You are here: Home / Archives for Operation Rescue

Meet Norma McCorvey, Anti-Choice Actress

May 17, 2011 By 5 Comments

Norma McCorvey, otherwise known as the Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade, can add “actress” to her wide-ranging resume, with a small role in the psychological thrilled Doonby. Described as a cross between It’s a Wonderful Life and Crazy Heart, Doonby is about a drifter and the citizens of a small Texas town. McCorvey plays one of the townspeople, who tries to convince another woman not to have an abortion.

Despite her association with the pro-choice side of one of this country’s most famous court cases, it’s actually quite fitting that Norma McCorvey is playing an anti-choice woman. After all, that’s the role that she has chosen in real life, too. For years, McCorvey and her long-time partner, Connie Gonzalez, were harassed by anti-choicers; at one point, the harassment—which included shots being fired at her house—got so bad that McCorvey had to move out of state. In a 1994 New York Times profile, McCorvey is open not just about the harassment and fear, but her relationship with Gonzalez, her thoughts on Sarah Weddington, and her role in Roe. Her candor and resolve make what happened later that year and the next all the more surprising.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion, History Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Kansas Abortion Provider Under Attack

March 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

This post was written by Katherine Spillar, executive editor of Ms. Mazine. It was originally published at Ms. Magazine. Please help spread the word!

“Are doctors who are willing to provide [abortions] still just on their own, with their face on WANTED posters … waiting to see what happens next?… How do we as a country react?”

Rachel Maddow posed that question last week as she reported from Kansas on the escalating campaign of threats, harassment and terror against Dr. Mila Means, who recently announced her plans to provide abortions in Wichita.

Abortions have not been available in the city since the murder of Dr. George Tiller in May 2009. Means has now become the target of an aggressive campaign led by anti-abortion extremists. WANTED-style posters featuring Means’ photograph and address are being circulated in Wichita and online, and about a dozen anti-abortion zealots stalked the physician at her rural Wichita home.

Threats of violence against abortion providers intended to prevent them from providing reproductive health-care services—like those against Means—are prohibited by the FACE act, by state anti-stalking laws and by criminal threat and trespass laws. Although these threats can and should be prosecuted, all too often they are not. And time and again, threats that are ignored by law enforcement escalate to violence. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion, Guest Writers Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Operation Rescue Unveils List of “Cases to Watch” This Year

January 12, 2011 By 11 Comments

Operation Rescue heralded the new year by posting their list of “abortion cases to watch in 2011.” I was curious about what cases could hold their attention, so I clicked over to OR’s site. In typically overheated rhetoric, the group breathlessly detailed the reasons why everyone from Planned Parenthood to a former colleague of Dr. Tiller should hold the antis’ attention for the next twelve months.

Planned Parenthood made the list for a case that might never even come to trial. Last October, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that a case against a Kansas City-area Planned Parenthood could move forward, but imposed a number of restrictions that could negatively affect the prosecution. The charges, which allege that the clinic performed illegal late-term abortions and falsified records, were filed in 2007 by now-former District Attorney Phill Kline (who is perhaps best known for his controversial anti-abortion legal crusades); current District Attorney Steve Howe now oversees the prosecution, and he has said that he needed to review the decision before deciding if the case can move ahead.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Operation Rescue: Cheryl Sullenger and Scott Roeder

August 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

Before Cheryl Sullenger became Operation Rescue’s senior policy advisor, she was perhaps best known for trying to bomb an abortion clinic in the 1980s. Sullenger and her husband pled guilty to conspiring to blow up the Southern California clinic; Sullenger served two years in prison. Five co-conspirators were convicted as well, and given sentences ranging from 149 days to five years.

Sullenger has been relatively under the radar in the years since her stint in prison, but last summer her phone number was found in Scott Roeder’s car after he was arrested for murdering Dr. George Tiller. The Wichita-based Sullenger denied any knowledge of Roeder’s plans, but later admitted that she gave Roeder information concerning Dr. Tiller’s court dates and hearings. Roeder claimed that he spoke with Sullenger and Troy Newman in 2002 about “justifiable homicide,” and that he visited OR’s headquarters shortly before killing Tiller. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Clinic Escort Explains Why Men Must Get Involved in Pro-Choice Movement

August 3, 2010 By 9 Comments

Feminist Conversations is a weekly column here at Feminists For Choice. We spotlight activists from around the country to find out what feminism means to them. Today we’re talking to Henry Howard, a long-time anti-war and and reproductive rights activist, originally from New York, who is now a writer in Los Angeles. Henry is a member of World Can’t Wait and the National Organization for Women.

