Supporters, foes of Reproductive Freedom Act
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
NORTHFIELD — More than 50 pro-choice advocates gathered Sunday outside B.F. Mazzeo Fruit & Produce in Northfield along with a much smaller group of anti-abortion activists in a clash over reproductive rights.
The pro-choice rally, organized by Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, Assemblyman John Armato and Atlantic County Commissioner Caren Fitzpatrick (the legislators’ running mate in November’s elections) was arranged to counter what Fitzpatrick said has been months of harassment aimed at harming the livelihood of Mazzeo, whose family has owned and operated the produce market for decades.
In October, Mazzeo signed on as a co-sponsor of the Reproductive Freedom Act (S3030/A4848). Since that time, activists with the Pro Life Ministry of New Life Assembly of God in Egg Harbor Township and other groups have been demonstrating outside the produce market.
The Reproductive Freedom Act (S3030/A4848), or RFA, ensures state residents have the right to make their own health decisions when it comes to birth control and pregnancy-related care, including abortion. It also ensures financial barriers do not prevent anyone from making their own decisions when it comes to birth control and pregnancy-related care and expands access to such care by breaking down medically unnecessary restrictions that block access to care.
Reached by telephone after the rallies, Mazzeo said he has always supported women’s health care and will continue to do so despite the disruption to his family business. He said he helped provide $7.4 million for women’s health care during the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, who he did not support such funding.
“The idea of protesting in front of my store is just a way for them to get some type of publicity. It’s an easy shot to go after someone’s business,” he said. “They have a right to protest but it’s poor taste on their part to protest in front of my store.”
He said he has 57 employees who could potentially be harmed by the anti-abortion protests.
As far as the customers go, he said most of them support him and have done so since the market opened in 1959.
He also questioned why he would be a target of the group as a co-sponsor rather than the primary sponsors.
“If they are just coming after me, I’m an elected official, I understand. It’s what I signed up for. But this has to do with my family, my employees and my customers. It’s very disruptive but B.F. Mazzeo will survive,” he said.
Fitzpatrick said the RFA would “codify into New Jersey state law that abortion is legal in New Jersey and does not depend on the fragility of Roe v. Wade.”
Mazzeo and Armato’s legislative office is just a couple of hundred yards north on Route 9 but the group has targeted the assemblyman’s family business instead.
“We’re answering the anti-abortion protesters who’ve been coming to Mazzeo’s for several months. They haven’t been answered before in any of that time but since what happened in Texas last week, we decided to show what the majority of people think here in New Jersey and Atlantic County,” Fitzpatrick said. “Women’s health care is a personal choice. It’s not about birth control; it’s about women’s health care and the sometimes-excruciating decision that some couples have to make when they find that the fetus they are carrying is not viable.”
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to block a law that took effect Aug. 31 in Texas that prohibits abortions once a medical professional can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks.
The law differs significantly from others because it leaves enforcement up to private citizens through civil lawsuits instead of criminal prosecutions. The law allows people to sue abortion providers who violate the law, as well as anyone who aids or abets a woman getting the procedure. The patients cannot be sued. There is no exception for incest or rape. The complainant is entitled to at least $10,000 in damages if he or she wins in court.
Northfield resident David Goldstein said the protesters should be outside the legislative offices instead of outside the business.
“The woman with the bullhorn is not just sticking up for the unborn, she is hurting an innocent man,” Goldstein said. “Go protest in front of his office. The people who own the business aren’t even in politics.”
Goldstein, who noted he has relatives who were killed by Nazis in the 1920s, said the Texas law “is no different than what the Stalinists and the Nazis did.”
“Imagine you did something that your neighbor didn’t like and you could make money by turning him in. Whether you did it or not, people are going to turn you in. It starts with this kind of bulls—-,” Goldstein said.
Lining both sides of busy Route 9, activists sported signs reading “Politicians are not doctors,” “My mind, my body, my freedom,” “Stop the war against women” and, with a different spin, “Legislate penises.”
Initially on one side of the road then moving over to occupy both sides after the pro-choice group moved closer toward the team’s legislative offices, the anti-abortionists numbered about 15.
