JEFF TUTTLE/AP PHOTO t w T a a m C i c p h c C w f T h a s h S T t T p B s r h i e t o w o l e i n b i e d

o h i r i Y P t t a s i d a n

l u r l J T A r i w g e t

o e w

m i l i l s t w

C v u i t i t h e n n n e c w .

- h s K t r u e i h h m i a s r f r

h i s s a o t

e s d s c t r n s t a T o t t A

e i ’ u e , s d c

e

m b h o

h

a h s

l p i o b

r ( T m l a a n o a k s

d i

t n

C n o e o

i l e a p y d t , r e r H u e — n a e y l c W

h e

r r g

e ”

e p i P a s g x l c c c e e , R

t i n g d e

i

a h r s a t a i e n t e t

a n C l o i e Y R ’

g m

i

h r r z a n r i a e p r c b s n

a d p p s H h s n w s , s i y n

t ) N a a r n s

a h c

o t

t w e

t i e r r o

c i a o i

s “ t I e t e o c

i C h n i h i n

n i e

o e

l e h e S

d

g v o m s r s o . m t w t J i t o s g e c p d i g v c s

i a e o h a n x o e

e i r m s s d o O — d d t

P m u o i a u e ,

a t y

t

h t o

i

i d t t m g b e t t e A u r o c c h r

s r r u t m Y e

o a s o i o e e e a w c d e

a d h a K

e S

l i c e a l n c

C d a d t t t S e

r t

d t d m o

t e

e e T u n d t

a r e t e T r a

i n

a c e h

a c “ E

f i r o s h

n

n

i i r l D

d

l o k n a t c r D l o d s m i e a e k

e e t i b c n t k S e J a s y M t o n n s r l

o t . d m

l d a r

A . h r e , t a

r t e l ,

o s t

c e m i R d

. e w o v

e G

h —

C m

s N

t p e , r

n e o v d R m o t f

e t

e d r h f f s G e c . n o e

o e d b o e o

o u U

h i ’ o

i h

a o a

l a m t d y c r s n u

m r r r i u s t i

n e h a r t g t a e ” A

m c a e n b

’

a i s e n

c e

t

b o e t r a t r s

e v t n a l d e w R t l

i s o o h e

l i h

e i n ( t u i

r

t e i T l c a f n t t t i f c e d f Y t

n

a

l g

e r i b a e n y y , e o

h l l y t e C l s C o r

e t , o

t l s s l g c

h

o e l n e

e r , i

h

r i i e c c o

r e i

o l c o c i o l t w r n

W

h

W c u t t e m . l e e

r l i a ’ n

t

a T

h ” f i s w r o i f n n g o r r i t m r o b a i n b

t

r b o

)

m H m

W t a s e o n e

i y . i i s

e t r o o y o i w h c

o t l

c i o t

, s c h r m

i s E e t B w l

m e f c e

r u i . “ a e e

r , e i b v h s e

r o j n h o t N .

x s d c h C s t

r u a u h c e r e

o i u i

c e l

n p i

— o t F p , d a e a o s v o a n r s t o e a o n u

o

t h 2

o

r u

S t v

e n e o c e , “ a h u

’ r w

n s g u i

o e , h s s i K s i C

n r o r t r s s r l 3 e a “ f b n o

i h e

d n a d i i i s

o a d .

o s O

b

w p 0 c n s

n y d h y

g m

e u t H

e d A w m t f i a t e . o s o 0 a r e g w

T .

i e e , s t l h p e

u a s n y s t l i

a o e f a u H

“

e

a a d T , o n s e b i

p a

d u r b ’ d a r l s

a p a

i t e a c e i s k

l r o

n o g C s o n u e r n i p d

o l

i o

a

? r n e s d r , R s t c C e k k ”

d r

c o

t i

d w b t P h m i p T r o t

i , R b t o g

e O i c e o

d h c

s

u

P o o i n

t

c C h h w n

e n e u s o

o i t n 4 e o i E i e m n r

g t C l s a o d s C t e a s t c a f w n h s , e l i l D t s i s

w s e

l 0 r

f

p e n a v o o i i d s i s

t . e e a i l i f n a h

o a o E o r ” 0 n h t — — d b e e f c a o p u e r r x i l r ’ i c u

n n r d R 0 k y y y e e e e e ”

