Colleges, Dominican Republic see the Truth
The indomitable Missionaries to the Preborn conducted two large-scale Campus Tours at colleges and high schools in Iowa and Indiana this past April. The Missionaries distributed tens of thousands of pieces of literature and showed the ugly truth about abortion to an even greater number. Throughout both four-day statewide Tours, the group was able to minister to those at several major universities and high schools, and to the general public.
At the University of Iowa, despite tremendous hostility, one professor spontaneously joined the Missionaries and passed out literature. At Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, more than a dozen nearby residents joined the group, and a local TV station even covered their efforts. At Indiana State, two members were invited by a professor to give an impromptu presentation to a class and answer students’ questions.
The group was blessed with unseasonably warm weather throughout the Tours, which helped them reach many more people than they otherwise would have.
The Missionaries also recently took their graphic abortion pictures to the Dominican Republic, where citizens are resisting the government’s attempts to make abortion legal. Pastor Matt Trewhella remarked that the group’s graphic pro-life display was “like a spiritual atomic bomb going off in the nation.” Nearly everyone who was offered Missionaries’ literature took some?40,000 pieces were distributed. Many even spontaneously joined the group.
Trewhella commented, “Here in this nation of 8 million, you don’t have millions of women and men trying to justify their sin of killing their own son or daughter. They instantly recognized the evil of abortion for what it is?and they wanted to stop it from coming onto their shores!”
Northern Ireland Activists Harassed
On February 19, members of the Belfast-based group Precious Life were showing pictures of aborted babies in the city’s center?as they had done every week for the past seven years?when police seized one of their display boards and threatened two of the group’s members with prosecution for displaying “offensive material.”
“We will continue to show the true reality of abortion. We will be out again showing these pictures on the streets of Belfast.”
—Bernie Smyth
Precious Life founder Bernie Smyth commented, “We will not be deterred by the police action today. We will continue to show the true reality of abortion. We will be out again showing these pictures on the streets of Belfast.”
Three weeks later, Smyth and others from Precious Life were praying and distributing literature outside of a Belfast abortion referral agency when its director came out and doused Bernie with a bucket of water. The incident was reported to police, and the director was cautioned for assault.
“We will not be intimidated,” remarked Smyth. She vowed: “We will not be stopped from carrying out our pro-life work.”
Pro-Life Activist Found Not Guilty
On April 8, Jeff White, director of the pro-life youth organization Survivors, was found not guilty by a Washington, D.C. court of possessing a dead body for the purpose of public display.
White was arrested outside of a Planned Parenthood facility during the so-called March for Women’s Lives in April 2004 for holding a vial containing the remains of an unborn baby who had been killed by abortion.
During the trial’s closing arguments, the judge asked the government prosecutor if the fetus was a human being. The prosecutor initially said yes, but later said that the baby merely constituted part of a human body. The government’s position on the matter clearly confused the judge.
Brian Chavez-Ochoa, of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, which represented White, declared, “The Lord Jesus Christ deserves the credit and the glory for this victory.” Had he been convicted, White would have faced up to three months in jail and a $200 fine for displaying human remains without a permit.
Operation Rescue’s Latest Success
Notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller recently saw yet another employee resign since Operation Rescue announced its “Year of the Rebuke Campaign” to pray for clinic workers and let their neighbors know how they make their living.
“The broken-down sign outside Tiller’s mill seems to be a sign of the times.”
—Cheryl Sullenger
Nurse Jennifer Van Deest is the eleventh employee to resign from Tiller’s abortion business in the last 18 months, including other nurses and clinic managers. Many of these employees have not been replaced.
“The broken-down sign outside Tiller’s mill seems to be a sign of the times,” noted OR’s Cheryl Sullenger. “It is almost as if it reflects the general disarray that is currently plaguing Tiller’s failing abortion business. His employees are abandoning him, he is under investigation for assorted incidents of wrongdoing, and business has never been worse.”
Operation Rescue also recently unveiled a new website, www.truthtruck.com, dedicated to its fleet of Truth Trucks?vehicles with huge images of graphic abortion pictures mounted on three sides. OR’s Truth Trucks have been all over America this summer, including northern Illinois, when one of the Truth Trucks accompanied the League’s own Face the Truth Tour at more than half our sites.
CLOSED: 2 Florida Abortion Clinics
An abortion clinic in southern Florida has been evicted from its facility after apparently lying to its landlords. According to a West Palm Beach based pro-life group, the abortion clinic told the building’s owners that it would not be performing abortions. Susan Pine, president of FACE Life, said that representatives of the WomanCare clinic “misrepresented themselves to the property owner in order to secure the location.”
Tammy Sobieski, owner of WomanCare, also recently shuttered an abortion clinic she had been operating in Cocoa, FL. Pine commented, “We are thrilled that there are two less facilities in our beautiful state that are focused on the destruction of innocent human life, that exploit women in dire and unusual circumstances, and that rob men of their fatherhood.” At the time it closed, Pine estimated that the West Palm Beach facility had been performing 5000 abortions per year.
