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Not Silent Anymore by Jeanie C.

  Emily Lyons is not silent about women’s rights anymore.  She is no longer afraid to speak against anti-choice terrorism.  On January 29, 1998 a bomb exploded at the reproductive health care clinic that she worked at in Birmingham, Alabama.  The explosion sent nails and shrapnel flying, killing off duty police officer Robert Sanderson, and severely injuring Lyons. She lost an eye and her legs and right hand were mangled.  She can no longer work as a nurse, due to her injuries, but she is working harder than ever to keep a woman’s right to reproductive health care and choice safe. 

   Before the deadly attack, Lyons was firmly, but quietly pro-choice.  However, as she began recovering from her injuries, she started to speak out.  Since the incident, she has testified before a congressional sub-committee, has been featured in numerous television, newspaper, and magazine articles, and has been the featured speaker at Planned Parenthood and NARAL functions.  She talks around the country about the thousands of violent (and sometimes fatal) attacks against reproductive health care clinics.  A 1999 Seattle Times article reports that, “…she knows some would like to silence her.  One website with a ‘hit list’ of medical workers who perform abortions had her name ‘grayed out’ – highlighting her as someone who had been wounded, but not killed.  It angers her, but it does not scare her.  ‘The only other thing they can do to hurt me is kill me,’ she said. ‘Or they can take away my freedom of speech.’”

   Emily Lyons speaks for women’s rights and tirelessly works to prevent the type of violence that keeps pro-choice Americans silent and abortion clinic staff in terror.

   If you would like to add your voice to the many who are no longer silent, you can join HSU Students for Choice, which meets every Thursday at 5:00pm in Siemens Hall 110 (contact choice@humboldt.edu).  If you would like to hear Emily Lyons speak, she will be the featured speaker at Six Rivers Planned Parenthood’s 2002 Choices Breakfast in January (call 442-2961 for details).  Lyons will also be a guest speaker in Kim Berry’s WS   class in the Spring.