Posts Written by Bria
By Bria Murray • 11 years ago

Open Letter to Representative Trent Franks: What Caring About Women and Babies Really Looks Like

Dear Representative Trent Franks,

Today, I watched you debate during the markup for HR 3803, or, as you may know it, the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortion after 20 weeks in Washington, DC.  I watched you valiantly fight to save “the children” from their pain even in the case of rape or incest, or when a mother has been diagnosed with cancer and the treatment needed to save her life is incompatible with the continuation of her pregnancy.  I watched you warn the rest of the judiciary committee that abortions are linked to higher rates of suicide, even though this “fact”, and the basis for the bill itself (that 20-week-old fetuses can feel pain) flies in the face of all accredited scientific evidence.

And all I could think about was September 7, 2007.

It may seem strange to you.  September 7, 2007 was almost 5 years ago.  Why think about that now?  And why such a specific date?

September 7, 2007 was the night I was raped.

September 7, 2007 was the night that my rapist’s sperm met my egg and I was impregnated with the child of my rapist.

I thought about all of this as I watched you passionately advocate on behalf of “the tiny little babies” and the only reaction I could muster was how dare you.

How dare you, Representative Franks.  Your claim of caring about the “pain of the tiny babies” rings hollow when one remembers your support of the Ryan ...
By Bria Murray • 11 years ago

Voice of Choice: Turning the tables on anti-choice bullies

It seemed one of the most unlikely places for an anti-abortion protest – a quiet, suburban middle school during back-to-school night. And yet, there they were, pictures of bloody fetuses in hand, and the picture, name and phone number of Todd Stave, entrepreneur and owner of a Germantown, Maryland building that houses one the most protested clinics in America: the offices Dr. LeRoy Carhart, of one of the only doctors in America to openly acknowledge that he performs late-term abortions.

This is a fight that is not new to Stave – his father, Carl Stave, was an abortion provider in the era immediately following Roe v. Wade that operated in the very same clinic. The clinic was firebombed and protesters once ...

It seemed one of the most unlikely places for an anti-abortion protest – a quiet, suburban middle school during back-to-school night. And yet, there they were, pictures of bloody fetuses in hand, and the picture, name and ...