Izzy Lyman
June 6, 2002

On the same day that Hampshire College sponsored an abortion rights conference, Birthright of Amherst celebrated twenty years of service to pregnant women.

"Birthright has welcomed 1,803 clients to our office since we opened its doors," said Ann Zimmerman, the Amherst area co-director, at the "birthday party" held at the Hickory Ridge Country Club in South Amherst, located about a mile from Hampshire College. "A woman has to be willing to walk through our doors, and a volunteer has to be willing to welcome her."

Birthright is a grassroots organization with the motto: "It is the right of every woman to give birth, and the right of every child to be born." It was founded in Canada in 1968 by the late Louise Summerhill, a homemaker and convert to Catholicism. Mrs. Summerhill sought to provide caring, accessible support to distressed girls and women facing unplanned pregnancies, as well as to offer practical services, like free pregnancy tests and maternity and baby clothes.

Birthright has about 500 chapters worldwide and provides information to help clients with legal, medical, financial and housing needs.

The celebration was an occasion to recognize tireless volunteers like Edna Johnson, the founder of the Amherst group, for assistance to women in crisis. "If it were not for Edna, Birthright would not exist," noted Ann Zimmerman.

A UMass/Amherst student and a new volunteer, Julie Matta, was also feted. In a letter distributed at the celebration, Matta wrote: "I have seen Birthright's benefits personally in this past month. A friend called to share with me that she is pregnant. She is twenty years old, living at home without a job. I told her about Birthright and what it offers - maternity and baby needs and, most importantly, loving support."

Dr. John R. Diggs, Jr., a specialist in internal medicine, who is a national advocate of sexual abstinence education, delivered the keynote address titled, "Being Pro-Life in a Pro-Choice State." Dr. Diggs, a resident of South Hadley, who has been a guest on The O'Reilly Factor, described himself as a "green beret" on the "front lines" for taking a high-profile stand against the libertines who oppose his position: The best place to have sex and raise children is in a committed marital relationship. Throughout Diggs' presentation, he used military metaphors.

"It is a war in every sense of the word," said Diggs. "You [Birthright] are as much an enemy to the other side as anybody else. What you do is equally offensive to people who are against life. You are getting the wounded from the front lines to come to the hospital. You are working against the culture of death as much as anyone who gets in Ted Kennedy's face."

Citing statistics from such organizations as the National Institutes of Health, Diggs built a strong case against unrestrained sexual activity. Some of the information he shared:

90% of women who have abortions are single.

65,000,000 Americans have an incurable, sexually transmitted disease.

Over 90% of cervical cancer (a disease which causes the deaths of 5,000 women in the United States every year) is sexually transmitted.

Condoms are not an effective deterrent to sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, chlamydia, and herpes.

Women who have abortions are twice as likely to have breast cancer as women who don't.

Criticizing school officials, medical professionals and the establishment media for withholding life-saving health care information from the public, Diggs lamented, "Americans are using condoms, thinking they are protecting themselves."

The health services at UMass/Amherst, for one, post the following information on its website: "Condoms are the most effective barrier to the spread of diseases transmitted by oral, anal, and/or vaginal sexual contact. Latex condoms have been tested and are effective as protection against such sexually transmitted diseases (STD's) as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, herpes, genital warts, and HIV."

In his closing remarks, Diggs told the Birthright volunteers that they could influence the abortion debate "one person at a time" and that they should frequently invoke the six-letter word, the key to victory -- prayer.

"We fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities," he said, quoting from Ephesians, a book of the New Testament.

For more information, visit www.birthright.org, or call their hotline, 1-800-550-4900.