- - r r s s s . e b l ,

e

j i u n e d f f 8 r c t o d c m o s n n e i a e a e 7 a A f a p t o o

d l i t q

n n r t f

e s s a n e p c r e e d u c t e i r e

n s n e , r e u e s f e a

,

q a e

r

r

i r f t s o o m f m n c l , o s i w t u o

u r n

e e f i l r i i n r e

n e o

s n d s m g m c

s s n a C g l f r

t

u e t “ e t b i m t a

i e i i c P a o a g e s r t n y o k p l d t i g f a l d C

a

t n i o

i R

t s e l e C n t

w c i i w n s b

i s o t r e g l

a o P t

o y [ n o y r i p n a

s w n d t

m C

s a b e u . o — h s e

e a t e t H o n r s o e e —

i o

y

v

u p p

n s m s t p s

e

e i h u t r r m t o

f h d r n a

r y o s o e i a o w a o e b c r l a ” m v t

v x e b y i o m o n

o

e d r e i

f

a p o f u m m d o n W e e

r b r t t t t a c ,

r . i h i

h e

e l t e n a n p w t A p i s n e e e e y i x n a a g v r

h

’ n

m m g 2 t e k s m

m e e r t

b

e 0 s g

w p o a u t e f o

o o 0 h n n 2 e s r

t b e t s 6 s

h e e d 9 a

t o l h e s ( t t

h l r g - ] e n c D f

t

-

. i i h

n e r w l o t d t n a n o a h

m - e a b n o f w e - C l c e n a a o a

g e c . a f y o m c

v d a r u n r u l

y t m e l S i

v p m

n l i i o a

s y e a o f o e s d n s e . u

e b r t n m r ) i t i d n t a n s o

f a o n

f i o c t

e

t n s o r r g w P u p o l e r g

i t i a u

n s r m f d n i p p R h e l o

n o g

: i o r r o t r

c n E d p

e C a o o T e r s s

o b G

d p v v t

t E a d a h a s h o i i o C N n n d e d u N n e r a r d d d y e e e R - - A t t T

