and her death when he was such a young boy always seemed to bother him. He grew up with a keen awareness of racial injustice and often spoke to me about his anger. He was also unhappy with his job. He worked for the Illinois Bell telephone company and was resentful and frustrated that he seemed to be passed over for raises and promotions. He blamed this on racial prejudice. Jerry perceived his job as nothing more than paper-pushing and he hated it. His surly attitude was undoubtedly obvious to his bosses and co-workers.

Jerry was also a recovering drug addict. After graduating from high school he attended the prestigious Northwestern University, a school known for its tough entrance requirements. Jerry told me that in his college days he was a self-proclaimed rebel, a civil rights activist, keenly aware of his own heritage and just plain mad about discrimination. He may have joined the Black Student Union and attended a civil rights demonstration or two. But while at Northwestern, Jerry got heavily involved in the drug scene. He started out smoking marijuana, but soon progressed to more serious drugs. In the end, he nearly overdosed on heroin and was admitted to a hospital.

Jerry was fully aware that he had almost lost his life, and this frightened him deeply. While he lay in a hospital bed recovering, he decided to turn his life over to God. He re-committed himself to his Catholic faith, the religion in which he had been raised, and began to attend daily Mass. But the drugs had taken a toll on Jerry’s intellectual abilities; he left Northwestern and never attended any other university. He got a low-level clerical position at the telephone company. Because of his brooding and melancholy disposition, Jerry was often hard to be around.

Yet there were times when he was quite happy and would smile his great smile, be light-hearted, conversational, and given over to laughter. I once ran into Jerry on the Howard el line. The train was heading to Roger’s Park. He sat down next to me. He opened up a small paper bag and took out a beautiful rosary made of polished rosewood beads. Jerry had been in the Loop and visited St. Peter’s Church, where he had purchased the rosary along with a tall devotional candle. “Here, would you like to have that?” he asked as he placed the rosary beads into my hand. I was stunned. It was a beautiful gift, and he had given it so spontaneously. My hand closed around the heavy beads. As I pulled the beads across my fingertips their touch was smooth and comforting and my eyes savored their reddish color. I was happy to be in possession of such a fine rosary and thanked Jerry for it. He gave me a warm smile full of satisfaction.

Jerry, Anna, and I set out at 2 A.M. on a Monday morning, toting the plastic bags that hid our black spray paint and strips of contact paper. We went about our task quickly and efficiently. As soon as we were finished at one el stop, we would take the train to the next, until we were finally in the subway portion of the line. At that time of night on a Monday, the el train platforms are nearly deserted. Each station had three or four of the Albany ads. I quickly peeled off the backing on two strips of contact paper and handed them to Jerry. He jumped down into the trench and nimbly leapt over the rails. He slapped one contact strip over the abortion center's name and the other over its phone number. Jerry then leapt back over the third rail and hoisted himself up to the platform. We ran to the next ad and the process was repeated. If anyone saw us, they paid no attention to what we were doing. I returned home at six in the morning, utterly exhausted. I slept for an hour, awoke, ate a light breakfast of cold cereal and instant coffee, gathered my books, and trudged off to my eight o'clock Old Testament class at Loyola.

At about this time, Joe Scheidler was on an el the train that would take him to his new job as head of Friends for Life, whose office was located in the heart of the Loop on North Michigan Avenue. Joe had been fired as executive director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee following the sit-in at Concord Medical Services. It seems that the board of directors, which had hired Joe to develop and implement pro-life educational presentations, was unhappy with Joe's more radical activities.

The train carried him and a hundred others into the bowels of the city. Joe sank into a seat he shared with a stranger, preoccupied by his own thoughts. He was weary and discouraged. Joe felt the injustice of abortion keenly and was impatient to see justice for the unborn. He was all too aware of the Albany abortion clinic ads. The first time he saw them, just a few days before I did, he felt frustration like an icy weight sink into the pit of his stomach. He hated the ads and had written a letter of complaint to the Chicago Transit Authority. To him the signs were evidence of the world's moral decay–that places where human beings were put to death, openly, even flagrantly, advertised their services and nobody seemed to care.

