It would have been difficult to find a presidential hopeful whose values were more contrary to ours than William Jefferson Clinton. He tried to convince voters he was a Christian and a moderate Democrat. To us he was a traitor. In 1986, when Arkansas was struggling with the issue of state funding for abortions and Bill Clinton was governor, he was completely evasive on the subject, which many of us took as evidence of his pro-life convictions.* We were aware that, at some point in the late eighties, he had signaled he believed abortion was morally wrong, but he changed his tune completely when he became a national candidate in 1992. We assumed he realized, or had been schooled by party leadership, that no Democrat could secure the nomination by being anti-abortion. That year he told the National Abortion Rights Action League, “The government simply has no right to interfere with decisions that must be made by women of America to make the right choice.” It looked to us that Clinton embodied the party he wanted to lead: unrepentant in legitimizing the murder of babies, unsupportive of any pro-life politician in his midst, and ready to experiment with God’s design for human sexuality.
If Reagan’s presidency set us on the path of combining our faith with political action, 1992 was the culmination of our dominance within the Republican Party. Reporters routinely called Paul and me to comment, politicians from many states courted us for help in fund-raising efforts, and Rush Limbaugh extolled us to the masses. We received invitations from all over the country to preach at rallies, in large and small auditoriums, and in medium- to mega-sized churches. We often took our cues from Ralph Reed, the executive director of Pat Robertson’s political creation, the Christian Coalition.
Pat Robertson was determined to inject our values into the political conversation, too. He and Ralph Reed helped draft the Republican platform for the 1992 convention in Houston, ensuring the culture wars would be front and center. They condemned the liberal commitment to abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and obscene art and music. For the embodiment of our principles, we turned not to President Bush, who was a liberal Episcopalian and therefore suspect on abortion, but to his conservative Presbyterian running mate Dan Quayle and his wife, Marilyn.
Meantime, we were orchestrating a demonstration that would publicize our convictions when the Democrats gathered for their convention in New York City. The same pathologist who had given me Baby Tia for our demonstrations in Buffalo was willing to provide babies for this demonstration as well. We arranged to get several and intended to find an opportune time to present an aborted baby to Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, and capture the moment on film for an ad we would call “The True Face of Pro-Choice America.” A courier from Tulsa delivered several fetuses in bags by strapping them to his body. We arranged to meet him aboard a train between Newark and Manhattan to reduce the chances of being spotted by pro-death monitors at our hotel. But New York had a large and important Catholic community that was extremely sensitive about the proper burial of fetal remains. We didn’t want to do anything to alienate them, so we checked with John Cardinal O’Connor, the prelate of the New York archdiocese, who approved the plan, provided that the remains were treated with respect. That’s all Randall needed to hear. Against my advice, he and Pat Mahoney impulsively called a news conference to announce our intentions to present the candidates with the unborn babies. We only had to look for the right opportunity, which we thought might be in or around Madison Square Garden, where the convention was being held.
New York attorney general Robert Abrams immediately asked the court to block our actions, and U.S. District Court judge Robert Ward issued an injunction prohibiting anyone from “presenting or confronting either Governor Bill Clinton or Senator Albert Gore with any fetus or fetuses or fetal remains.” The injunction also established a speech-free zone around clinic doors, barred intimidating doctors at their homes, and prohibited any kind of blockade at a convention gathering. We were even required to inform our adversaries of any protests we might otherwise plan twenty-four hours before they were scheduled.
What was meant to discourage only emboldened us. We felt then that our civil disobedience would be in the grand tradition of historical acts of conscience, from the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement. Enlisting the help of the sympathetic Tulsa pathologist, not to mention all the other surreptitious moving parts in our effort, was the stuff of grand conspiracy, played out on a national stage. Any apprehension I might have felt about going too far—or disappointing Cheryl even more—was pushed away by the comradeship and energy of the movement. Becoming a Christian had brought me a new and loving group of friends. Becoming a pro-life activist had brought me into an intense, competitive, high-minded group of men—a kind of fraternity. It might not have been comforting, but it was thrilling.
