Progressive pro-lifers throw wrench into media abortion narrative

Progressive, atheist, feminist and vegan animal rights advocates Terrisa Bukovinac and Kristin Turner might not fit the mainstream media's stereotypical mold of pro-life activists, but the prominent voices of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising and Pro-Life San Francisco think they walk the walk in championing equality for all, including the unborn. 

The tenacious activists have protested tirelessly, refusing to leave abortion clinics while speaking with potential patients, marching in front of the Supreme Court and even facing arrests. Now they are sharing their perspectives that often seem glossed over by the mainstream media.

"I think a part of me always had a sensitivity to animals," Bukovinac told Fox News Digital. 

After growing up in a pro-choice church, Bukovinac said she shared the same ideas, but she said losing her religion compelled her to become more in-tune with the sanctity of life.

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"People would challenge me online. They would say, 'How can you care about the animals if you don't care about unborn babies being killed? And I bet you support Planned Parenthood, don't you?' I didn't really think about that because losing this belief in a life after death and a belief that God is going to right all the wrongs in the end is kind of what kept me out of the abortion debate for a long time," she said.

Turner, on the other hand, said her experiences with sexual abuse, a pregnancy scare that compelled her to consider abortion as an option and her realization of how the procedure is performed forced her to change her pro-choice stance.

"I researched, and I watched the abortion procedure videos, and stuff like that made me realize, 'Wow, that's a human being.' Silently killing them would never undo the trauma that I faced," she said.

"I had a sense of identification with a child because I felt inhuman [following sexual assault]. I felt unseen because of the abuse I faced. I felt like somebody could throw me away and nobody would notice, and so it was both that humanization of the child and identification with them that made me realize that as a feminist, I couldn't support killing children."

Both Bukovinac and Turner have experienced their share of media stereotyping and have pushed back against it, and a recent blog post from MSNBC's The ReidOut became the most recent display.

The post portrayed Turner as a "Christian nationalist" in the thumbnail.

"It's ironic because I'm an atheist," Turner said. "I think it's really interesting that they do have to use such labels to try and fit a specific idea of what a pro-life position is. And I think that that's pretty much been their only go-to strategy in terms of media messaging for the last 50 years."

MSNBC didn't reply to a request for comment.

Turner says the mainstream media feeds off people's identities – especially the identities of marginalized groups – to create further division on the issue.

"As somebody who belongs to marginalized identity groups, I find it very problematic that they're weaponizing that to dehumanize unborn human beings," she said.

Bukovinac had a similar media experience to Turner's when Salon published an article about "Republican Karens" fighting to "end legal abortion" and featured her image in the thumbnail. Salon issued a correction after being alerted to the mistake and told Fox News Digital it had changed the featured image. 

"[Stereotyping pro-lifers] is the primary tactic of the other side to keep the pro-life movement inaccessible so that somehow the abortion industrial complex keeps their power, but it is a lie, and you see how the erasure is so pervasive. If we don't get the left to stand up, then they're going to just keep trying to pretend like we don't exist," she said, adding, "We're here, we exist."

Bukovinac added that her capacity for change boils down to alleviating the fear of the state stifling her voice, including its ability to put her behind bars.

"This is how Gandhi, how MLK, how every nonviolent social justice movement begins – by showing people that you don't have to be afraid to be arrested. Once the state can't hold that threat of arrest over you, then you start to disarm and dismantle these systems that oppress people," she said.

Putting words into action, Bukovinac and Turner found themselves in a dustup during a "rescue" event at the Alexandria Women's Center in Alexandria, Va., last November, an incident for which they recently served four-day jail sentences.

"We handed out pink roses to the patients with information tied onto them, and we counseled the moms. We let them know that there are other resources for them, that we can help them financially. They can call the number attached to the roses and know we're there for them, that there is hope," Turner said.

She added that, when clinic employees realized the pro-life group was present in the lobby, their clients were moved to another waiting area.

"We talked to some of the patients through a door to the new waiting room and said, 'Hey, you don't have to do this today.'" The situation quickly escalated, however.

"We remained in the facility in solidarity with the babies until the police arrived," Bukovinac said. "The police told us to leave, and we told them we weren't leaving and that they should join us in our fight. They shouldn't be helping the oppressors, they should be fighting for life and for justice, and that they should recuse themselves from our arrest, but they didn't. They arrested us anyway."

For both activists, however, knowing they provided options for the patients made the experience worthwhile.

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"It was our right to be there, and it was the right of the unborn child in there to have people speak on their behalf, and we knew the consequences that came with that," Turner said. "We were willing to take them and serve that time and go through the due process in place of a child who is denied due process under law."

"Five of the patients decided not to go through with the abortion that day…" Bukovinac claimed. "We saved five babies."

Sparked by controversial undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue from abortions, as well as Donald Trump's first run for president, Bukovinac founded Pro-Life San Francisco, where Turner works as executive director. She later founded Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, where Turner also serves as communications director, and became involved with Secular Pro-Life. 

"I was secretly pro-life until I saw other people like me," she said. "But when Trump announced his run for the presidency… he was talking about the life issue and none of the other candidates kind of were. He was really kind of forming a platform off of it, and I just knew that there's no way that someone like Donald Trump would have any effect on people in my community, San Francisco, leftist and secular people like myself, on the issue of abortion."

PAAU also drew the attention of lawmakers and activists with the "Justice for the Five" campaign in Washington, D.C., inspired by the remains of five allegedly terminated through partial-birth abortion or abortion after birth.

Turner additionally spoke out on a proposition to legalize abortion up to birth in California, a proposition she believes will lead the state in the wrong direction.

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"California needs to protect its citizens. We are one of those states with the best social programs in terms of health care and things like that. We would actually get help, but we are, at the same time, killing our children, and that's not going to help us," Turner said.

Bukovinac said pro-life Democrats need to emerge from the shadows and "pressure the party to change" and acknowledge their existence.

"My calling in the movement has always been to create a space for leftist progressives," she said. "When I'm looking at the landscape of the issue in America, from my perspective, the problem is the Democratic Party has successfully pushed all the ‘pro-lifers’ out of their party. They have harbored this toxic relationship with the abortion industrial complex, and that is what's giving the abortion industrial complex power in this country.

"Abortion is murder. and we need to act like it."

In the meantime, Bukovinac, Turner and other pro-life progressives are focused on seeing abortion come to an end nationwide. 

"We're dancing on the grave of Roe v. Wade," Bukovinac said. "But the real work is only beginning."

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Turner left with a message for those facing crisis pregnancies to tell them they had options.

"They're not alone. We are here for them. And if they contact me or anybody from PAAU, we will make sure their bills are paid, they're fed, their children are fed, and that they can live in a safe and sustainable way with that human dignity that they deserve. That is what our battle is on the ground."