Joe sighed as the train approached the Washington Avenue stop. He stood up, waited for the el train doors to open, and stepped onto the platform. Directly before him was an Albany ad with two large, strategically-placed strips pasted over it. He looked up and down the platform and was astonished to find that all of the Albany signs had been defaced. It was a wonderful surprise. He was soon struck by the fact that someone had crossed over the third rail to accomplish the deed.

When Joe arrived at the Friends for Life office, he immediately sat down and recorded a new message for his telephone action-line, a communication system that kept Chicago pro-lifers informed about current issues and events. He reported that “the Albany ads have been covered over by an anonymous mountain goat committed to putting an end to Albany abortuary’s attempt to kill even more unborn babies.”

No one tried to clean the paint off the signs and certainly no one was crazy enough or dedicated enough to jump down into the el train pit, cross the third rail, and tear off the contact paper. So the Albany ads remained blotted out for several weeks until finally they were torn down and replaced with signs for Newsweek magazine or the latest Ford pickup.

This was not the last time, however, that Albany would advertise on the el trains. Undaunted by the defacement of the posters, the very same ad was back up on the el platforms several months later and once again Jerry, Anna, and I made a midnight run with spray paint and contact paper. Sometimes we missed defacing an ad, perhaps because someone was standing too close and might question what we were doing or try to stop us. One such ad remained on the Loyola el train platform–the platform I most often stood on to wait for a train. On a Friday afternoon in April 1979, even though it was broad daylight, I decided to simply tear down the ad. On the return trip from  the Loop I got off the train, walked over to the blue, faded poster, and looked up and down the platform. A few people were scattered about, standing perhaps twenty to thirty feet away. I bargained with myself. I would count to fifty. If an el train did not come down the line by the time I reached the end, I would tear down the ad.

I counted to fifty. No train arrived.

Tearing down a poster advertisement is not easily accomplished. I tried to find a corner that was beginning to curl away from the board. I grabbed onto a loose end and began peeling away the blue sign. Gradually small bits and pieces of it filled the palm of my hand.

“What are you doing?” said a loud, nasal voice that belonged to someone who was definitely angry.

I looked up. Standing next to me was Arthur Bloom, chairman of Loyola University's theatre department. I was well acquainted with him, and he with me, as I was currently playing the part of Pitti-Sing in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. Although I no longer dreamt of seeing my name in lights, I had decided for fun to audition for Loyola's spring musical and landed the part.  Bloom was the director of the play.         A performance was scheduled for that very evening.

I am not sure what caused Bloom to confront me, but I do not think he was aware that the ad was for an abortion clinic and that I was tearing it down because I was pro-life. I think he shouted at me because he saw someone–someone he knew, no less–destroying a piece of advertising. I could have simply told him I was just fooling around, shrugged my shoulders, apologized for my actions, and dashed off hoping he would not think anymore about it. Instead I decided to answer his question.

“This is an ad for an abortion clinic. They kill unborn children there.”

“I don’t care what it is,” Bloom retorted. “You can’t destroy that–it’s not your property.”

“Dr. Bloom, what if this wasn’t an ad for an abortion clinic? Let’s say it was a sign put up by the Nazis to promote the killing of Jews. Wouldn’t you want someone to tear it down?” I knew Arthur bloom was Jewish and hoped my argument would make an impression on him. And it did, but not in the way I had hoped. Like many pro-lifers, I believed that I could change the minds of the Blooms of the world with an analogy between abortion and an instance of mass killing that the vast majority of people recognized as an atrocity. But Bloom simply continued to insist that since I had not paid for the ad I had no right to tear it down. “It’s not your property,” he said again.

“Just because it’s not my property doesn’t mean it’s wrong to destroy it if it’s going to be used to hurt someone. I mean, what if someone was going to shoot another person and I took the gun away and threw it into Lake Michigan? Would that be wrong?”

 “This is a legal business!” Bloom was adamant.

 At this point I could see that if what truly mattered was the legality of the business, Bloom could not be convinced by my argument about the gun. He certainly could not be persuaded that peeling off an abortion clinic ad was a good and worthy act. We were having a disagreement on the meaning of property, or maybe Bloom just thought abortions were okay. But I continued to argue my point with him, amazed that he would not at least admit that it was justified to destroy a weapon about to be used against an innocent person.

 “How can you say that? Should you just stand by and let the person be killed?”