They were led by Ethel Hermenau, who operates the Pro Life Ministry at New Life Assembly of God in Egg Harbor Township.
Yelling through a bullhorn and toting a sign with a picture of an 11-week-old aborted fetus, Hermenau said the group has been there many times with bigger crowds to protest Mazzeo’s support for the RFA.
“The New Jersey Reproductive Freedom Act, we call it the ‘New Jersey Right to Kill Bill’ for a reason — it’s infanticide. They can abort at 9 months or over,” Hermenau said, alleging abortion doctors “harvest baby parts” and sell their organs.
“God never meant for us to kill our children. Sixty million dead since Roe v. Wade. We’ve wiped out generations, for convenience mostly,” she said.
Hermenau said she supports Texas’ law.
“When they hear a heartbeat, then they are not going to kill a baby. That’s a life. That baby doesn’t have the same DNA the mother has, they have their own DNA,” she said.
Hermenau said incorrectly that it’s not true the Texas law puts bounties on people assisting with abortions.
“If you’re going to kill a baby that has a heartbeat and it’s against the law, then you need to be arrested. Having an abortion right now at 9 months, they are trying to make legal. Right now it’s not, so we are fighting for that because that baby needs a voice, that baby deserves a voice,” Hermenau said, noting she has “had abortions.”
“God changed my life and showed me how much he hates abortion. If we can kill our own children, what’s to stop us from killing anybody?” said Hermenau, who has been leading the pro-life ministry for the past 10 years.
Hermenau posted the following message on the group’s Facebook page, Pro-Life in Action-Galloway/South Jersey, four days before the rally.
“Let’s send the message to Vince Mazzeo and all politicians in south and north jersey (sic). We will not back down, we are not going away. We will stand in defense of the least of these,” it stated, along with some prayers for the assemblyman’s soul.
Fitzpatrick said Texas’ law won’t eliminate abortion, just safe abortion.
“Women are still going to, for whatever their personal reasons they feel that they need to end a pregnancy, whether it’s for the health of the women, viability of the embryo — whatever the reason — women are still going to do that,” she said
Fitzpatrick claims restricting abortions puts more women at risk and unduly affects the poor.
“Women of privilege will be able to travel out of state. Poor women, no matter what their color or ethnicity, won’t be able to travel out of state so chances are they’ll try to handle it themselves,” she said, adding that more unwanted births leads to difficulty feeding, clothing and educating children as well as prevents women from doing things for themselves to lift them out of poverty.
The Linwood resident also said Texas’ law also drives another wedge in the great divide among the nation’s populace.
“What they are doing is they are pitting people against people because the law offers a bounty on anyone who assists a woman in having an abortion. That’s how they were able to get around Roe v. Wade,” she said. “They don’t have law enforcement enforcing the law; they have basically bounty hunters enforcing the law — it’s neighbor vs. neighbor and it’s wrong.
“If people don’t like abortions, they don’t need to have one but they shouldn’t be able to tell women what to do with their bodies,” Fitzpatrick said. “Choice over your family planning is the first step toward economic independence for women.”
Brian Tyrrell, the father of three daughters, brought Reagan, 15, a student at Atlantic County Institute of Technology, from Galloway Township for the event. He said a woman’s right to control her own body is as important to a man as it is to a woman. Reagan said it was her first time participating in a rally but that she would definitely do so more in the future.
On the anti-abortion side, friends Destiney Harris, 14, and Alexis Sessoms, 11, of Egg Harbor Township, brought 3-year-old Danielle with them. Destiney said they were participating “to show that babies don’t deserve to be killed in the womb. They are the same as babies that are outside the womb. You wouldn’t kill a baby outside the womb because you would go to jail.”
Alexis said she has eight sisters and a brother and if one of them had been aborted they would not be here today.
“If you killed us we wouldn’t be here today and you wouldn’t know the joy of having that little child,” Destiney said.
Pat Scamoffa of Somers Point said it was important to participate in the rally because she has daughters, granddaughters and friends who are women.
“This is our right that we control our bodies. It’s a God-given gift, part of God’s plan, and we should control it,” she said. “The government has got to give us that opportunity to have some sort of control.”
