When I put my blouse on this morning my thoughts went back to Atlanta, Georgia, July, 1988. I was in a prison camp with sundry other prolifers, including the renowned Randy Terry and a rather feeble priest whose name I don’t recall. We were allowed to wear our own clothes in the camp but after a few days some of us badly needed a change. A call went out to Christians on the “outside” who brought clothing for us and that’s where my blouse came from. It has served me well.

We called ourselves rescuers although the media and the prison staff called us protesters. We were protesting abortion, yes, but the primary aim was to save the lives of babies scheduled to be killed on the particular morning of the rescue. We were pledged to be passive, to accomplish our goal by putting our bodies between the pregnant Moms and the abortionist. We would sit at the door of the “clinic” until the police carried us off. In the meantime our counselors would talk to the mothers and offer them help to deal with the pregnancies they wanted to end. Over the years when Rescue thrived, thousands of babies’ lives were saved in this way.

There was a time, in the early days of Rescue, when what we did, just sitting down and refusing to move, received a just punishment for a charge such as simple trespass. We did not usually have to deal with more than a few days in jail or a modest fine. FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) and RICO (Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act), which were laws passed specifically to protect abortion, seriously upped the cost of resisting abortion. It was the fear of these laws, of years in jail, of thousands of dollars in fines, that stifled the Rescue movement and made killing unborn babies a deed legally protected by the government itself.

According to John Cavanaugh O’Keefe the need to resort to such Draconian laws as FACE and RICO was a clear measure of Rescue’s success. He writes:

FACE posed a question. “You say that zygotic dots and blastular mulberries and embryonic humanettes are your brothers and sisters. I don’t consider dots and mulberries to be members of my family. And you know what? I don’t think you believe that either. But if you want to keep saying that stuff, let’s test your words. You would go to jail for years to protect your little sister. Will you do the same for a slimy fetus?”

Is that “slimy fetus” a being worthy of protection? There is a DVD available called Baby Steps which shows 4-D ultrasound images of babies as they roll, yawn, blink, spin, smile and stretch throughout 16 stages of development from 8 to 34 weeks of pregnancy. It is a real eye-opener. This is obviously neither slime nor blob, but a creature of marvelous complexity. From a scientific standpoint, it is incontrovertible that a human being is formed when the sperm fertilizes the ovum. Everything is there in that tiny package — it has only to grow and develop. That zygotic dot has a full complement of 46 chromosomes and a lifetime supply of human DNA. YOU were once a little package such as that. (Click here for the diary of an unborn child.)

From a Christian point of view there is no question whether the unborn child is a person worthy of protection. Consider that when the the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to bear the Son of God she “went in haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant. It was just days after Christ’s conception when they met, yet Elizabeth exclaimed “blessed is the fruit of thy womb” and the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy at the presence of Jesus. The Greek word for the baby in Elizabeth’s womb is brephos, exactly the same word that is used to describe Christ in Luke 2:12: “You will find a babe {brephos} wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” No Christian can read the description in Luke and believe that killing an unborn child is a matter of no import.

There have been totally non-violent prolifers who have spent several years in jail due to the vagaries of the venues where they were arrested. Many others have months of incarceration to their credit. This is called “walking the walk.” Many of us however, have responded to the above question by saying we might go to jail for a few weeks to save a fetus, but not for years.

Richard John Neuhaus (FIRST THINGS, June 1999, pg. 85) writes:

…for more than twenty-five years there have been thousands of people who have stood vigil at America’s abortuaries, who have prayed, counseled, and sometimes gone to jail, in order to prevent the rest of us from averting our eyes from the horror. It is not the only way of being prolife or even of being a prolife activitist, but they are heroes and heroines, and we are all in their debt.

As Operation Rescue languished, it seems to me that the willingness of Christians (and even Catholic prelates) to confront abortion in the streets has increased. It is true, as Francis Schaeffer wrote, that each abortion mill exists with the permission of the Christians in that community. Praying and peaceful picketing are still relatively risk-free and more and more rosaries are being prayed where and when abortions are being done. Father Frank Pavone’s Priests for Life has been doing a masterful job. Among the others who have visibly witnessed to the evil of abortion in the streets the names of Msgr. Phillip Reilly, Bishop Austin Vaughn, Bishop George Lynch, Cardinal Francis George, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Bishop James McHugh, Bishop Paul Loverde, Bishop William Lori, and Father Michael Scanlon come to mind. There are many others.

Proverbs 24:11 still challenges us. “Rescue those who are being taken away to death…If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?”

We cannot say “We did not know this.” The right to kill the unborn is a hot topic in the current elections. I pray (and know) that there will always be Christians who are willing to put their bodies and lives on the line for their unborn brothers and sisters. Jesus was a Rescuer (some translate it Savior) who laid down his life that others might live. There is no more noble calling.

DOUBLESPEAK