1. When did you first get involved in clinic defense, and what influenced that decision?
I first got involved in clinic defense in November, 1989, when Operation Rescue decided to make Los Angeles its first national battleground. I was active in every major defense from then until 1992, when Operation Rescue folded its tents and finally left L.A. alone. Next they focused on Wichita, KS and Dayton, OH, throwing themselves by the thousands at Dr. Tiller’s clinic, and clinics in Ohio, for weeks at a time. I was not part of those national campaigns, but I went to Wichita in 2000 to defend Dr. Tiller, and last summer to Bellevue, NE to defend Dr. Lee Carhart. I would have to say that Dr. Curtis Boyd will probably be Operation Rescue’s new public-enemy #1, and we will eventually be required to stand in front of his clinic, too.

As for what got me involved in clinic defense: it was really a natural evolution of my activism in the women’s movement, which I date back formally to 1980 and the ERA campaign. I have always been unrelentingly pro-choice; I believe abortion rights are a red line in the sand that must never be crossed again in this country. I have met too many survivors of back-alley abortions, refugees from a time in this country when to be a woman daring to exercise her own biological destiny meant seeking out an underground world that often lead to her death. My own mother had two illegal abortions before I was born—both without anesthesia. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Dudes for Choice, Feminist Conversations Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Albuquerque Rallies for Choice

August 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

My name is Clayton Jarratt, I’m 18 years old, just graduated from high school, and live in Los Lunas, NM. In the beginning of June I learned of Operation Rescue’s plans to invade my community, Albuquerque, NM. I read in an electronic newsletter from Operation Rescue that Troy Newman had decided that Albuquerque was America’s “abortion capital”, and announcing that Operation Rescue would be reallocating it’s resources to New Mexico, and establishing a satellite office in Albuquerque, right by Dr. Curtis Boyd’s new late term abortion clinic, and just a half hour drive from my house.

I have long taken interest in the defense of human rights, including abortion, and have subscribed to the electronic newsletters of many pro-choice and anti-choice groups, including Operation Rescue, for almost two years now, since I was sixteen. Having read the rhetoric and news stories relating to many different groups, I can hardly think of a worse group to have invading my community than OR, and most of my friends agreed. We decided that week that we wanted to do something to resist Operation Rescue’s move to Albuquerque, and began discussing what forms peaceful protest would be most effective. Soon after, we found a powerful partner in this effort; Planned Parenthood of New Mexico. We had written letters to several groups we thought might be interested in fighting Operation Rescue, and Planned Parenthood responded soon after, eager to take action with us. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism Tagged With: , ,

Operation Rescue: Troy Newman

August 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment


According to his bio on the Operation Rescue website, current OR president Troy Newman is responsible for using “innovative new tactics” to close abortion clinics. While I’d take anything OR says with a big ol’ grain of salt, Newman is responsible for one particularly gruesome tactic: the “Truth Trucks.”

Perhaps you’ve seen these behemoths tooling down the highway, or terrorizing residential neighborhoods, sides plastered with pictures of allegedly aborted fetuses and overheated rhetoric. The Trucks first rolled out in the summer of 2006 because, as Newman said at the time, “Americans love to spend the warm summer months outdoors at public venues, and that is why we make sure the Truth Trucks are on the roads from coast to coast during the summer season.” Trucks have shown up at the Super Bowl, NASCAR events, and in front of the Capitol in D.C.; OR claims they are an effective and popular propaganda tool, and they are also the subject of OR fundraising appeals (i.e. “your donation keeps the truck on the road!”).

Over the past year, OR’s fundraising, and finances, have been the subject of some scrutiny. Last fall the organization announced in a letter on its website that it was on the verge of bankruptcy, a situation that Newman blamed on the economy but other reports traced to the assassination of Dr. Tiller. OR and Newman publicly denounced the murder and Scott Roeder, who was convicted of Dr. Tiller’s murder in January. However, Operation Rescue’s senior policy adviser, Cheryl Sullenger – who spent time in prison for conspiring to blow up an abortion clinic – had communicated with Roeder before the murder, and questions linger about possible connections between Roeder and organized anti-choice groups.

