A Movement Divided

NEWS

ABORTION

Prolife activists are at odds over the best strategy for bringing about a change in abortion law.

Two events this summer crystallize the differences between factions within the prolife movement. Both sides say they are working toward the same goal: making abortion illegal. In Philadelphia, more than 800 demonstrators were arrested last month for blocking the entrances to two abortion clinics. They believe social upheaval is necessary to effect change.

Barely a week earlier, the Supreme Court handed down a decision allowing religious groups that receive federal funds to continue counseling teenagers to seek alternatives to abortion. The traditional prolife movement, shunning illegal demonstrations, regards this victory as evidence that working within the law will eventually bear the desired fruit.

Protest 80S Style

“No babies were killed at this clinic today,” Randall Terry shouted to the remaining demonstrators in front of Philadelphia’s Northeast Women’s Center. The founder of Operation Rescue, which to date has sponsored “rescues” in three major cities, Terry believes the prolife movement must add civil disobedience to its arsenal in order to win its battle against abortion.

Unlike the sit-ins of the sixties, which often drew violent responses from police, leaders of last month’s effort worked closely with the Philadelphia police to ensure an orderly protest. The predominantly white, evangelical demonstrators sat in 100-degree heat, some for nine hours, waiting to be arrested. Leaders used bullhorns to urge protesters to delay the arrest process so the clinic would stay closed as long as possible. After a short bus ride to a makeshift processing center, demonstrators were charged with trespassing (a misdemeanor), then released.

“Every major political change in our society has been preceded by social upheaval,” explained Terry. “The prolife movement has failed to learn the lessons of history, which show how the labor movement, the civil rights movement, Vietnam protest, and gay liberation all occurred because a group of people created social tension.”

Operation Rescue represents a growing segment of the prolife movement unwilling to wait for politicians to change abortion laws. They say they must obey God’s law when it conflicts with earthly law, which for them means breaking U.S. laws to prevent abortions.

Though abortion clinic protesters usually face only a small fine, some pay the price of freedom. From a telephone in the District of Columbia jail, ChristyAnne Collins, director of Sanctity of Life, told CHRISTIANITY TODAY of being arrested, handcuffed, and sentenced to nine months for refusing to leave a public hallway in front of an abortion clinic. “I may be released early with the provision I refrain from further activities outside abortion clinics,” she said, “but I cannot do that. I’ll use whatever nonviolent means I can to help save the babies.”

Some, however, go further than Collins. “Philosophically, blowing up an abortion machine can’t be wrong, because it’s a machine used for killing innocent human beings,” said Richard Traynor, an attorney and president of New Jersey Right to Life. “However, I would not do it myself. Instead, I choose to put my body between the machine and the innocent victim.”

Faith In The System

Meanwhile, others in the prolife movement hailed the June 29 Supreme Court decision in Bowen v. Kendrick (see p. 54) as evidence that working through the legislative process is the most effective way to make abortion illegal, even though the case is only indirectly related to abortion. “In the past 15 years we have seen the Court move from 7 to 2 in favor of abortion to a probable 5 to 4 opposed,” said Jack Willke, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). The nation’s largest prolife organization, the NRLC has consistently opposed illegal activity.

Willke was careful not to criticize those who break laws to fight abortion, but he said he feels their actions are misguided. The NRLC advocates working within the law as the quickest route to reversing Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Willke cites a string of legislative victories that have cut federal funds for abortion.

“Moral Calculus”

Although both groups agree that the ultimate goal is to change the law, convictions about how to do it are firm on both sides. “If we believe abortion is murder, the logical response is physical intervention, not writing letters to congressmen,” says Operation Rescue’s Terry. “We’ve been working on a political solution for 15 years, and it’s failed. Our ranks are growing because people are realizing we have missed the boat. Instead of trying to fill the halls of Congress, we should have been filling the abortion clinics with people who want to stop the killing.”

Willke, however, questions the wisdom of breaking the law. “We will want people to obey the new abortion law we are working for, so it is important we let the nation know we are responsible people ourselves.” Willke is especially critical of violence. “We will not win with violence. That is the tactic of the abortionist.”

Willke maintains further that proponents of illegal activities may actually be postponing the reversal of Roe v. Wade. “Generally, the kind of publicity they receive when they demonstrate is bad for the movement. In the sixties, the media were behind the civil rights movement. They are not behind the prolife movement. They portray those demonstrators as a bunch of kooks, religious fanatics.”

Wilke said the sit-ins may stop a few babies from being killed, “but if it postpones the reversal of Roe v. Wade for just one day by turning people off to the cause, that’s 4,000 babies.”

The debate over strategy is a question of what Michigan prolife activist Charles White says is referred to by ethicists as “moral calculus.” White asks, “Do you close or destroy an abortion clinic to stop the killing for a short time, or do you use the legislative process to try and stop it forever?” In White’s view, prolifers face the same decision faced by European Christians sympathetic with Jews facing the Holocaust: “Is it right to blow up a bridge to stop the train carrying Jews to the gas chambers?”

Cease-Fire?

Willke maintains that the time and energy of demonstrators would be better spent campaigning for George Bush. “There are three old men on the Supreme Court who will probably be replaced by the next President,” he said. “If George Bush is elected, he will replace them with constitutional constructionists who will almost certainly reverse Roe v. Wade. If Michael Dukakis is elected, he will almost certainly replace them with young, proabortion judicial activists.”

But Terry indicates there is little chance that his branch of the prolife movement will alter its course. “Our numbers are increasing, especially among evangelicals,” he said. “The National Right to Life Committee does not represent the whole prolife movement. We want a new law too, but in the meantime, we can no longer stand by while babies are being killed.”

By Lyn Cryderman in Philadelphia.

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