Back to despair

| Lynn Vincent

In the spring of 1997, Eric Harrah descended on State College, Pa., the leafy, church-filled little college town that is home to Penn State University. His close friend, abortionist Steven Brigham, had sent him to open the town's first abortion clinic. Mr. Harrah was a veteran clinic planter; he'd already opened and operated several in the Northeast. But he hated State College, which he saw as insufferably pedestrian compared with the glitzy, gay New York nightlife to which he was accustomed.

After a short, bizarre odyssey in which Mr. Harrah boomeranged from deviance to confession and back again, he would hate it even more.

To lay the groundwork for the opening of the new abortion clinic, Dr. Brigham sent Mr. Harrah ahead as the human equivalent of napalm. Imposing at nearly 300 pounds, he was the kind of hyper-feminine, in-your-face gay male that homosexual-equality activists would rather hide during election season. He whirled through the town's sleepy streets wearing makeup and nail polish. He shrieked obscenities in the faces of pro-life protesters. Reining in his flamboyance when expedient, he worked the local press to make his case for "choice." Though citizens opposed to the new clinic fought it bitterly, State College Medical Services opened in September 1997.