February 9, 2023
One might think that abortion had always been a hot topic in American politics since the Supreme Court ruled legalizing abortion in 1973. But that wasn’t the case. The pro-life movement in the United States had been relatively inactive for many years, and by 1987 abortion wasn’t even in the top ten issues for American voters. Then suddenly, in ABC’s 1988 election exit poll, abortion was the top issue for voters. Why did abortion suddenly become a political touchstone?
What actually happened was Operation Rescue. Though barely remembered now, OR was, believe it or not, the largest civil disobedience in American history. Between 1987 and 1994, some 75,000 pro-life activists were arrested for peacefully interfering with the operation of abortion clinics. That’s 10 times the number of people arrested in the entire civil rights movement.
Operation Rescue quickly died out in 1994 with the Clinton Administration’s FACE Act (recently used to prosecute Mark Hack), but it gave the pro-life movement the momentum it needed to overturn Roe v. Wade. Without Operation Rescue, the United States would be much like Europe, where even anti-abortion conservatives would accept it as the “law of the land” and there would be little political will to challenge it.
We are honored to welcome the founder of Operation Rescue to the Catholic Culture Podcast. Randall Terry, who ran OR for its first few years and was arrested 50 times for his pro-life activism, is producing the documentary series. Dragon Slayer” tells the history of the OR using hours of incredible footage that exists from the time, and he is currently raising funds to produce the series.
Randall will join the show to talk about OR and its defining role in the history of the pro-life movement, the need for direct action in the pro-life movement today, and the political steps that are essential to ending abortion in all 50 states (which Randall calls “Randall’s Rules for a Just Revolution”).
link
Donate to support documentary production and find pro-life training resources. Randall Terry
Catholic Culture Podcast Episode 2 – “The Largest Civil Disobedience Movement in U.S. History,” by Bill Cotter and Phil Lawler
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-2-largest-civil-disobedience-movement-in-us-history
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Source: The Catholic Culture Podcast – catholicculturepodcast.libsyn.com
