Calvary Temple Pentecostal Church is a low brown building located in a sleepy, residential neighborhood in suburban St. Louis Park. Led by the husband-and-wife team of Revs. Gordon and Nancy Peterson, Calvary Temple was known as an activist church. The Rev. Peterson didn’t just talk about social change, he believed in taking it to the streets.
Under Rev. Peterson’s guidance, Calvary Temple had agreed to serve as the local host church for the second Operation Rescue IMPACT (Institute for Mobilized Prophetic Activated Christian Training) session, a 12-week “boot camp” for anti-abortion activists. The IMPACT training camp was to be held in conjunction with Operation Rescue’s “Cities of Refuge” campaign: ten days of protest and civil disobedience in seven American cities. For ten days during the summer of 1993, Operation Rescue had vowed to put a stop to abortion services –by any means necessary.
Operation Rescue (OR) had gained national attention through militant street tactics and illegal trespassing. The hallmark of their strategy was a series of blockades (“rescues”) outside the entrances to family planning clinics. Beginning in 1987, the organization had mobilized tens of thousands of people. Health care workers in New York and Philadelphia stood by helplessly as hundreds of OR members rushed the clinics, surrounding the patients, and chaining themselves to the doors.
Operation Rescue was the brainchild of Randall Terry (a former used car salesman) and Joe Scheidler (founder of the Pro-Life Action Network—PLAN—and author of Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion). In 1987, Operation Rescue staged its first protest in Cherry Hill, NJ.(1) But it wasn’t until the following year that Operation Rescue became a household name. In July of 1988, Terry led a dramatic series of protests during the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, GA,(2) an event that cost the city more than $1 million in court costs and overtime pay.(3) Three months later, during the weekend of October 29-30, Operation Rescue staged simultaneous protests in 32 cities, resulting in 2,212 arrests.(4)
It was a campaign of civil disobedience, the likes of which the United States had never seen. The political left had nothing on this. The sheer scale of Operation Rescue totally dwarfed the nonviolent sit-ins of the early 1960’s.(5) Though largely indifferent to the struggles of African-Americans, Evangelical Christians had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the anti-abortion crusade. By 1990, the “rescues,” lockdowns, and clinic blockades and had resulted in more than 40,000 arrests.(6)
In 1991, 30,000 anti-abortion activists descended on the city of Wichita, Kansas, where they succeeded in shutting down three abortion clinics for eleven days, an event that ended with 2,700 arrests.(7) According to contemporary reports in Newsday: “children as young as 8 years old lay down in front of cars entering the clinic.”(8)
Though the Wichita clinics eventually reopened, the siege continued for the next six weeks. Two years later, Dr. George Tiller—Wichita’s principle abortion provider—was shot five times by a member of the Army of God (Tiller survived).(9)
Now, Operation Rescue was coming to the Twin Cities as part of their “Cities of Refuge” campaign. Cities of Refuge would kick off an entire summer of activities, as the IMPACT team trained the next generation of “militant missionaries.”
On the eve of the big crusade, the Petersons went to sleep.
When church officials awoke on the morning of Friday, June 11, 1993, it seemed like an average summer day. But they were in for a surprise. Overnight, Calvary Temple had been vandalized. The doors were plastered with 17” x 22” posters –as was the front of the church. The posters bore a photograph of a man lighting a Molotov cocktail on the steps of St. Mary’s Basilica. The caption read:
OPERATION RESCUE
COME TO OUR TOWN
WE’LL LOCK YOU IN A CHURCH
AND BURN THE FUCKER DOWN!
 RAPISTS FOR FAMILY VALUES
1993 was a bad year for physicians.
On March 10, 1993, Dr. David Gunn, a physician at the Pensacola Women’s Services Clinic, was gunned down in front of the clinic by Michael Frederick Griffin.(10) Griffin was a member of Rescue America, an anti-abortion group whose local chairman, John Burt, was later imprisoned for sexually abusing a teenaged girl.(11)
In the months leading up to the murder, Gunn’s face had appeared on “Wanted Posters” distributed by Operation Rescue, a radical anti-abortion group known for its confrontational (and occasionally violent) tactics. At the time of the fatal shooting, members of OR and Rescue America had been picketing outside the clinic. When Dr. Gunn left the building, Griffin stepped out of the crowd, pulled out a pistol, and fired. A spokesman for Rescue America was quoted as saying: “While Gunn’s death is unfortunate, it’s also true that quite a number of babies lives will be saved.”(12)
The attacks on physicians had forever changed the meaning of the words “Pro-Life.”
In the 1970’s, the anti-abortion movement had essentially been an adjunct of the Roman Catholic Church.(13) By 1986, Evangelical Christians were the driving force. While mainstream groups such as the National Right to Life Committee drafted new legislation, the vanguard of the anti-abortion movement was pursuing an extra-legal strategy of protest and intimidation. Spearheaded by groups such as Operation Rescue and Pro-life Action Ministries, the radical anti-abortion movement chose to focus on the dwindling number of doctors and abortion clinics.