Bloom’s train had already approached the platform and was slowing to a screeching halt. The doors opened, he got on, and our conversation ended as the train departed. The platform was now nearly deserted. Since it had cost me quite a bit to tear down the ad, I was going to finish the job. In another moment I had several large hunks of blue sign in my hand. I proceeded down the stairs and, as I walked to my apartment, I thrust the pieces of the poster into a city garbage bin. I sighed deeply, relieved the episode was over.

 That evening I showed up for The Mikado's makeup call. I was certain to see Arthur Bloom again, since he would often come into the dressing room to give last-minute notes to us on how to correct or improve our performances. I was applying white powder to my face to transform myself into Gilbert and Sullivan's comic-stereotyped vision of a Japanese lady when, through the reflection in the mirror, I saw Bloom come into the room. The dressing area was full of the usual pre-performance chatter and activity. Without the slightest hesitation Bloom came right over to me, placed his hands on my shoulders and said, “You’re doing swell, Pitti-Sing honey. Keep it up.”

I was startled by Bloom's display of affection and encouragement and did not know quite what to make of it. In twenty minutes I completed my makeup and put on my costume, ready for The Mikado’s overture to begin. I exited the dressing room just as Bloom was once again entering it. We ran right into each other. He hugged me, gave me a quick kiss on my white-powdered cheek and said, with a happy voice and a wide smile, “Be marvelous, doll.”

I had spent nearly every night for the last three months with Arthur Bloom and he had never treated me in such a fashion. Perhaps my arguments finally resonated with him. Maybe he thought it was wrong to criticize me so harshly up there on the el platform. But it was also possible that the kiss, the hug, and the words of encouragement were Arthur Bloom’s way of ensuring that I would not throw the performance.

***********

In the early 1980s another Chicago abortion clinic called Biogenetics advertised on the benches of Chicago Transit Authority bus stops. The name, Biogenetics, sounded like something out of a Michael Crichton novel, and Chicago pro-lifers called it Biogenecide. Biogenetics was another of the abortion clinics featured in the 1978 Chicago Sun-Times “Abortion Profiteers” series. The November 13 edition identified Kenneth Yellin and Clifford Josefik as the owners and operators of the clinic. They were two of the five Michigan Avenue “profiteers” whose photos were spread across that morning’s paper. Zekman and Warrick wrote:

They pay high rents for fancy addresses, but cut corners on patient care. They ignore laws, but slip through cracks in the system with savvy defenses. They stay in the business by staying one step ahead of the law. For the profiteers abortion is big business. It’s where big bucks are made. In the days to come, this paper will expose the dangerous and sometimes illegal medical practices uncovered in clinics owned and operated by these men – men who make their profits from women’s pains. . . .

 Kenneth Yellin. . . switched from selling luxury cars to selling economy abortions when abortions were legalized in 1973. In 1974, a court ordered him to stop pretending he was a doctor.

Clifford Josefik [was] Yellin’s fast-talking partner at Biogenetics Ltd. 520 Michigan. What the people want Josefik sells: pollution control, condominiums, land, trucks, and abortions.

 Yellin used to pass himself off as one Dr. York. He was indicted for this and for “performing illegal abortions, reckless conduct and theft by deception” – that is, to sell abortions, Yellin sometimes told women that they were pregnant when they were not. The “Abortion Profiteers” reported that many of the abortionists featured in the series deceived women in this way, but somehow Yellin was not convicted on most of these charges. The strongest case against him was that he had performed an abortion beyond the twelfth week of pregnancy, which was illegal in Illinois at that time. Prosecutors, however,  could not prove that the woman was beyond the twelfth week so the state’s attorney dropped the charge, along with most of the other charges pending against Yellin. Biogenetics medical director Dr. Carlos Baldoceda sold women menstrual extractions, a “just in case” procedure offered to women whose pregnancy tests were negative. The “Abortion Profiteers” exposé stated:

Except for the fact that it costs less, a menstrual extraction is essentially the same as an early abortion but it is not as thorough or as effective in ending pregnancy. And because such extractions usually are done on women whose periods are only a week or two late, the embryo is so tiny that it may be missed by the suction device. But the risks and discomfort of suctioning menstrual blood from the womb are as great as with an abortion, the experts say.