N I E S R C I S Y S of CPCs that receive % federal funding provide 87 false information. Despite these fraudulent practices, CPCs have received in anti- parlance). The latter, they wrote, “helps millions in funding from both federal and state coffers and buy time for the sidewalk counselors.” enjoy support from certain politicians and churches. Just the presence of a CPC in the vicinity of an abortion CPCs present a public persona that is woman-friendly, clinic ups the potential for violence. A recent survey by the compassionate and “empowering”—a love-bombing al - Feminist Majority Foundation of women’s reproductive- ternative to public images of angry protestors berating health clinics nationwide found 32.7 percent of clinics lo - women entering abortion clinics. cated near a CPC experienced one or more incidents of However, this image is belied by the reality at a number severe violence, compared to only 11.3 percent of clinics of the nation’s most heavily-targeted abortion clinics, not near a CPC. (Severe violence includes clinic blockades where neighboring CPCs have close ties with extremists and invasions, bombings, arson, bombing and arson and sidewalk counselors, who function as an outreach arm threats, death threats, chemical attacks, stalking, physical that works, with or without acknowledgement, to draw violence and gunfire.) CPC clients in. In Roeder’s testimony linking the work of A who’s who of anti-abortion extremists have been in - anti-abortion sidewalk counselors—the unofficial foot volved with the CPC movement: soldiers of the CPC movement—with his own violent vig - —Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s “senior policy ilantism, he bared the troubling intersection of some of director” in Wichita, who served two years in prison for these seemingly innocuous centers with a number of the conspiring to blow up an in in anti-abortion movement’s most notorious members. 1988, began her path to radical activism at a CPC. As she told anti-abortion activists gathered in Omaha, CPCS HAVE LONG HAD CONNECTIONS WITH THE MOST Neb., for a training during Operation Rescue-organized extremist anti-abortion cohorts.The zealous anti-abortion protests in August 2009, “Very soon I realized that there group Operation Rescue, which doggedly pursued Dr. were so many women that fell through the crisis preg - Tiller, has long urged its supporters to get involved with nancy center safety net and never approached those CPCs and sidewalk counseling. In its 1990s guide “How places; they went straight to the abortion clinics. And I to Stop Abortion in Your Community,” Operation thought, ‘Who is gonna go to the abortion clinic to help Rescue of California (which later moved to Wichita and them?’” (Sullenger’s phone number was found in Scott changed its name to simply Operation Rescue) recom - Roeder’s car after he fled the Tiller murder scene.) mended volunteering at the local CPC and sidewalk —Michael Bray, a convicted abortion-clinic bomber and counseling “right at the doors of the abortion mill”— author of the “justifiable homicide” tome A Time to Kill, along with picketing at abortion doctors’ homes, filing cofounded the Bowie Crofton Pregnancy Clinic (a lawsuits and conducting clinic blockades (called “rescues” CPC) in 1982 in Bowie, Md. Bray is “lifetime chaplain” of the extremist group Army of God, whose adherents have been responsible for the murders of abortion doc - tors and for clinic bombings, including a fatal 1998 bombing in Birmingham, Ala. —Chet Gallagher, a former police officer who has been arrested dozens of times for trespassing and abortion- clinic blockades organized by Operation Rescue, lent his anti-abortion star power to a fundraising benefit this past April for Gabriel’s Corner, a Council Bluffs, Iowa, CPC. It was a brotherly act: The CPC is run by his sister, Christine Wilson. Wilson herself draws no lines between sidewalk counseling and CPCs, saying that CPCs exist as a resource to bolster the effective - ness of the counselors, who can intercept abortion- O

bound women and then take them across the street to T O H

close the sale. P

P A

—Joan Andrews Bell, a “justifiable homicide” supporter / H T who spent five years in a Florida state prison for invad - I M S

ing and vandalizing the Ladies Center clinic in . W

Y R R A

Eugene Frye (center) in front of Dr. ’s abortion clinic in 2007. L

www.feminist.org CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS

Pensacola, Fla., and who has been arrested repeatedly Choice—apartment lessors James, Gordon and Ruth since for clinic blockades, has long been involved with Peterson—seem to want to distance themselves from pro - CPCs. Her husband, Chris, founded Good Counsel testers like Frye or other extremist faces outside the clinic. Homes, a string of five homes for unwed pregnant (Those include Army of God member and convicted con - women in that also “responds to crisis preg - spirator in clinic arson attacks Jennifer McCoy, formerly a nancy situations.” regular protester at Dr. Tiller’s clinic, who now travels —James Kopp, the convicted murderer of abortion cross-state to protest at Aid For Women.) provider Dr. Barnett Slepian in 1998 (and the prime sus - “I’m not really supposed to be involved in [sidewalk pect in the attempted murders of four other doctors in counseling] as an employee here,” says Robin Marriott, Canada and New York), founded a CPC in San Your Choice’s current director, who tells me she takes is - Francisco and worked for Chris Bell’s Good Counsel sue with “the screamers and yellers,” and claims ignorance Homes. Kopp has been affiliated with several of the of the tenor of the Saturday protests put forth by Frye and most extremist groups in the country, including others. “But I’ve tried to encourage churche s.. .to be Operation Rescue and the Lambs of Christ, and is believed to be a member of the Army of God.

