Frank Bruni might need a bit more skepticism

New York Times editorial writer Frank Bruni really can't smell complete rubbish when it conforms to his view of prolifers. Out of the blue, a former Catholic classmate contacts him to share stories about his life and work as an abortionist.

He shared a story about one of the loudest abortion foes he ever encountered, a woman who stood year in and year out on a ladder, so that her head would be above other protesters’ as she shouted “murderer” at him and other doctors and “whore” at every woman who walked into the clinic.

One day she was missing. “I thought, ‘I hope she’s O.K.,’ ” he recalled. He walked into an examining room to find her there. She needed an abortion and had come to him because, she explained, he was a familiar face. After the procedure, she assured him she wasn’t like all those other women: loose, unprincipled.

She told him: “I don’t have the money for a baby right now. And my relationship isn’t where it should be.”

“Nothing like life,” he responded, “to teach you a little more.”

A week later, she was back on her ladder.

Really? So none of the other protestors noticed when she (a woman who stood for years on a ladder) entered the abortion clinic? She wasn't at all fearful of how the other abortion protestors would respond to her abortion? The other abortion clinic protestors didn't shun her at all? Come on. You've got to be so gullible to believe that.

And why does this story sound so familiar to stories late abortionist George Tiller (whom the abortionist quoted above claimed to have known) would frequently tell?

George told me that in several instances, people who had been picketing his clinic later entered as patients - seeking abortions for themselves or their daughters, sisters, wives. The women obtained their abortions, then returned to the picket line. Apparently they found their own circumstances to be extenuating and compelling - but did not reach to imagine that every patient there had a similarly compelling story.