The Sun-Times described Yellin’s partner, Josefik, as someone strictly interested in making money. To this end, Biogenetics required its clients who were on public aid to pay cash for the abortions, then turned around and billed Medicaid for the very same procedures. In 1976 the Illinois Legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid finally charged the abortion center with abusing the Medicaid system.

At about 10:30 on the night of June 8, 1979, I rode with Donna Rozewski and her boyfriend Jerry McCarthy all over the northwest side of Chicago and painted out as many of the Biogenetics bus stop ads as we could find. Most of the ads were at stops where there was little traffic or very poor lighting at that time of night. Just like in the el train stations, we worked quickly and efficiently, moving from one stop to the next. We noticed that many of the ads seemed to be strategically located at bus stops near high schools.

An hour later we came to the last bus stop on the list. As we approached the corner our hearts began to race. With the lights of a gas station and several street lamps, the intersection seemed like the middle of a baseball stadium ready for a night game. And there were people everywhere, not to mention motorists pulling up to the stoplight. We drove down a side street, parked, and discussed what to do.

“Don't worry about the lights!” Donna said. “Who cares if people see us? It’s the police we don’t want.”

I was so impressed by Donna’s boldness that I was not going to argue against her. She was usually more cautious in such matters, but she was determined not to allow this abortion clinic ad to solicit customers. It was decided that I would stay in the car while Donna and Jerry painted out the ad. It was the feast of the Sacred Heart, and so we uttered a fervent prayer to Jesus under that title.

Jerry passed me his keys. I got into the driver’s seat while Donna and Jerry walked the one-hundred  feet or so to the corner. Donna carried the paint pan, now full of fresh orange paint, and Jerry held the roller. I sat in the car with the motor running, nervous, tense, and praying. My eyes never left the rear-view mirror, but I could not see the corner. About a minute later I heard the sound of running footsteps. The car doors flew open, and Jerry and Donna threw themselves into the backseat. “Go, go, go!” Jerry shouted. I stepped on the gas and sped away down the side street. Jerry and Donna were elated.

“I don’t believe it, Monica. A miracle just happened! Police were right there on the corner in a squad. Right there while we were painting the bench–they looked right past us. Didn’t even see us! I just don’t believe it.” Donna shouted into my ear. “Oh God, thank you,” she said ecstatically as she slumped back into the seat.

Five months later, on Saturday, November 3, just as women began to arrive at Biogenetics for their abortions, someone shot and killed Kenneth Yellin on Lower Michigan Avenue as he was on his way to the clinic to attend to the day’s business. There had been rumors that Biogenetics had ties to the Syndicate and Yellin’s death appeared to be a gangland-style execution. The Sun-Times reported that Yellin died with his head lying pathetically in the gutter and his face covered with garbage.

Talking women out of abortions, getting arrested at clinic sit-ins, and now blotting out abortion clinic ads–it seems I had become a radical. The killing of the unborn swept me away. One Saturday afternoon I was actually overcome with this sense of being different.  I had just returned to my Rogers Park apartment after sidewalk-counseling at Albany. It had been a hard morning. Out on the sidewalk Donna and I had spoken to a woman for over twenty minutes and she agreed with everything we said. She agreed the unborn baby was human, and that the baby had a right to live. She even agreed that abortion was a sin, but in the end she went into the clinic.  Now as I stood alone in my kitchen, I played back the conversation in my head. As I prepared myself a simple lunch I continued to think about the loss of the child. I opened the door to the refrigerator to retrieve a carton of milk. In the midst of reaching into the refrigerator my hand stopped.

I was gripped by a realization. I thought, “I’m not living in a normal world anymore.” Standing there, suspended in time with one arm in the fridge, I realized that “normal” could not apply to a world in which the murder of the unborn was protected by law–and that I could no longer consider myself a normal person. I knew that I could not live my life in the expected way–get an education, get a job, get married, buy a house. I felt I could not deal with those things. No, I had to be seized by a radical act. I had to drop everything–forget about milk and lunch. Babies are being murdered. They are being murdered down the street, in my own town. I know about it and I have to give up my life and do something about it!