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Deceptive CPCs in Legal Heat Federation (NAF), argues that Kopp’s escalation of In the past few years, legislators at local, state and federal levels have tactics—from starting a CPC to engaging in blockades to taken note of how crisis pregnancy centers operate, particularly their making attempts on the lives of four abortion doctors to use of deceptive advertising to draw in women seeking . The finally murdering Slepian—is not an uncommon progres - facilities certainly warrant such scrutiny, considering that some receive sion. “Some of the anti-abortion extremists got their start state and federal funding for their activities through family-planning and in establishing CPCs,” she says. “And one of the best abstinence-only sources, tax credits and “choose life” license plates. examples is James Kopp. His evolution mirrored the evo - Now lawmakers have begun to act: In December 2009, Baltimore lution of the anti-choice movement.” became the first city in the country to pass a truth-in-advertising law requiring CPCs to post signs stating they do not perform abortions, give AID FOR WOMEN , AN ABORTION CLINIC IN abortion referrals or provide . Under the law, CPCs will need City, Kan., is where Scott Roeder got his start in anti- to post two signs in the waiting area, one in English and one in Spanish, abortion extremism, repeatedly super-gluing the clinic locks or pay a fine of $150 per day. and being part of the group of regular clinic protesters/ Not long after the Baltimore bill passed, the city of Austin, Texas, sidewalk counselors. followed suit. The Austin law also requires CPCs to post signs stating Across the street is the Your Choice Pregnancy Resource that centers do not provide abortion or contraceptive services. However, Center, a CPC once owned by Eugene Frye—an anti- this bill carries a larger fine, $450 per offense, and the CPC directors abortion veteran who was one of Roeder’s most frequent can be charged with Class C misdemeanors. visitors in prison and who told The Kansas City Star he was Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) want helping Tiller’s assassin consider a “justifiable homicide” to attack the problem on a federal level as well; they recently re- defense. introduced the Stop Deceptive Advertising Women’s Services Act (SDAWS). Frye, a 66-year-old contractor who has been arrested Under SDAWS, the Federal Trade Commission would consider it “an unfair repeatedly since 1991 for various unlawful anti-abortion or deceptive act” for a CPC to advertise as a health-care provider. actions, including clinic blockades, can be found outside But CPCs aren’t going to pay even small fines without a fight. In the Aid For Women clinic most Saturday mornings, in - Baltimore, the Catholic archdiocese—which provides funding for some cluding one in early August, leaning on a table-sized of the local CPCs—is suing the city, saying that the law against poster of a dismembered fetus and calling through a bull - deceptive signage violates and religion. The horn to women entering the clinic, his voice audible for archdiocese claims the ordinance “targets for speech regulation only blocks around, “Mommy, I don’t want to die. .. .Please one side of a contentious public, political debate” and that its centers don’t let them kill me, Momm y. I’ll be a good child.” do provide birth control information through natural-family-planning Although Frye—whom clinic manager M. Jeffrey counseling—and therefore should not be required to state that they do Pederson calls “the number one guy around here”— no not offer birth control. longer owns Your Choice, there are still discernible ties Reproductive-health professionals would disagree. As Rep. Maloney between the center and clinic protesters. For years, told Ms. , “Deception shouldn’t be permitted, especially on such a topic. Pederson has butted heads with Frye over property lines That’s why there needs to be a law.” and harassment tactics, but the new owners of Your —NOELLE WILLIAMS