When we reached our New York hotel, I opened the box the courier had placed the babies in after he landed at the airport. One of them was a perfect little boy, whom Paul named Nathan after the prophet who confronted King David with his sins of murder and adultery. I met up with Randall, who was adamant about carrying out our protest plans even though they violated the court order. In another news conference he announced: “We are coming to be a witness against the Democratic Party’s brazen embrace of child killing and homosexuality.” For some time Randall and a few other movement leaders had begun stringing together abortion and homosexuality as tandem sins. I didn’t see it that way and even felt it diminished the life issue, which I considered paramount. It was indicative of Randall’s religious populism, which I found distasteful. He knew the crowds at our rallies would be riled up by the fact that gay activist groups were joining forces with the pro-choice protestors and he fully exploited all that emotional volatility. As cameras rolled, Randall tore up Judge Ward’s order prohibiting our convention protests—a dramatic gesture that would cost us all dearly.
The day before the convention began, we moved from our hotel to the InterContinental—Clinton’s headquarters. We wanted every possible opportunity to gain access to him so we could spring the babies on him, his wife, Hillary, or Al Gore. As we were checking out, I asked my group where Nathan and the other babies were.
I had forgotten them in our room.
We raced back upstairs to a chaotic scene with a sobbing maid, some New York cops, and a few hotel security guards. While cleaning, the maid opened the box to see what had been left behind. She was traumatized. When we arrived to claim the box, the police returned it to us, unaware of what we had planned to do. That evening at the Intercontinental, with two other Operation Rescue insiders, Joe Forman and Harley Belew, I prepared a small jewelry case, lined with a tufted paper towel so it looked like a tiny casket, into which we placed Baby Nathan’s little form.
The next morning I awoke to the sound of Harley banging on the door. He was beside himself with excitement and urged me to turn on the television, because he had managed to present the baby to Governor Clinton and CNN was there to catch the encounter. We were shocked to see it playing out on the screen: Clinton in his jogging outfit, Harley standing awkwardly behind police tape, holding a bulky copy of the New York Times. He had taken it upon himself to go downstairs early, knowing Clinton would go out for his morning run.
Harley filled us in on the details: He had positioned himself at the entrance of the hotel behind the rope line. When Clinton emerged, he asked for the governor’s autograph but was initially ignored. The governor then turned back toward him and Harley offered him a pen to sign the Times. As Clinton leaned forward, Harley revealed the fetus.
“What about the babies, Governor?” Harley demanded.
Clinton threw the newspaper at his feet in disgust, then followed Secret Service agents to his limo, speeding away without comment.
After we made ourselves presentable, we raced into the hotel’s press area to announce a news conference. Reporters jostled each other, pushing and shoving as we all crammed into a hallway where I explained the rationale behind what had just taken place. Soon the Secret Service showed up and escorted us to our room, where they interrogated us for almost an hour. When they left, the NYPD arrived and took their turn. We were charged with violating the city health code governing “Improper Disposal of a Fetus, Transportation of a Fetus into the City, and Removal of Human Remains from the Place of Death.” I was enjoying the adrenaline high all this drama provided—and I felt satisfied we were dealing a blow to pro-abortion culture in our country. Still, anxiety was beginning to creep in. I knew we were in real legal trouble. What would happen if I ended up in a federal prison? What would become of Cheryl and the kids? Never mind—there was no time to indulge such self-pity. We had to win this war.
The three of us were given summonses to appear in court and told to promptly get out of the hotel. As much as I was in denial about the legal dangers looming for me, I couldn’t really contain the anxiety that increasingly became part of my experiences. I worried about managing the media or figuring out the downstream consequences when we celebrated what seemed like a victory. As frequent as my interactions with the court system had become, I could never celebrate them the way some in our group did. Cheryl acted as my link to another kind of reality: her disapproval was rarely articulated but always close to the surface. With the other guys at Operation Rescue, each summons was a new medal of honor. At home, it was a source of tension and shame.
We were told Judge Ward had ordered each of us to surrender to federal authorities. I quickly realized I needed to get out of town before I was forced to either surrender or face a warrant for my arrest, so I grabbed the first train back to Buffalo. When I arrived home, I was exhausted but had no time to enjoy reuniting with the kids and Cheryl.
