So I lied: whatever happened to the abortion lobbyist who repented? - Ron Fitzgerald, head of National Coalition of Abortion Providers, and the partial birth abortion issue - Interview

Progressive, The, Sept, 1997 by Melanie Conklin

He says that if the majority of clinics had told him to resign, he would have. But, some directors say they had good reason to stand by him -- even though they were upset by the fallout from his comments.

Peg Johnston is an NCAP founder who runs the Southern Tier Women's Services clinic near Binghamton, New York. She says whenever she needed to talk to someone about the stresses of running an abortion clinic, or wanted advice on a specific business problem, Fitzsimmons listened, while other pro-choice groups often treated providers like bowlegged step-children" of the movement.

"We providers were being told by the pro-choice people to shut up: We'd hurt the cause because we had a profit motive," says Johnston, whose clinic sees about 2,500 patients a year. "We felt we needed somebody who was going to state our case and show that providers are a wonderful group of people. One of the strengths of NCAP is that Ron is available and we can turn to him for moral support."

While she says the impact of his quote was "dreadful" and she's found herself defending him "quite a bit," she blames the media for pouncing on one bad quote and making it into a story. And she says Fitzsimmons should stay at NCAP's helm because he has been helpful to the providers: "You don't want the antis and the media to run your organization. Up until now we've been happy with him, so we're not going to roll over and play dead after he's defended us when we've been in tight spots."

Sally Burgess, who is one of NCAP's three board members, tells the story of a Saturday morning when one of her patients had surgical complications. The woman had to be rushed outside on a gurney to the emergency room across the street, passing through a gauntlet of anti-abortion protesters, who immediately called the media.

"No one from the other groups was available early on a Saturday morning, but Ron answered my call and offered good advice on how to de-escalate the crisis," recalls Burgess. "You just can't imagine how isolated people feel when they work in this field. The thing that causes me to stand behind Ron 100 percent is that he is committed to providers."

Burgess plans on staying with NCAP, even though she says the results of Fitzsimmons's mea culpa were "swift and negative" in Illinois, where she works. Governor Jim Edgar has said he will sign a partial-birth abortion bill, even though he says he has always believed an abortion decision should be left to a woman and her doctor.

But she believes NCAP has staying power because Fitzsimmons is one of the few pro-choice leaders who speaks from the perspective of the clinics.

"In the first seven years of Ron's tenure, he had a stellar performance," she says. "And having done media interviews, there are several of us who have said, `Whew, glad it wasn't me.'"

These days, Fitzsimmons says he's made the debate over the procedure more honest -- something he believes is important if you don't want to be stuck looking like you're apologizing.

"I was trying to represent the clinics and their honest work in an honest way," he says. "And it is a more factual debate now. People are openly acknowledging that this procedure is done in the second trimester and, yeah, maybe there are a few thousand of them done. So that's out there, and we're not hiding anything, and they still don't have enough votes to override the veto. That's the way it should always be."