We’ve found the weak link is the doctor.
- Randall Terry, March 1993
Terry saw the anti-abortion movement as part of a larger struggle for the soul of America –a “Christian Democratic Republic”(14) that had fallen from grace. Abortion, drug use, homosexuals and the Federal Income Tax were a plague on God’s green earth. Terry had vowed to do away with them. Speaking in San Jose in 1993, Terry called for a return to “Biblical Law,” saying, “Only those who follow the Ten Commandments are fit to hold public office.”(15)
A militant evangelist, with a pre-modern take on Christian morals,(16) Terry had found a kindred spirit in the Rev. Keith Tucci. The two men met at a Pittsburgh rally in 1987. Tucci was quite taken with Randall Terry’s message. Afterwards, the Pittsburgh preacher threw himself wholeheartedly into the anti-abortion crusade.(17) "Randall spoke on the concept of higher laws…” Tucci told the Buffalo News in 1992, “…that we have to obey God's laws, not man's law."(18)
It was the Rev. Keith Tucci who put out the call for a “Summer of Mercy” in Wichita, KS, and Tucci who organized the “Cities of Refuge” campaign. Like his mentor, Randall Terry, Tucci believed that women should be seen and not heard. “The Bible is clear,” Tucci told the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1993, “women are to nurture home and children.”(19)
We don't want ‘equal time’ with baby-killers, condom pushers, New Agers, and sodomite recruiters. We do not want them to have any access to public schools. We won't tolerate their having a single minute to expose our children or anyone else's children to their godless agenda… Intolerance is a beautiful thing.
- Randall Terry, “God’s Law is Supreme”
As the public face of the radical anti-abortion movement, Operation Rescue tried portray itself as a "civil rights" organization following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But their actions and their rhetoric told a different story. In 1992, the Rev. Keith Tucci was charged with assaulting a woman outside of an abortion clinic in Baton Rouge, LA; the assault was captured on videotape.(20)
Ostensibly a “nonviolent” organization, Operation Rescue was known for stalking abortion providers and harassing their children. In Melbourne, FL, an IMPACT team picketed in front of schools and private homes; their leaders freely admitted to having followed patients home from abortion clinics.(21) The Florida IMPACT team is alleged to have taught people how to sabotage abortion providers’ cars “by tinkering so they'd stall or break down.”(22) Two Florida doctors wound up quitting their jobs as a result.(23)
Such tactics soon gave way to actual killings.
James C. Kopp, a former associate of Randall Terry, was present at OR protests from the very beginning.(24) Kopp was later convicted of murdering of Dr. Barnett Slepian in his own living room.
Another OR alumni, the Rev. Mike Bray (author of A Time To Kill), served four years in prison for the bombing of ten abortion clinics.(25) “I can't promise you I'll never go shoot an abortionist…”Bray told the Boston Globe in 1994. “…Whatever happened to Randall Terry's old saying, `If you believe it's murder, act like it'?"(26)
Gabe Zeck was a member of the Action Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.
Gabe Zeck:
I was about 16 the first time I went to an abortion clinic defense… That was an eye-opening experience: seeing nuns and other “pro-life” motley crew walking around with pictures of dolls covered in ketchup, or whatever they were. I remember walking up to one of them and saying: “You know, that's about as relevant as THIS…” –and I pulled out pictures from my prom.
GOING UNDERGROUND
In 1988, Operation Rescue was at the top of its game.
