It was a somewhat sad, quaint scene; I got out of an Uber and noticed eyes on me immediately. I had arrived at Planned Parenthood's flagship Manhattan center. It's supposed to close and be sold, but for now it's still in operation. Saturday used to be a big day for surgical abortions here, but in the days of chemical abortions, things have changed. The only sign of life was a security guard, half in and half out of the back door, mostly looking at his phone. This Planned Parenthood is closed Saturdays now, and I showed up for a perfunctory "Defund" rally in advance of final passage of the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" set to make history by cutting federal funding for Planned Parenthood for the first time.
Congress cutting funding makes sense. After the Dobbs decision upended Roe v. Wade, we're supposedly a state-by-state nation when it comes to abortion. Some of us would point out that leaving crucial life issues up to the states didn't work so well for slavery, but that's for another time. For now, Planned Parenthood defenders argue that cutting funding -- even for a year, which is the time frame Congress eventually landed on, down from an initial 10 years passed by the House -- amounts to a backdoor ban on abortion.
Besides the security guard, I noticed one man dressed in black on my side of the street (across from the clinic), hanging near a condo doorway, and another well-coifed man by another door. I assumed both might be extra Planned Parenthood security. I started praying silently, and before too long, a familiar pro-life influencer popped by, with a photographer. She had recently been attacked by a woman she was interviewing about abortion. They had a few takers for engagement this time, but nothing too colorful.
It turned out, by the way, the man in black was on the pro-life side, and so was the one with the good head of hair.
The latter explained he felt called to stand against abortion and help women when he can. Around the same time their side was identified, two shy young women appeared and asked why I was there. I was happily in anonymous mode -- if the rosary beads didn't give me away -- and so I turned the question on them, but one giggled and said "Never mind. No worries." Before too long, they revealed their handwritten signs.
"Roe v. Wade wasn't broken you just hate women."
"Planned Parenthood=Health Care," with a red heart as a closer.
Neither seemed interested in accusing any actual person of hating women, and the conversations they had with supporters and detractors of their cause were muted and brief.
There were no fireworks that Saturday morning. There was a little prayer. Precious little, but some conversation. There was an unintentional outing of the awkwardness of it all for the nonconfrontational, and a great representation of what most Americans are about: Caring that women have options. We might not meet constructively there on a specific street corner in Manhattan, but we owe humanity doing so in many painfully challenging, circumstances of life.
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)