Newman contended that exaggerations of the financial woes were misreported, although the statements “We’re so broke (as the saying goes), we can’t even pay attention” and “we struggle to pay every bill” seem pretty unequivocal. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Operation Rescue: Randall Terry

July 26, 2010 By 2 Comments

Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, grew up outside of Rochester, New York. According to Marian Faux’s profile of Terry in Crusaders: Voices from the Abortion Front, three of Terry’s aunts became pregnant as teenagers and had abortions; all three later worked in the women’s rights movement. Terry, however, left home before graduating high school and became a born-again Christian in his late teens. After getting his GED, Terry enrolled in Bible college in the late 1970s, and learned about fundamentalist teachings and beliefs. Terry was particularly influence by Francis Schaeffer, an evangelical writer who advocated civil disobedience and view Ronald Regan’s election as a chance for fundamentalists to enjoy a greater influence and visibility in American life.

According to Faux, Terry was inspired to start Operation Rescue after attending an anti-Roe rally in Washington, D.C. in early 1984. After the march, Terry claimed that he had a vision to start a new anti-choice organization that would “rescue” women at clinics around the country, with the goal of closing clinics down. The rescuers’ tactics included trying to talk women out of having abortions; invading clinic waiting rooms; and blocking clinic doors and driveways with cars. While the rescues were ostensibly non-violent, Terry’s instructions to the rescuers included the directive to be “run to” conflict and be “prepared to die.” Terry also ignored the official sanctions against his group; when explaining why he continued to blockade clinics in the face of injunctions against such activities, Terry said, “The bottom line is that these injunctions are meaningless, and I give them no more attention than a stray piece of paper laying in the street. … [No federal judge] can tell us not to save babies.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Operation Rescue: An Overview

July 22, 2010 By 2 Comments

Operation Rescue is perhaps the best-known anti-choice group in the U.S. For over twenty years, Operation Rescue has demonstrated against abortion clinics, deployed so-called “Truth Trucks” to cities and towns around the nation, and otherwise harassed and threatened doctors, clinic workers, and women.

OR was founded by Randall Terry in 1986, when he led a series of protests against abortion clinics in Binghamton, New York; his tactics included physically barricading clinic doorways and keeping women from leaving their cars. The group rose to prominence two years later when it demonstrated outside of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, and for a time was perhaps best-known for its 1991 protest in Wichita, Kansas, at Dr. George Tiller’s clinic. The six-week long protest resulted in thousands of arrests and drew national attention to the tactics of OR, the bravery of Dr. Tiller and his staff, and the immense amount of stress and intimidation that his patients experienced as protesters chained themselves to fences, crawled across the ground, and otherwise kept the clinic under siege for 45 days.

In 1994, President Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE, Act into law. Clinic workers and their patients were now protected from the physical threat, force, and obstructions they had put up with for years, and the threat of criminal and civil penalties for those who violated the law did cause a decrease in certain types of clinic violence, specifically blockades. It is indisputable that FACE affected Operation Rescue’s tactics, but the organization, which seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy as recently as last fall, is still very active.  Following Dr. Tiller’s assassination, OR announced that they will now work on putting Nebraska provider LeRoy Carhart out of business. And earlier this summer, the Kansas-based group established a small office in Albuquerque, New Mexico; in response to the organization’s presence in the city, a pro-choice rally is scheduled for Friday, July 30.

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , , , , ,

Rally to Stop Operation Rescue’s New Mexico Invasion

July 19, 2010 By 6 Comments

Operation Rescue has invaded New Mexico. The anti-choice organization has set its sights on abortion clinics in Albuquerque, but pro-choice activists are sounding the call to stop Operation Rescue’s hateful tactics. The New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has called on the Archbishop of New Mexico to issue a written statement directing all of his religious leaders and laity to avoid all association, cooperation and collaboration with Operation Rescue. And the newest generation of pro-choice activists is taking the lead in organizing the pro-choice community in Albuquerque. There will be a rally on July 30th at 4:30 PM at the Planned Parenthood clinic at 701 San Mateo Boulevard NE, on San Mateo, mid-way between the intersections of Lomas Boulevard and Copper Avenue.

The rally has been spearheaded by 18-year-old pro-choice advocate Clayton Jarratt. Jarratt explains that when he heard Operation Rescue was coming to New Mexico, he knew had to do something about it. He was initially surprised that he couldn’t find any information on the internet about the pro-choice community’s response to Operation Rescue, so Jarratt decided to rally the troops himself.

“After I informed my friends, nearly all were enthusiastic about doing something, and that was the genesis of the rally on July 30th,” say Jarratt. “I contacted Planned Parenthood, the UNM Women’s Resource Center, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and others who help get more people on board. I thought that if we could expose Operation Rescue’s extreme nature and the violent tendencies of some of their members and supporters to the community before they had enough people here to get their own media attention, we could show the community what sort of group Operation Rescue really is, without having to combat their propaganda to do it.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abortion, Activism Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts