Last Wednesday and Thursday I attended the Never Go Back Conference in Washington, D.C., with women and men from universities across the United States to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and to organize continued support for women's fundamental, constitutional, human right to reproductive choice.

I was astounded by the anti-choice, anti-women protesters who infiltrated the group. One man got up in my face with a clenched fist and shouted, "Go hug a tree, you feminist bitch!" Of course I thanked him for his very intelligent, compelling, and well-articulated "pro-life" opinion.

Now more than ever before, it has become apparent that these actions are vigilant assaults on women's rights as a whole. If these individuals truly are "pro-life," then every one of them would have been at Saturday's rally to protest the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children that has already happened due to sanctions and will double if we wage war. If they truly wanted to stop abortion, the "pro-life" people would put down their signs and begin to demand practical means for preventing unwanted pregnancy, like honest sex education, condom distribution and complete insurance coverage for birth control pills and shots. They should be hunting down the men who abandon the women they impregnate and confiscate the millions of dollars in child support owed to these women. They should demand that funds be sent to areas in huge AIDS crises, like sub-Saharan Africa, where if equally distributed, there are currently five condoms available per man, per year. They should support making emergency contraception available over the counter, which could prevent up to 800,000 abortions a year in America, rendering this whole debate to almost a non-issue.

The truth is that the Women's Health Initiative and all honest sex and reproductive health education have done so much more to decrease abortions than shouting, moralizing, intimidating and threatening have ever done. I will not believe there is a "pro-life" movement until I witness practical actions.