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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Crime & Police : Gender and Sexuality : Health : Right Wing |
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Lawsuit Says Women Were Misled to Delay Abortions |
Current rating: 0 |
by Shaila K. Dewan
(No verified email address) |
05 Aug 2004
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Anti-abortion scam artist on trial for false advertising, fraud and trademark infringement; tactic designed to deny women a choice |
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 4 - To the panicked women who called the number for the Causeway Center for Women, listed in the phone book under "abortion services," William A. Graham was a soothing voice on the other end of the line.
What he offered sounded much better than an abortion clinic: a Saturday appointment with a private physician, in a hospital, at a bargain price. Besides, he warned them, abortion clinics regularly botched procedures and left women sterile.
But the women found it difficult to pin Mr. Graham down to a day and time. Week after week, they say, he would cancel their appointments, always reassuring them with calm explanations.
In a federal lawsuit, seven women now charge that Mr. Graham never intended to refer them for an abortion at all, but was merely stalling until it was too late.
On Wednesday, Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of United States District Court ordered Mr. Graham to disconnect his phone because he had caused "irreparable harm" to the women and to Causeway Medical Clinic, an abortion provider that is also suing Mr. Graham. The lawsuit accuses Mr. Graham, who has operated the phone service since 1993, of false advertising, fraud and trademark infringement.
Unknown to the women, said officials of Planned Parenthood of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta, Mr. Graham is a vigorous opponent of abortion who has picketed doctors' officers and videotaped people attending events for Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion rights.
According to a 1995 article in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Mr. Graham and his wife, Bonnie, once ran A Woman's Day Clinic, which she described as a "pro-life" clinic for pregnant women and women who had had abortions.
In 2002, Mr. Graham enrolled in the state's anti-AIDS condom distribution program, picked up 30,000 free condoms and discarded them. He pleaded guilty to theft and is on probation.
Five of the women who sued Mr. Graham said in court affidavits that his tactics had forced them to carry their pregnancies to term, either because they had passed the legal time limit for abortions - generally at the end of the second trimester - or they could no longer afford an abortion, which tends to cost more later in a pregnancy.
One of the women already had a child with hemophilia who required constant care. Now she has two. "I also did not want to bring another severely ill child into this world or be in the position where I am unable to give my children the full care and attention they need," she wrote in an affidavit under the name Jane Doe No. 4.
The plaintiffs are being represented free by lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights, a national abortion-rights organization, and the New York law firm Morrison & Foerster. Mr. Graham, who did not accept money from the women who called him, is representing himself.
Mr. Graham, 53, said in an interview this week that the lawsuit was part of a campaign of harassment by Causeway Medical Clinic, one of only a handful of abortion providers in Louisiana, and that he wants to steer women away from places that have a history of injuring women. But he denied having ever demonstrated at an abortion clinic and denied trying to keep anyone from an abortion.
Asked if his intention was to help a woman do so, he said, "It's my intention that her health and welfare be maintained."
With no job, no high school diploma, a boyfriend in jail and a mother who is terminally ill, Mary Schloegel, 19, says she is in no position to raise a child. Mr. Graham promised her an abortion for $125, she said in an interview at her home in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb. (The typical cost is about $300 in the first trimester to about $2,000 at 24 weeks.) He would give her a Saturday afternoon appointment, she said, and promised to call shortly before to tell her where to go. But the call never came.
His explanations seemed reasonable: The doctors worked on their own time so no one would know they performed abortions. He could not reveal the name of the doctor or hospital in advance for security reasons. When he failed to call, he would explain later that the doctor had had an emergency, or had been too busy that day. This went on, Ms. Schloegel said, week after agonizing week. Mr. Graham also told her to drink milk and stop smoking, she said.
One day Ms. Schloegel's mother, Elizabeth Nette, tried to call Mr. Graham but dialed Causeway Medical Clinic by mistake. That is when the family learned that he was, as Ms. Schloegel put it, "a fake." But they could not afford the $600 it would cost for an abortion at that late date. Ms. Schloegel, now eight months' pregnant, said Mr. Graham robbed her of her right to make a choice.
"I don't understand why he does this to people," Ms. Schloegel said. "What does he get out of it? What right does he have?"
Mr. Graham said he could not provide the names of doctors to whom he makes referrals, because of the controversial nature of abortion. He said he did not keep track of how many women he referred, nor whether any actually terminated their pregnancies, because he considered it a private matter between a woman and her doctor. "I have referred women to physicians that have performed abortions," he said.
Robert E. Winn, founder of Louisiana Right to Life, said of Mr. Graham, "I think he's known for his very pronounced anti-abortion stand," adding, "and I can say this for sure: he's never worked with what you might describe as mainstream right-to-life groups."
After the hearing Wednesday, a reporter asked Mr. Graham if he was "pro-abortion." Mr. Graham replied, "We're pretty much pro-woman."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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