Howard Stern took time out from his satirical shtick Wednesday morning to feature an interview with a pro-choice advocate who recently turned the tables on a group of anti-abortion protestors who were harassing him and his family.
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Todd Stave owns a building that has been leased to the the women's health center his father started for more than 20 years. A group of anti-abortion activists recently targeted Stave's 11-year-old daughter by showing up outside her recent Back-to-School night with a banner that read 'Please Stop Killing the Children' and featured photos of aborted fetuses. The group then posted Stave's and his daughter's pictures, phone numbers and email addresses online and encouraged people to contact them with their "prayers".
Hear the complete Howard Stern Show interview with Todd Stave of Voice of Choice here
Stave, who says that he's been dealing with anti-abortion bullies since he was 5-years-old, decided to turn the tables on the group.
"I made a list of all the people that were calling my house and emailing me," Stave told Stern. "I sent it out to my 20 or so friends that sent emails to me saying ‘what are you going to do?’ and I said: ‘Here’s what I want you to do: Call these people. Don’t argue with them. Don’t leave any messages. Be very polite when you call. Tell them: The Stave family thanks you for your prayers and we’ve heard your pleas and, you know, we couldn’t do anything if we wanted to, but we don’t want to—and thanks’. And we figured, well, each one of these people was going to get maybe 20 phone calls or 15 phone calls or whatever, and they would know what it feels like to get, you know, unwanted phone calls and unwanted emails. Well, these 20 friends that I have, they’ve got 20 friends of their own, and those 20 friends have 20 friends, and in less than 2 days it turned into 5,000 people.”
Howard Stern was gleeful as Stave recalled how the calls to his home and harassment of his daughter came to an abrupt stop.
"They stopped very, very quickly. In fact, they sent me more emails saying ‘Please stop having them call,’ because some of them were stupid enough to like, call from their office...[I said]: 'I don’t understand. You don’t want unsolicited phone calls from strangers?'"
Howard Stern promoted Stave's abortion rights organization Voice of Choice, called him a "hero" and told his listeners exactly why he felt it was important to feature his story:
“women used to die performing their own abortions, going into back alleys, using hangers on themselves...Lots of women in this country need abortions. There’s nothing wrong with it...A guy like you Todd needs to be applauded in some sort of public forum because you’re out there fighting the good fight all on your own. And guys like this need encouragement. They need people who are sane to stand up for them and defend them, because this guy is involved in a war."
Howard Stern Show co-host Robin Quivers said that she plans to volunteer with Voice of Choice, making polite phone calls and emails to anti-choice advocates en masse.
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