COVID-19 sparked petition to stop prayer walk at CLT abortion clinic. 137K sign it.
Reiley Baker, a UNC Chapel Hill student from Charlotte, said concerns over spread of the novel coronavirus prompted her to start a petition to stop a prayer walk Saturday at a Charlotte abortion clinic.
By Thursday afternoon, at least 137,000 people had signed the change.org petition in just three days.
“They’ll travel back to their communities across North Carolina and possibly spread COVID-19,” Baker told The Charlotte Observer on Thursday of the disease caused by the virus.
Local organizers could not be reached, but a spokesman for the national Love Life organization, gave no indication that the event would be called off.
The walk is scheduled for 9-11 a.m. outside A Preferred Women’s Health Center on Latrobe Drive, where protesters have gathered each day for years.
The 20-year-old Baker said she volunteers at the center. She has joined others in holding signs that direct patients into the center and helps drown out particularly loud protesters, she said.
Baker said she’s heard protesters saying for weeks how Saturday’s “Love Life Week 40 Prayer Walk” is expected to be the biggest of the year, drawing thousands of people from across the Carolinas.
“I am calling for the forced cancellation of this event in order to protect the safety and health of our community and its citizens from a further worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Baker wrote.
“To our representatives, we ask you to help us in protecting Charlotte and putting the health of its citizens first,” Baker wrote in a message to Gov. Roy Cooper, Charlotte City Council, law enforcement and public health officials and others.
Community risk, student says
In her petition, Baker cites North Carolina’s “almost 19,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 200 new deaths in the last seven days,” according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Mecklenburg County has seen the worst of it, with more cases and deaths than any other county in North Carolina — 38,526 and 417, respectively,” according to the petition.
Baker acknowledged in the petition that N.C. Executive Order 169 exempts religious gatherings from Cooper’s COVID-19 Stage 3 mandates. But “this gathering takes place in extremely close proximity to a medical facility, where its employees, patients, and volunteers will be involuntarily put at risk by the irresponsibility of this group’s actions,” she wrote.
“The event’s attendees will go back home to their families, jobs, and communities and put additional unsuspecting people at risk,” according to the petition.
Love Life COVID-19 measures
Baker’s areas of study at UNC Chapel Hill are public policy and environmental studies.
She attributed the large number of signatures on her petition largely to her and other clinic volunteers’ strong followings on TikTok, the video-sharing site. She has 380,000 TikTok followers, she said, adding the other center volunteers also helped start the petition drive.
In an email, the Observer asked Andre Gonzalez, Charlotte director of the non-profit Love Life organization, to respond to the statements made in the petition.
A national Love Life official replied with a statement that did not say how many people are expected Saturday, but listed the ways Love Life manages its prayer walk participants during the pandemic.
Measures include providing masks and hand sanitizer at all of its prayer walks nationwide, according to the statement from Love Life official Josh Kappes.
“We encourage all participating to wear face coverings, especially in states and cities where they are mandated,” Kappes said.
“For those who are medically fragile or who live in households with at-risk family members, we are encouraging you to participate online,” according to the statement.
“A live-streamed event will be taking place across all of our Week 40 locations via www.lovelife.org/live,” Kappes said.
Ted Cruz knocked police action
In April, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police charged eight abortion protesters outside the center with violating North Carolina’s COVID-19-related ban on mass gatherings.
The arrests soon went national when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas criticized the police action.
“This is an unconstitutional arrest,” Cruz, a runner-up for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 election, tweeted. “@BenhamBrothers exercising core First Amendment rights. PEACEFULLY. In a way fully consistent w/ public safety. Because elected Dems are pro-abortion, they are abusing their power—in a one-sided way—to silence pregnancy counselors.”
About 50 protesters gathered outside the center that day, the Observer reported.
“After an initial request for compliance, 12 people who were in violation refused to leave” and were cited under state law for violation of emergency prohibitions and restrictions, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department news release.
After police issued the citations, eight of the protesters still refused to leave and were arrested, according to CMPD.
Several weeks later, the leader of a group of Charlotte abortion protesters sued the city and Mecklenburg County over what he called the group’s “targeted,” wrongful arrests, the Observer reported.
In his lawsuit, David Benham said the group complied with COVID-19 social distancing measures during its April 4 protest outside A Preferred Women’s Health Center, and that police violated the protesters’ First Amendment rights to speech and religious exercise.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 3:28 PM with the headline "COVID-19 sparked petition to stop prayer walk at CLT abortion clinic. 137K sign it.."