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VETERAN PRO-LIFE ATTORNEY JOINS TRUTH TOUR

Gerald Mitchell was one of several pro-life attorneys who volunteered to “ride shotgun” on this year’s Face the Truth Tour, to head off any problems with police before they started.

“Yesterday was my first day on the job as a recycled advocate for pro-life,” he told pro-lifers at a July 19 dinner talk during the tour.

“I had a great introduction to my new role:  some lady came by in a minivan and threw a couple of Frisbee-type bagels at us – zap!  Take that!”

In a more serious vein, Mitchell paid tribute to pro-lifers, because they “give themselves away” without remuneration.

“I saw some very cute young women with becoming hats this morning, with these signs in front of them.  The only thing people see of you is your cute hat and your face, and beyond that they see this crushed, beaten, sort of crucified body of a little kid at 30 weeks.

“When you stood there with that aborted baby sign, you kind of took on that persona, just as Jesus took on the burden of our sins when he was crucified.

“I salute you for it.”

Mitchell brought a wealth of experience in the pro-life arena to the tour, having cut his legal teeth prosecuting abortionists.

As a young assistant state’s attorney for Montgomery County, he prosecuted cases against Milan Vuitch, who was a pioneering hero to pro-abortionists.

Vuitch had been deliberately arrested performing illegal abortions so he could challenge Washington, D.C.’s abortion law, which at that time allowed abortions only to preserve a woman’s life or health.

Vuitch’s test of the D.C. law went all the way to the Supreme Court, becoming the court’s very first abortion case.

In 1971, in U.S. v. Vuitch, the high court ruled that the burden of proof was on the prosecutor who brought the charges, and that “health” considerations should include mental as well as physical well-being.

“Justice [Hugo] Black wrote the opinion,” Mitchell recalled in an interview at his home before the tour.  “He eviscerated the D.C. statute.

  “It was too heavy a standard to prove; it’s very hard to prove a negative.  It effectively stifled any prosecutions under D.C. abortion law.”

After serving as an assistant state’s attorney in 1971-’72, Mitchell went into private practice, where he handled civil cases against abortionists, including Vuitch.

“I had some serious cases against him:  a 19-year-old girl who had a lot of bleeding and had to have a hysterectomy, and a 30-year-old woman who died in 1980 as a result of an anesthetic complication.

“He was a butcher,” Mitchell added bluntly, “a terrible doctor.  He committed over 100,000 abortions – he depopulated Rockville, Md.!  I had a role to play in his eventually turning in his license.”

Mitchell had known very little about abortion when he first began prosecuting abortionists, but he learned a great deal from three men:  Bill Hogan, Bill Colliton and Daniel Boyle, whom he described as “probably the three most active pro-life doctors in Montgomery County.”

In the mid-1970s Mitchell became president of Maryland Right to Life Action, a public advocacy group that worked for pro-life legislation in Maryland.

It was tough going.

“It seemed that every law we pushed was threatened with a constitutional challenge,” he said.  “Various General Assembly committees were hostile, and bills could never get out of committee.”

Gerry also represented many pro-life defendants who took part in sit-ins in the 1970s, raising the “necessity” defense (that the immediate danger to a human life – in this case, the life of unborn babies – allowed a lesser law to be violated).

 “The federal Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act has put a damper on those activities,” Mitchell observed.

When one of his mentors, Dr. Boyle, decided to run for the General Assembly, Gerry met a young campaign volunteer, Germana Biondi, who became his wife.

Mitchell’s practice as a medical malpractice attorney flourished.

He served as president of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. and was that organization’s Lawyer of the Year in 1984.

The April 2002 Washingtonian Magazine said that Mitchell “has earned a reputation as the area’s most effective malpractice attorney.”

With his growing law practice and his growing family – he and Germana eventually had nine children – his pro-life activities gradually dwindled.

“But that’s no excuse for not being actively pro-life,” he said.  “I want to become more active again.”

Mitchell views taking part in the Face the Truth Tour as “helping out in an area where we’re actually able to accomplish something.”

Looking back on his pro-life activities, he reflected, “I feel I have been given a lot more than I gave.

“I met my wife through pro-life work; I became a malpractice lawyer because my first cases were abortion malpractice.”

And it was through Mitchell’s pro-life contacts that he became a member of Opus Dei, which has helped him to structure his whole life in accordance with his Catholic faith.

“Plus,” he added with a grin, “I always thought that pro-lifers were the best people in the world!”