Silent protest amid the crowd

Forty-four years ago, when Sheila Blasch was 18, she and her family went to Buffalo for her sister’s wedding. The family was stopped at a red light when a drunk driver slammed into the back of their car.

The station wagon exploded in flames. Witnesses pulled Blasch, two siblings and her father from the fire, but her mother died in her seat. Blasch spent most of the next two years in a burn-recovery center. Badly scarred, her life was forever changed.

Last Thursday, Blasch was where she has often been in recent months. She was standing outside the Assembly Chamber in the Capitol, surrounded by signs and posters decrying abortion. Her quiet protests began when the Legislature was weighing the Reproductive Health Act; she has rarely missed a session day since.

“Even the Smallest Person Can Change the Course of the Future,” read one of her signs. “Life is a Human Right,” said another.

It isn’t entirely accurate to draw a line from the crash to Blasch’s activism or to assume that one led directly to the other. The Colonie resident, 61, told me she was opposed to abortion before the accident and can’t imagine believing otherwise.

But she also believes the tragedy gave her a perspective others don’t have. When she was suffering in the burn unit, some onlookers may have believed she would be better off dead or her future would be without value.

“We have people who want to tell others whose life is worth living, but I can tell you that for all I went through, my life has been worth living,” Blasch said. “We’re here for a reason. We’re created for a reason.”

Abortion, of course, remains a dividing line in American political life.

The most recent Gallup poll on the issue found that 48 percent of voters consider themselves generally pro-life and the same percentage consider themselves to be generally pro-choice. Eighteen percent said abortion should be illegal in all circumstance while 29 percent said it should be legal under any circumstances — numbers that have hardly budged since the mid-1970s.

New York’s Reproductive Health Act, which passed in January, attempted to codify Roe vs. Wade in law, but abortion opponents denounced the bill as extreme. They noted that the RHA removes protections for babies who survive abortions and eliminates the crime of killing of an unborn child the mother fully wants — a more common domestic-abuse scenario than you may think.

Red states are heading in the opposite direction. Several states in recent months have passed so-called “heartbeat” bills that limit abortion at about six weeks into pregnancy. Last month, Alabama passed an abortion law banning abortion in nearly all circumstances, even when a woman is raped. Reproductive-rights proponents denounced the bill as extreme because ... well, because it is.

Abortion polls can be contradictory or confusing. Still, they suggest most Americans prefer abortion laws that are more restrictive than the RHA, certainly, yet keep abortion legal and accessible during the first trimester. Public opinion on the issue, therefore, is more moderate than activists on either side of the divide would like.

Blasch’s belief that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances is a minority opinion, for sure, and some would argue that it’s unrealistic or dismissive of women’s rights. But even if you passionately disagree with her, I would hope you can respect her point of view and commitment to it. I would hope you’re willing to hear her story.

At the Capitol, many have not been. Lawmakers who supported the RHA rarely even look at Blasch, she said, and almost never bother to engage. They stream past, day after day, as if she’s invisible. Lawmakers who opposed the RHA, meanwhile, are more willing to stop and chat.

That includes Assemblyman Al Taylor, a Democrat who represents part of Harlem and bucked his party on the RHA vote. Taylor stopped last Thursday, as he often does, to check in with Blasch and ask if she was OK. “She’s a human being and I acknowledge her presence,” Taylor, a pastor, said later.

More lawmakers should do the same. What, after all, is so terrible about talking, even with somebody with whom you disagree? Every person has a story to tell.

Blasch said it took a long time to get her life back on track after the crash. Eventually, she went back to school, earning a master’s degree in geology. She never married or had children but has delighted in her nieces and nephews. She still endures surgeries related to her burns.

Blasch didn’t expect to become a regular at the Capitol but has found it a good place to advance her message. Even the lawmakers and passers-by who won’t talk see her signs. She said her quiet protests outside the Assembly Chamber will continue for as long as she’s allowed to remain.

Chris Churchill is a columnist for the Albany Times Union.