To be pro-life is to be enveloped by a desperate, agonizing moment in history. As awareness of injustice grips you, you cannot free yourself and it is a suffering. Here was terrible loneliness. I felt alienated from the world, from my culture, my society. I even felt alienated from my own country. Words like “liberty and justice for all” didn’t seem real to me. I had a sense of painful separation. I had thrown in my lot with an unwanted people—and felt with them rejected. At the same time I also knew this was a time for great good. I knew lives could be saved. But I also felt the burden of being aware that a whole segment of the human family was denied their right to live.

This awareness made it hard just be free and enjoy life. The world was not a normal place anymore. So, when in the spring of 1980, my sister Laura invited me to accompany her on a trip overseas, my first knee-jerk thought was, “But I need to be at the abortion clinic.” But I ultimately decided to go—shaking off the irrational guilt of a vacationing activist.

The  first country we visited was England and it took me a while to learn to relax– to realize that the whole pro-life movement did not depend on me. We also traveled to Scotland and Ireland and spent the last three weeks of the trip in Italy, the country where my grandparents were born and raised. I was overwhelmed by the great beauty and culture of Italy: the art, the architecture—antiquity everywhere. Catholicism too was evident, from the hundreds of grand churches and small quaint chapels to the many priests and nuns out on the streets dressed in their distinctive garb. It is not unusual to see a little wayside shrine to the Madonna, or a small statue of a saint tucked into a tiny shrine at the corner of a building–something I certainly did not see very often in America. 

Yet in the Italy of the 1980s there was evidence of a creeping secularism. Italy, like the rest of Europe, was becoming more disengaged from its Christian past—even more materialistic. There was a growing sense that children were a burden, as though offspring were a kind of obstacle to self-fulfillment. Italy had not yet legalized abortion, but there were many in that country, particularly the Italian feminists, who in the early 1980s agitated for change. On the buses, for example, I saw ads that promoted birth control and praised couples who had only one or two children. In the early 1908s Italy had already begun its demographic slide into a negative birth rate. In the last two decades it has wavered between a dangerously low 1.2 to 1.3 children per couple, a rate that seriously threatens the future stability of the Italian population. 

My grandmother, Albina Milano, was born in Florence but came to America when she was seventeen. She had a sister, Caterina, who lived in Florence with her two daughters. Because of my family ties to this city, I loved visiting this place of antiquity and beauty, the town of Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and the Medicis. My sister and I checked into an inexpensive pensione on the Via Fienza, not far from the Florence train station. Guests shared rooms, sacrificing privacy to save a few lire. It was a clean place in an old, charming building on the narrow stone street. Our roommates were Joyce, a slender dark-haired, cheerful and extroverted forty-year-old, and Lonny, Joyce’s very quiet and rather sullen twenty-year-old daughter.

We arrived in Italy in early June and stayed at our pensione for four days. Every evening, despite the fact that Laura and I wanted to simply relax, Joyce engaged in animated chatter about her day’s adventures and asked us if we had done this or seen that. She had a high voice, a hint of a lisp, and talked incessantly. It seemed important for her to tell us all about herself.  She was flighty, immature and very proud of being a native Californian.  She also made much of the fact that she belonged to the Church of All Religions.

My sister and I were looking forward to leaving the pensione to stay with our grandmother's relatives in Figline, a small town just outside of Florence. We checked out of the hotel and said goodbye to Joyce and Lonny. I confess I had a sense of relief: we would never see them again.

Laura and I decided to sightsee separately for the morning and then later meet at the Academia to see the statue of David and other Michaelangelo sculptures. On my way to our rendezvous, I crossed over the cobblestones of the Piazza de Republico. On the wall of a building was a line of posters, most of them political in nature. There were political posters all over Italy, and I often saw signs promoting political parties such as the Christiano Democratia and the ubiquitous red poster bearing the hammer and sickle of the Italian Communist Party. On this wall I saw another poster, one which I was also now familiar. When I first saw it,  a similar sense of anger and dread passed through me as it had on the day I first saw the Albany ads on the Howard el line.

The poster featured black-and-white photos, superimposed against a bright purple background. Three women were walking towards the viewer. Around the neck of each hung a placard which read “Rosa, morta aborto clandestino, Elizabetha, morta aborto clandestino, Giola, morta aborto clandestino.” The poster promoted the legalization of abortion because women were dying from the Italian version of the back-alley abortion. The abortion movement in Italy was employing a public-relations tactic used to great effect by the movement in the United States: abortion needed to be legal so women could be safe.