By 1989, it’s leader—Randall Terry—was in prison, and the fledgling organization was facing bankruptcy, with lawsuits pending in multiple states.(27) When a Federal Judge threatened to seize OR’s financial records, Terry urged his followers to send donations to a dummy-corporation called the Committee to Protect the Family (“The committee would raise and spend money on behalf of Operation Rescue. None of the cash would go through the accounts that were subject to the judge's order.”)(28) Terry was released from jail in early 1990, and promptly fined (again) for being in contempt of court.(29) He pledged to take the organization “underground.”(30)
On January 30, 1990, Operation Rescue was formally dissolved. Terry closed the national offices in Binghamton, N.Y., severing all legal ties. Less than two months later, a “new” organization had sprung up in South Carolina—Operation Rescue-National—with the Rev. Keith Tucci as its executive director.(31) Terry remained a visible presence within the movement, though he denied that he was leading Operation Rescue. In 1992, Terry was arrested and sentenced to five months in prison after presenting Bill Clinton with a dead fetus.(32)
Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, announced Thursday that he is stepping aside from the group's day-to-day operations to promote a new national strategy of publicizing names, addresses and home numbers of judicial officials who he believes treat his group unfairly.(33)
- The Orange County Register, April 13, 1990
In 1992, Mayor Jimmy Griffin invited Operation Rescue to come to Buffalo, NY.(34) The unruly protests ended in utter chaos, as volunteer “clinic defense” teams faced off with anti-abortion activists. Nearly 600 people were arrested, draining $500,000 from the city coffers.(35) Griffin was subsequently voted out of office. Though their public image suffered as a result, OR was ultimately successful: three of the five abortion doctors in Buffalo quit the business. A fourth provider, Dr. Barnett Slepian, was murdered in 1998.(36)
Eager to capitalize on its success, Operation Rescue announced that it would be targeting seven metropolitan communities during the summer of 1993: Cleveland, OH; San Jose, CA; Philadelphia; Dallas-Fort Worth, TX; Jackson, MS; Port St. Lucie, FL; and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
On July 7, 1993, on the eve of the Cities of Refuge campaign, fifteen doctors in San Jose, CA received letters from Operation Rescue warning them to “stop performing abortions or face the consequences.”(37) Two months later, a bomb tore through the offices of an Orange County abortion clinic in southern California. A spokesman for Operation Rescue California blamed the bombing on “a disgruntled boyfriend of someone who had an abortion."(38)
Mimi Nguyen is a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Mimi Nguyen:
I was a member of BAYCORR (Bay Area Coalition on Reproductive Rights). We were dealing with Operation Rescue, and the National Right to Life, a college group called C.A.L.L.—I don't even remember what all those acronyms stand for anymore! —and the guy who runs Rock for Life now (they do ‘Pro-life’ anti-abortion Christian rock shows)… I'll see him on ‘Politically Incorrect,’ and it's like: “I remember him! He punched my friend in the face!”(39)
At the invitation of the Rev. Gordon Peterson, Minnesota was chosen as the site for the second IMPACT school. Ignoring a court order in Florida, the Rev. Keith Tucci skipped-out on a criminal trial, and flew to Minnesota for the event.(40)
As hundreds of anti-abortion activists poured-in from all across the country, Operation Rescue was expecting another Wichita. Instead, they were met with flyers threatening them with great bodily harm.
The people of Minnesota were prepared. And this time, local residents fought back.
GOD TOLD ME TO SKIN YOU ALIVE
One week following a stink bomb attack, the Planned Barrenhood (sic) office of this city was sprayed by gunfire. About 15 shots from a handgun brought $20,000 in damage. Now $20,000 divided by 15 equals $1,333.33 per bullet. A pretty good deal. We commend the stewardship of resources.
- Convicted clinic bomber Michael Bray,
Capital Area Christian News
With two-thirds of the population favoring some form of legalized abortion, the proposed “Right to Life Amendment” had little hope of passage. Having failed to achieve their goals through legal means, the anti-abortion movement had increasingly begun to turn to violence, intimidation, and sabotage in order to drive abortion clinics out of business.
Over the past two decades, "pro-life" extremists have carried out over 200 bombings, attempted bombings, and arson attacks; more than 1,200 acts of vandalism; and over 100 attacks with butyric acid (a noxious chemical).(41) In 1993 alone, there were 20 attempts to bomb or set fire to abortion clinics. And this does not include the human cost. At the time of Operation Rescue’s "Cities of Refuge" campaign, clinic staff had been the victims of 85 confirmed assaults (the following year, two receptionists were murdered in separate incidents).(42)
The Minnesota State Legislature finally put their foot down, passing anti-stalking and clinic access laws designed to cripple Operation Rescue.(43) Under the state’s new anti-stalking law, those who followed doctors and patients home faced up to a year in prison.
At the Robbinsdale Clinic, an injunction limited the number of anti-abortion protesters to 14 people on the sidewalk, with “no more than 50 individuals”(44) allowed within a four-block radius of the building. Judge William Howard tried to strike a balance between the need for security and the protesters’ right to express their point of view. Under the terms of the judge’s orders, the following activities were expressly forbidden: carrying a weapon within 200 yards of the clinic, engaging in acts of sabotage or vandalism, stalking patients or clinic staff, taking photographs and writing down license plates.(45)
The Network to Ensure Access (NEA), a coalition of five abortion rights groups,(46) trained 1,100 volunteers to serve as the official—nonviolent—clinic defense teams.(47) Dressed in bright red t-shirts, the NEA recruits were trained to link arms and keep an eye out for “antis” trying to scramble between their legs.(48) NEA trainees were repeatedly told: “…not to respond to the Operation Rescue protesters in any way verbally or physically.”(49) In the event of a blockade, the clinic defenders would form a human shield to protect the patients. (Full disclosure: I participated in the clinic defense training, though I later quit the NEA.)
Meleah Maynerd is a journalist who has written for City Pages and The Collective Voice.
Meleah Maynerd:
I was doing some of that up in Robbinsdale. We were supposed to link arms and people would walk through us. Big nasty men would walk over the top of us. And they would get so close to us that spit was flying in our face.
Secure in the knowledge that doctors would be protected from harassment, the NEA made a conscious decision to work with the police. Their official slogan was: “Keep Minnesota Nice, Stop Operation Rescue.”
|