All I wanted to do was take a shower, get into some clean clothes, and spend time with my family, who were clearly showing signs of strain. But a warrant had indeed been issued—while I was in transit—and I had to return to New York, so I could surrender to Ward in the morning. He had been contemplating criminal charges against Randall and civil contempt charges against Harley, Joe, and me. I tried to maintain a calm exterior, but inside I was sick with the thought of prison and bankrupting judgments. I struggled with other biblical mandates, like properly caring for one’s family and living at peace with all people. Was I, in fact, in conflict with my own faith? What about Cheryl? I could see the sadness and fear all this caused her: she wore it in her eyes, in her more frequent frowns, and, worse than anything else, in her tearful retreats to our bedroom. In New York, Judge Ward reserved his ire for Randall and scheduled an October hearing for me. I returned to Buffalo, relieved by what felt like a stay of execution.
* * *
In the beginning of August, just a few weeks before the Republican National Convention in Houston, I had another court date. Two months earlier, I had been arrested along with twenty-nine others during our Spring of Life demonstrations in Buffalo. Finally, my trial was going to take place—bookended between the two political conventions. Paul and I felt blessed with a remarkable attorney, the retired New York State Supreme Court judge William J. Ostrowski, whom we called “Judge O.” A tall, bearded, and elegant man, a reader in his Catholic parish, and an amateur Shakespearean actor, he was an ardent opponent of abortion and admired our pro-life work. When he heard about our arrests that April, he reached out and offered to defend us pro bono—a gift from God. He walked us through the complications that we might face in every step of our legal journey, but his patrician manner and long history serving on a prestigious bench reassured us we were receiving the best possible representation.
On August 6, Paul, another rescuer, Gary Oyer, and I—along with about thirty others charged with trespass, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct—arrived early for the evening court session. We knelt outside the doors, heads bowed in prayer, and were immediately stopped by the bailiff, who warned us we were engaging in an unlawful demonstration. When we were finally called into the courtroom, Judge Sherwood Bestry didn’t pause to deal with any of the specifics of our case. He ordered our attorneys and the prosecutors into his chambers, where he harrumphed about sending anyone to jail who dared disrupt his courtroom while our attorneys argued he had no legal authority to do so. He said he could do whatever he damned well pleased in his own court, including sending our attorneys to jail for contempt, whereupon Judge O. told him that that, too, would be illegal.
When Judge Bestry reconvened the court, he swore in the jury and then, as is commonly done in a part-time night court, dismissed them for the evening, as it had already been a restless wait for them. Once out of their presence, the judge turned to us and sternly warned he would not permit singing, religious ceremonies, praying, or any demonstrations at all. He was asserting his control over his courtroom and was determined to keep religion out of it. He assured us that if he heard this occurring, we would be in contempt of court—having disrupted proceedings and violated courtroom decorum—and he would send us to the Erie County Correctional Facility for thirty days. I thought of what the apostles Peter and John had done after they were arrested and were warned never again to “speak or teach in the name of Jesus.” They admonished the civil magistrates, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” I also thought that this just might prove to be a thrilling opportunity for a case about religious freedom and the First Amendment. At the time, I couldn’t stop working all the angles that might have been available to bring attention to our cause and, perforce, to us.
In court the next evening, our group once again dropped to our knees and prayed. The bailiff impatiently herded us into the courtroom. Judge Bestry again ordered our lawyers into chambers and, in their absence, several of us again knelt—this time at our seats, as if in a pew—and prayed quietly while the jury and spectators talked, laughed, even occasionally cursed. It’s hard to describe how righteous I felt in that moment. We were obeying God while they were deriding him. When the judge and the attorneys reentered the courtroom, Bestry immediately announced that Gary and I were in contempt of court, summarily sentencing us to thirty days in jail. I was delighted: this was both a form of suffering for Jesus and another chance at being a principal in a classic First Amendment case.