www.msmagazine.com FALL 2010 | 29 of abortion clinics located near % a CPC experienced one or more 32.7 incidents of severe violence. [involved in sidewalk counseling]. I’ve said what we really the CPC, sometimes through the backdoor. Many rou - need is sidewalk counselors.” tinely park their cars at A Woman’s Touch and seem to use Frye understands their reticence. “I think they’d like to it as base camp for demonstrations. see themselves as autonomous,” says Frye. “They don’t Similar tactics were used in Wichita, says Carhart, who, want to be associated with any violence. Scott Roeder for many years, traveled to Wichita monthly to work at used to come over here with us. He was here two weeks Tiller’s clinic. He noticed that those participating in before he shot Dr. Tiller, and obviously they can see the demonstrations went in and out of the Wichita CPC next connection: that he was from here.” door to Dr. Tiller’s clinic. “In fact, [protestors] would stand on the porch of the CPC and use a megaphone to SINCE DR . TILLER ’S MURDER , EXTREMISTS ’ ACTIVITIES yell at patients over the fence,” he says. “And when we have escalated at a number of abortion clinics nationwide. worked in Ohio, the protesters we had in Dayton bought In Bellevue, Neb., the clinic of Dr. LeRoy Carhart has the old gas station next to the clinic and converted it into become the chief target of Wichita-based Operation a CPC. It’s just an extension of their ways to try to deny Rescue, the group that conducted a seven-year campaign women access to the services that are available.” against Dr. Tiller (and in whose activities Scott Roeder The Bellevue CPC was started, in fact, by stalwart anti- claimed to have participated). In the heated atmosphere abortion protester Liz Miller, whom the Carharts report there, the involvement of extremists with the local CPC is has reappeared on the sidewalk in front of their clinic laid bare. since ceasing full-time management of the center. Miller In August 2009, Operation Rescue and Nebraska anti- is still on its board of directors, though, along with attor - choice group Rescue the Heartland staged a well-publicized ney Matt Heffron, who glides smoothly between repre - “Keep It Closed” demonstration at Carhart’s Abortion senting the CPC on property tax matters and representing and Contraception Clinic of Nebraska (ACCON) to protest one of ACCON’s longtime chief protestors: Father Carhart’s plans to keep Tiller’s clinic open. The neighbor - Norman Weslin. A Catholic priest who founded a number ing CPC, A Woman’s Touch Pregnancy Counseling of unwed mothers’ homes and heads extremist anti-abortion Cen ter, played a leading role in an Operation Rescue sal - “rescue” group the Lambs of Christ, Weslin is known for vation story that has reached the level of anti-abortion traveling around the country with Kopp, Don lan and mythology. other anti-abortion extremists to blockade abortion clin - In the story, which I heard five versions of between ics. He was arrested in 2007 when he invaded Dr. Kansas City and Bellevue, a woman coming for her abor - Carhart’s clinic for the second time. tion appointment at Carhart’s clinic was frightened off by Joan Aylor, the peer-counselor director for A Woman’s clinic defenders shouting her name through a bullhorn. She Touch, further adds that the center was founded in 2002 was gently diverted by sidewalk counselors to the CPC, “by a group of wome n.. .who had on their hearts to do where she viewed an ultrasound picture and fell in love with something for abortion-minded women and to perhaps her unborn child. (Free ultrasounds are one of CPCs’ main provide a little shelter for those sidewalk counselors— lures these days.) The woman then requested that dozens of those brave people who are out there at all hours of the copies of the ultrasound be printed and distributed to the day, in whatever weather.” media and pro-choice clinic defenders. When Operation One of the other frequent protestors outside Carhart’s Rescue president Troy Newman waved the photos, pro- clinic is Rescue the Heartland founder Donlan, a longtime choicers shrunk from the picture like vampires from a cross, anti-abortion extremist who drove one of Operation claimed Rescue the Heartland founder Larry Donlan. In Rescue’s raucous and graphic “Truth Trucks” through some versions of the story, the woman has twins. neighborhoods where Carhart’s employees live—prompt - “It was a total set up,” says Mary Carhart, Dr. Carhart’s ing the establishment of a nuisance law in Bellevue, wife and colleague, of the tale. She says the woman didn’t transparently aimed at him. He also has written threat - even have an appointment at the abortion clinic that day, ening letters to Carhart’s employees, warning them that and clinic defenders weren’t carrying bullhorns. Re - unless they resign their positions, he and his Rescue the porters on the scene also expressed skepticism at the tale Heartland group will begin a “campaign of exposure”— when they were denied an interview with the woman, or including circulating flyers with their photos and hold - even her name. But the ease of Operation Rescue’s coor - ing vigils in front of their houses and throughout their dinated publicity with A Woman’s Touch is more proof to neighborhoods . the Carharts of the connection between CPCs and anti- Meeting me outside ACCON one day, Donlan under - abortion protestors—something they’ve believed for years scores the casual connection he has with A Woman’s as they’ve watched their chief antagonists go in and out of Touch, referring to it in terms of “we,” “us” and “our”—

