Frigid start to spring doesn't deter anti-abortion doctor
Mar. 21—Retired physician Ricardo Calzada marched alone. It was a cold day. No other anti-abortion demonstrator had yet arrived on a sidewalk of St. Michael's Drive, near the Planned Parenthood Health Center.
Calzada, 70, scoffed at the title. "It's not a clinic. It's a purveyor of abortions," he said.
Traffic was heavy, but the weather was harsh enough that no panhandlers occupied nearby medians. Calzada was the only pedestrian trying to reach a fast-moving audience.
With his bushy white mustache, thick black gloves and cowboy hat, he warded off the first icy winds of spring to show his opposition to abortion — any and all abortions. Calzada carried a sign picturing a baby with plump, rosy cheeks next to the words, "Abortion. The ultimate child abuse."
I asked him about the girl from Ohio who was raped at age 9 and then had to travel to neighboring Indiana for an abortion when she was 10. Might she have been damaged forever if she'd been forced to carry the pregnancy to term?
Calzada wouldn't budge. The rape of a child, though tragic, is not as bad as the killing of a child, he said.
"It's a terrible crime. You don't punish the victim," Calzada said. From his viewpoint, the victim wasn't the girl impregnated by a rapist.
For a time, many opponents of abortion questioned whether the little girl from Ohio really existed. Not until a 27-year-old man was indicted in the girl's rape did claims cease she was a creation of media members angered by the Supreme Court's repeal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Calzada calls the 10-year-old's case exceptional. He described most abortions as matters of convenience. Some women, he said, don't want to lose their figure, so they opt for abortion instead of motherhood.
We stood in the cold, disagreeing on almost everything. How could he be confident of the reason for most abortions if medical procedures are private matters?
Calzada often cited broadly calculated statistics absent of particulars about individual patients. He acknowledged not every procedure would be covered under that spectrum.
He says the number of abortions is underreported. To him, every one is one too many, and that brings him to St. Michael's Drive each week.
A native of Guatemala, Calzada practiced medicine in Santa Fe and other parts of America. One of his specialties was gastroenterology, but he says his work extended to other aspects of medical care.
Calzada has memorized quotes from the late President Ronald Reagan, who opposed abortion. Calzada also mentioned former college football star Tim Tebow and singer Celine Dion, both of whom say they could have been aborted because of medical complications or the strain of another child in a large family.
These sorts of arguments were around as long as Roe v. Wade. Decades ago, when Larry King hosted a late-night call-in show on the Mutual radio network, people from around the country often would ask him the same question.
"What if Jesus' mother had had an abortion?" a caller would say. "What if Hitler's had?" King would reply.
A wide thoroughfare, St. Michael's doesn't allow for much interaction between motorists and anti-abortion demonstrators. A few drivers delivered supportive honks of the horn at Calzada. One man in an SUV threw a middle finger. Most simply drove by.
The sheer size of the street makes demonstrators less noticeable than those picketing against Santa Fe resident John Eastman at Valley Drive and Bishops Lodge Road. Eastman, who was a lawyer assisting Donald Trump, advanced the bizarre claim that then-Vice President Mike Pence could single-handedly block Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential race.
Calzada remained soft-spoken and cordial in the face of questioning. Peaceful demonstrations are a constitutionally protected right, no matter which side someone is on. He recognizes that fact while boiling down his argument to one sentence.
"The right of life supersedes all other rights," Calzada said.
He saved his harshest criticisms for Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a supporter of abortion rights.
"She took $10 million of our hard-earned money so abortion purveyors could accommodate people from Texas," Calzada said.
His reference was to a public works project the governor advanced for an abortion clinic in Doña Ana County. It would be located some 45 minutes from western edge of Texas, a state with restrictions on abortion.
Temperatures dipped, but the number of anti-abortion demonstrators on St. Michael's Drive inched up. A couple more men arrived with signs.
America is again a patchwork of laws on abortion as time marches on. Given the climate, Calzada says he might as well march, too.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.