I was on a much-needed vacation, a trip that took me away from the stresses of pro-life work, but I decided that I would do this one thing for the unborn while in Europe. I started to tear the sign down. I pulled at its edges; a few pieces started to give way, and I ripped them off. A young woman who held a dish towel in her hand came out from a small cappuccino bar a few doors away from the poster. She yelled loudly, “No! No! La polizia! La polizia!” From her gestures it appeared that she was not calling for the police but warning me about them. I said in my broken Italian, “Abortion non bueno.” She responded, “Si.” I assumed she was agreeing with me, but she continued to say “la polizia.” She even came over and took hold of my arm to lead me away from potential trouble. I pulled my arm back and said again, as I pointed to what was left of the sign, “Abortion non bueno. Abortion muerte. This sign is coming down.” I turned to finish what I had begun and the lady from the coffee shop went back inside, shaking her head in frustration.

 I turned back to the sign and once again began to peel it off the wall. In seconds I loosened two large strips of the purple ad and held them in my hand. The poster was essentially destroyed. From somewhere behind my left ear I heard a familiar voice.

“Hm. So you’re tearing down a poster.”

I looked over my shoulder. Joyce was standing there next to me with her daughter Lonny, who eyed me suspiciously. Joyce glanced at the pieces of poster in my hand and then shifted her gaze to what remained of the poster on the wall.

She looked perplexed. Lonny, however, glared at me with eyes filled with anger and distrust. I thought the daughter was definitely the brighter of the two women. Unlike the episode with Dr. Bloom, I decided this time I would not take the trouble to explain myself.

“Yes,” I said, smiling pleasantly as I jammed the purple cardboard shards into a nearby trash bin. “And now I am going to the Academia to see Michaelangelo’s David,” I stated, as if tearing down a pro-abortion poster was just another item on my list of things to see and do in Florence. Although my heart beat wildly, I smiled at the mother and daughter and swiftly made my escape in the direction of the museum.

***********

After I returned from Italy, Jerry Zealy and I struck up a closer friendship. I even went out on dates with him once or twice, although I had made it clear that it would have to be strictly platonic as I was not interested in romance or getting married. Jerry did not take me seriously and constantly tried to put his arm around me, hug me, kiss me, or hold my hand. I felt I had to put a stop to the dates, which were not very enjoyable in any case. Jerry was often in a sullen mood or would use our time together to complain about his job or express his intense anger about racial discrimination.

For the next two or three years, I saw Jerry only from time to time. We both lived in Rogers Park, so we occasionally ran into each other. On one such evening I was in the Loyola el train station when he came walking through very quickly. He seemed agitated. I asked him if he was okay. He told me that he had just resigned as president of the Legion of Mary chapter at St. Ignatius. He had just come from a meeting where he had gotten up and left. I nodded sympathetically, then we said goodbye and went our separate ways.

I saw him again sometime later as I was leaving St. Jerome's parish, another old Catholic Church on the far north side of Chicago.  It was a Sunday afternoon after Mass. I was walking down the very long aisle of the church as he was walking up, neatly dressed in a suit. Jerry was a reader at Mass and was probably arriving for the next liturgy. He had gained some weight and had a shorter haircut than usual. His eyes caught mine. They were unusually intense. I said hello to him. With a grim expression he nodded his head at me as a form of greeting, but he was silent. He seemed unhappy.

I later learned from mutual friends that Jerry had been fired from the job that he hated so much. Then I heard that Jerry was leaving town. He had decided to go back to his boyhood home in Tennessee and live with his father and his sisters. Jerry had been gone about a month when a former roommate of mine called me and told me the news. A strange numbness seemed to radiate from the phone in my hand. It spread throughout my body and settled into that hollow place in one’s heart that, when filled to the brim with pain, cannot absorb any more.

The evening winter sunset bathed my apartment in a soft yellow glow. I stared into space and thought, How could he do it? He believed in God, he prayed the rosary and attended daily Mass and believed in the sanctity of human life. Why wasn’t his religion enough? Could be that pro-lifers were are broken, vulnerable and human as anyone else?

It was on a gray and bitter cold February day when Joe Scheidler’s “mountain goat,” who had leapt the third rail to save the unborn, leapt the rail of a Tennessee bridge and plunged his own life into the dark waters of the river below.

 

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