30 | FALL 2010 www.feminist.org CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS

an affiliation that he doesn’t officially acknowledge, even lawsuit, under the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic as he was able to produce a client of A Woman’s Touch to Entrances). meet with me on short notice. At one point he notes, “It’s Meanwhile, the back lines—the CPCs—remain un - not unreasonable to think that [abortion clinics] look at us tainted by such activities. The back lines are “clean,” says [CPCs] as competition that’s more successful.” Benham. “So you’ll see great financial support for CPCs. But he demurs when asked about his official ties to A We, the people who are out front of the abortion mills, are Woman’s Touch. “I’m one of those people who will talk to the ‘ugly,’ ‘dirty’ pro-lifers. …You look at the reports in a gal and if I can bring her over here [to the CPC],” he the media and you’ll see that we are the people who blow adds, “I’ll do that, but that’s as far as my affiliation goes.” up abortion mills, kill abortionists; we’re the Timothy McVeighs. ...When all arguments fail, they resort to ad SOME ANTI -ABORTION LEADERS ADMIT THE PARTNER - hominem .” ship between themselves and CPCs is sometimes seam - However, the borders between extremist sidewalk less, but sometimes strained. counselors and even CPCs seeking to keep distance from “We, the church of Jesus Christ, are an army, and CPCs them might not be that solid. As NAF’s Saporta notes, are triage, the Red Cross. They’re always in the back of the while CPCs likely seek to “maintain a façade of some kind lines, and they help the wounded to get well,” explains Flip of legitimate medical facility” to keep receiving federal Benham, director of Operation Save America/Operation funds, abortion-clinic staff have recognized the faces of Rescue (not to be confused with the Operation Rescue in their regular protesters as CPC employees. Wichita). Benham, who has been arrested many times for It’s a demonstration of the labyrinthine connections in blockading clinics and is currently facing criminal charges the anti-abortion world that seem to prove Dr. Carhart for stalking an abortion doctor, himself began working right when he argues that the camps are one and the same. with the Dallas CPC network Last Harvest Ministries “They have two different spheres. The underlying theory in 1984. of both is never let the truth stand in the way of getting He explains how Operation Save America (and its Las your point across. If you distort facts to women, there is Vegas coordinator, Chet Gallagher) worked “hand in no difference.” hand” with a local CPC, First Choice Pregnancy Center, And if you distort facts to the public, which is provid - to host Operation Save America’s 2009 National Event in ing funding for some of your activities, the public de - Las Vegas. He complains, however, that other CPCs try to serves to scrutinize both your activities and the company keep the connection fuzzy—perhaps out of fear of lawsuits you keep. or loss of stature and funding. What such scrutiny will uncover, Carhart predicts, is A lot of “churches don’t want to go further than the that “There is no difference. It’s the same people.” n back lines,” he tells me over the phone from the sidewalk outside an abortion clinic in Charlotte, N.C. The city is KATHRYN JOYCE is a journalist and author of Quiverfull: where, since Tiller’s murder, Benham and Operation Save Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement (Beacon Press, America have escalated protests against the three local 2009). abortion clinics and held a “siege.” They’ve set up ladders to peer over the privacy fence and amplify their protests at Research assistance provided by the Feminist Majority the Family Reproductive Health abortion clinic. They Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project. also stand in the driveway, holding STOP signs up to en - tering patients, whom they attempt to direct to the local CPC, Pregnancy Resource Center—often driving pa - tients there themselves. Benham and Operation Rescue have also printed and distributed WANTED posters with abortion doctors’ photos at the doctors’ homes and offices and in their neighborhoods—a terrorizing tactic that, when carried out in Pensacola, Fla. in the 1990s, preceded the earlier murders of two other abortion providers and a clinic vol - unteer. Those posters were ruled as true threats in a civil

Protesters at Dr. LeRoy Carhart’s abortion clinic in Bellevue, Neb., are often seen going in and out of this CPC. www.msmagazine.com