ADVOCATES High-profile antiabortion protesters reunited
The protests to save the life of Terri Schiavo have reunited members of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue -- and drawn a newer incarnation of the group itself.
BY NOAH BIERMAN
PINELLAS PARK - The debate over Terri Schiavo has reunited members of a protest movement many Americans hadn't heard from in more than a decade: Operation Rescue.
Operation Rescue radicalized antiabortion politics in the summer of 1991, when members famously blocked abortion clinics in Wichita, Kan. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, group members were arrested around the country for a style of protest members compared with Gandhian civil disobedience and detractors called intimidation.
Now, former members of the group are playing high-profile roles in Schiavo protests. And the group they left behind -- reconstituted after its tactics were outlawed and its former leader shamed -- has joined the effort outside her hospice.
Randall Terry, the founder and former leader of Operation Rescue, has become the spokesman for Schiavo's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, and is once again a prominent face on the 24-hour television news cycle. The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, former national spokesman for Operation Rescue, is organizing demonstrators through a group called the Christian Defense Coalition.
''I think the nexus is clear'' between the Schiavo case and the abortion issue, said Mahoney.
MOVEMENT BEGINS
Operation Rescue began in the 1980s with protests around the country. Members believed they were rescuing unborn babies by preventing abortions. Terry, the founder, has been arrested more than 40 times and spent a total of more than a year incarcerated, according to his website.
But the movement was crippled by two things:
* In 1994, the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act effectively stopped clinic protests.
* Terry, the movement's charismatic founder, faced censure from his own church after an adultery accusation. He left his wife. His website includes rebuttals to ``Internet rumors and published personal attacks.''
Terry lost the trust of many in the movement and remains controversial. Mahoney praised Terry for his work on behalf of Schiavo but stopped short of saying he had regained credibility among Christian conservatives.
''I daily pray for Randall,'' he said.
Troy Newman, who began leading Operation Rescue two years ago and stood vigil Saturday in Pinellas Park, also had no comment when asked about Terry's credibility in the movement. He said Operation Rescue never died.
''We changed our tactics,'' he said.
Newman, 39, said he had been involved in abortion protests for years when he moved to Wichita two years ago to target a clinic there and adopted the Operation Rescue name.
GROUP REPRESENTATION
Mahoney said the spirit of the old group remains alive and that the group's sympathizers continue to make an impact, some serving for the Bush administration.
Still, despite calls on Christian and secular radio to bring hundreds of thousands of people to protest the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube Friday, only about 100 people showed up to the vigils outside the hospice Saturday.
One of them was Brandi Swindell, 28, who founded a group called Generation Life in Boise, Idaho. Growing up, she had never heard of Operation Rescue. After joing the antiabortion movement, she went to New York seven years ago to work for Terry's failed Congressional campaign. But she left after six months.
''I really don't put much thought into Randall Terry and what he's doing. . . . You can sort of read between the lines,'' she said.
With blond highlights and cowboy boots, Terry remains the man in front of the cameras. He's been working with the Schindlers since 2003. He has been key in lobbying for help from the Governor and state Legislature and appears to have the family's full confidence.
Terry gave two press conferences Saturday and moved around the television satellite trucks with the confidence of a media veteran. But he cut short a Herald interview and was not available for a follow-up conversation.
''We have a lot of years and years of experience between us, and we're putting it to use for Terri,'' he said of himself and the other Rescue veterans. Staff writer Erika Bolstad contributed to this report.