Dr. James S. Pendergraft IV was honored as a Courageous Resister by Refuse & Resist! at a ceremony in New York City on November 15. Representatives of national pro-choice organizations attended as the audience heard the story of how Dr. Pendergraft, harassed and threatened by anti-abortionists, has remained firm in his commitment to provide abortions at his five Florida women's health care clinics.
The African-American physician has been the focus of ongoing local government efforts to keep him from opening clinics in central Florida, and was hit with a federal government indictment in June on charges that he attempted to extort the local government by lying about threats against him by anti-abortionists. He is going to trial in federal court in Ocala, Florida on December 11. He faces up to 30 years in prison, a million dollars in fines, and loss of his license. An attorney and National Organization for Women activist who is support him has called the indictment "a sham and a frame-up", designed to punish him for fighting the anti-abortionists.
The "Right to Fight Coalition" was formed to defend Dr. Pendergraft, publishing an ad in the Orlando Weekly signed by feminist Gloria Steinem, Marcia Anne Gillespie, the editor of Ms. Magazine, and hundreds of other. Refuse & Resist! is helping to organize supporters to attend his trial, and to barrage the court with the demand that the charges be dismissed. The Reproductive Freedom Task Force of R&R! has called the prosecution of Dr. Pendergraft, and Dr. Bruce Steir last year on murder charges, a "new front" of efforts to stop abortion providers, as governments have brought criminal charges against doctors who provide abortions.
Dr. Pendergraft's patients, colleagues, and supporters are outraged at what they call a "political prosecution" of the board-certified Obstetrician/gynecologist based in Orlando, Florida. In a state where two doctors have been murdered by anti-abortion shooters, he specializes in performing late-term abortions, up to 28 weeks, which only a few physicians in the world are able to do. Dr. Sangeeta Pati, a colleague trained in obstetrics and gynecology by Dr. Pendergraft, explained, "He's one of the most compassionate and proficient physicians I have ever seen. He has a fierce dedication to a woman's right to choose, and he's one who really cares."
As he presented the "Courageous Resister" award, Robert Rockwell, MD, called Dr. Pendergraft and all doctors who provide abortions "heroes", saying, "The war to keep abortion legal is one of the most important battles in the fight to defeat the politics of cruelty and its 'traditional morality'. At its root the debate over abortion is about what role women will play in society. Without the ability to choose abortion and birth control women will indeed become a slave within the family with all of her choices made by men."
A graduate of Meharry Medical College, "Dr. P", as his patients call him, trained in obstetrics and the care of high-risk pregnancies. While Chief of Perinatalogy at D.C. General Hospital, he trained young residents in a full range of reproductive health procedures for women. In 1980, when studying at Tuskegee University Hospital as a medical student, he cared for two women in one month who died from infection caused by "back-street" abortions. He came to believe that "abortion is a right for women. It is something to be taken seriously."
As a young physician he traveled the state of Florida, and as far as Maine and Missouri to do abortions where other doctors were not available. Christina Page, of NARAL-NY, told the audience that lack of doctors willing to risk doing abortions is a major problem for women in exercising choice. "Today 50% of abortion doctors are at or just short of the age of retirement, so in the next few years we could be losing half of our abortion services not to violence, or a Supreme Court decision, but to elder hostels and golf courses. Only 12% of OB-GYN programs offer any abortion training. When they do, it's offered as an elective, leaving it up to the resident to choose whether or not they learn to do abortions, the most common surgical procedure a woman in the U.S. undergoes today."
In 1991, a "wanted poster" was produced by an anti-abortion group, featuring the doctor's photo, taken as he passed through an airport, his home phone number, and the names of his family and children. He has been forced to wear a bullet-proof vest and arm himself to go to work. Dr. Michael Levi, owner of Ambulatory Surgery Center of Brooklyn, a Columbia University School of Medicine professor who has provided abortion services since 1970, told those assembled to honor Dr. Pendergraft that "harassment, violence, insults, economic difficulties are the sacrifices that we go through every day in order to provide what is the right of 53% of the human race that are women: dignified freedom of choice. We don't have it, because abortion clinics are war zones."
Dr. Pendergraft related how he opened his own clinic in Orlando in 1996, winning a lawsuit against the city to do so. As patients came from all over the world to terminate problem pregnancies, he opened four more clinics, including one in Ocala, a small city in central Florida where the previous clinic had been destroyed by arson in 1989, a crime for which no one was ever charged. A hostile anti-abortion group brought 500 people to picket the new clinic's opening in 1998, and kept a constant presence outside the clinic's entrance, videotaping patients, and recording their license tags to harass them further at home.
An aggressive official campaign to keep Dr. Pendergraft from opening the Ocala clinic began in 1997, with a letter from the Chairman of the Marion County Board of Commissioners informing Dr. Pendergraft that he was not welcome in the city of Ocala. Because of the constant threats to his patients and staff, he asked the city for permission to hire off-duty police officers as security. His request was arbitrarily denied, and Dr. Pendergraft filed a civil suit to challenge the decision.
Dr. Pendergraft won in federal court, but in the ongoing effort to keep his clinic out of Ocala, anti-abortion kept after him. convinced federal government prosecutors that this civil suit was an attempt to extort money from Marion County. The FBI began monitoring him, secretly video-taping conversations between County officials, himself, and his attorney, reported Pendergraft. In the June of this year, he was indicted on charges of Federal conspiracy, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to extort.
He says of the charges, "I can tell you that I've done no wrong. I filed that suit to try and push them back, knowing it was conspiracy on their part. Somehow they reversed it onto me. Even though this prosecution is against me, it's against all women and your rights. We have to take a stand to stop this now, before this type of scenario continues to spread across the country."
Dr. Rockwell, calling Dr. Pendergraft "a role model for those of us who want a better world", said the Courageous Resister distinction was deserved because Dr. Pendergraft "has refused to become a victim of the newest strategy of anti-abortion foes who now use the legal arena to keep doctors from providing abortions. He has spoken out and told the world about the politically motivated indictment."
Dr. Rockwell told about other recipients of the Courageous Resister Award. Margarita and Anthony Rosario formed Parents Against Police Brutality after their son was shot in the back and killed by NYPD. Abner Louima, became an advocate against police brutality, and Magalie Laurent, a nurse, came forward to report the attack on Louima by the NYPD. Dr. Rockwell, National Secretary of Refuse & Resist!, said supporting individual acts of resistance will help build a movement. "From the dismantling of welfare and affirmative action, to the recent beating of immigrants on Long Island, from police brutality to the limitation of access to reproductive freedom, from attacks on gays and lesbians to the imprisonment of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, we are fighting one political agenda-which is truly a politics of cruelty."
Further information about the case is posted at http://www.righttofight.org
[posted 11/24/00]
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