11/16/2007
Builder won’t budge on MLK abortion project
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| Builder won’t budge on MLK abortion project |
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Ed Langlois
Those who oppose a new abortion center in Northeast Portland have had no success in convincing the builder to break the contract.
Walsh Construction intends to go ahead with the $12 million, 40,000-square-foot building that will house Planned Parenthood offices and operation rooms on Martin Luther King Boulevard. In the past, the company has worked on Catholic projects like Assumption Village, the Newman Center at Oregon State University and De La Salle North Catholic High School.
Bill Diss, organizer of the opposition to the Planned Parenthood Project, says he is having Masses said for the construction firm.
Foes of the project say that Planned Parenthood — through pamphlets, websites and other outlets — advances a culture of promiscuity that will lead to more youth sex and more youth abortions. They don’t want that in their neighborhood.
Vivian Parker, a Maranatha Church member who lives a mile away from the proposed Planned Parenthood building, visited the offices of Walsh Construction last month. Officials were polite but insistent that the company simply builds without considering politics. Parker, aware that Walsh has constructed other not-for-profit buildings, appealed to their sense of reputation.
“An abortion mill — a place that kills babies. Is this really something you want your name associated with?” she asked.
Andrew Beyer, Walsh’s project manager, says the construction firm is dealing with developers Beech Street Partners, not Planned Parenthood. Beyer calls the project “an important project in the redevelopment of Northeast Portland.”
Beyer admitted that Planned Parenthood is controversial, but says that there are two sides to the issue.
“Abortion has been the subject of a long debate and there are always counter-arguments,” he says. “But now, it is the law of the land. It is not up to us to make this determination.”
Diss, in his meeting with Walsh officials, made mention of the 19th-century Dred Scott Supreme Court case, which held that African Americans cannot be considered persons. That decision proved wrong and Roe. v. Wade will follow suit, Diss predicted.
Some of the 400 protesters who came to the MLK site earlier this month have been calling Walsh Construction to urge the builder not to finalize the contract.
At the Nov. 4 action, called a Life Chain, Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth Steiner, Father Slider Steuernol, Father Nicolaus Marandu and Deacon Harold Burke Sivers held signs. The bulk of demonstrators appeared to be Catholic families.
The Beech Street project is especially controversial because the City of Portland had a major hand in bringing Planned Parenthood to the site. The city’s urban renewal office had considered other options, but when that fell through, staff paved the way for the clinic and abortion business.
Furthering tension, some African American leaders have characterized the abortion site as a cynical attempt to boost income, since African American women tend to have more abortion than other groups. Some skeptics even consider the project a step in a genocide, eliminating African American babies.
Beech Street Partners is made up of Tim Ray, James Adamson, Brett Anderson, and Bruce Heywood. They attempted to lure a health clinic to the site, but at a February Portland Development Commission meeting, the partners called Planned Parenthood “an excellent alternative.” During the meeting, they discussed ways to minimize protests at the site.
During the past five years, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette has more than doubled in size, with an annual budget that went from $6 million to $16 million. The number of patients served each year went from 25,000 to more than 56,000.
A similar fight over a new abortion site is under way in Denver. There, pro-lifers are maintaining a peaceful prayer vigil outside the home of a contractor who plans to build a large Planned Parenthood building in an African-American neighborhood.
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