The officers pushed Gary and me down a hall, stripped us of our belts and shoelaces, and held us in two cells in the back of the courthouse. My door was solid metal except for a narrow window of very thick glass. I could see everyone on the other side talking furiously but could not hear a word. I was so eager to always be involved, to know what was going on and participate in the process, that to watch the pantomime was frustrating for me. It didn’t take long before I deduced what had happened, as Paul was escorted through the same hall, also in handcuffs. I figured he had likely done the same thing Gary and I had. Later on I would learn he had done so in grand style, walking right up to the front and opening his Bible, reading Psalm 94 to the defendants:
The Lord is a God who avenges.
O God who avenges, shine forth.
Rise up, Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.
How long, Lord, will the wicked,
how long will the wicked be jubilant?
The judge asked him to close the Bible and stop praying. Undeterred, Paul dropped to his knees and offered the Bible up to the bench, and swiftly received the same sentence as I had. Was Paul provocative as a witness to God? Or was he being provocative because he, too, wanted to clock some time in jail during this high-profile case? We never discussed it.
Late that night, we were all transferred to the Erie County Holding Center in downtown Buffalo and placed in isolation cells. On the same block as the psychiatric inmates, I could hear various anguished voices in the halls. As I sat in my cell, I took stock of where I was. The walls were smeared with dried excrement and the lone toilet was jammed with wads of soiled paper and feces. I tried to mitigate my nausea by reminding myself that Jesus had suffered far greater indignities. But it was an enormous relief when we were moved to a large, secured room with sixteen other prisoners.
Meanwhile our lawyers were working through the night, preparing an appeal based on the fact that by jailing us when we prayed, Judge Bestry had violated our First Amendment rights of both religion and freedom of speech. There is a thin line between acts of demonstration, which are universally banned in courtrooms on every level of government to protect the integrity of justice from the intimidation of the mob, and the free exercise of religion guaranteed in the Constitution. The fact that we were reading from the Bible and praying—quintessentially religious activities—forced the court to either permit it or risk doing the very thing the First Amendment prohibits the government from doing: establishing a religion by redefining these activities as acts of protest, not religious ritual.
Just after midnight, Erie County judge Joseph McCarthy granted our release pending a future hearing. He eventually dismissed the charges of contempt against me, but, for reasons I can’t recall, Paul and Gary remained as defendants and would be sentenced to time served. When I returned home, Cheryl was exhausted from worry. She had been getting periodic and often breathless phone calls from acquaintances who were attending the trial, and with each installment of news she would fret more about my safety and our family’s security. I emphasized that what we were doing was necessary and important work. She found my political activism at times deeply distressing, but she wanted to be supportive. Still, she couldn’t understand why a social cause was more important than our family’s well-being. I never had a good answer for that.
Because of my detention, I had missed my next court appearance and so my charges were separated from the others, and my next hearing was scheduled for the following February. To be prosecuted alone was not an advantage. I would be the subject of Bestry’s undivided attention, and the focus of his anger over the contempt dismissal. But the delay allowed me to temporarily resume life as usual, which included a trip to Houston for the Republican National Convention. Paul and I wanted to use the RNC as a platform to keep child-killing at the forefront of the Republican consciousness and exploit the media exposure guaranteed to be available to us there.
Friends of our movement who were high-end donors to Republican causes helped us get the equivalent of all-access passes. We mingled on the convention floor with the delegates. I received backslaps of approval as I stood holding a sign, “Exorcise the Demon-crats!” On the night the president and vice president were to speak, the mood on the convention floor was optimistic, even euphoric. We were never convinced George H. W. Bush was sincerely engaged with the issues most important to us. We all knew his family had supported Planned Parenthood and that was enough to make us suspicious. On a broader level, the party was already divided between the old-line conservative Republicans—the Nelson Rockefeller types—and the religious right, with Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan. Bush was from the earlier generation, which we considered namby-pamby on abortion, the gay agenda, and secularist encroachment on religious freedom; but we were reassured by the presence on the ticket of Dan Quayle, whom we knew and trusted.
The festivities began with Pastor Ed Young of Houston’s enormous Second Baptist Church leading us in prayer, followed by a gospel choir. All around the arena, my fellow Republicans bowed their heads. It could have been a revival meeting. After President George Bush accepted his party’s nomination, he delivered a strong, optimistic speech extolling free markets, tax relief, small-business opportunities, and new schools ready for the twenty-first century. But it was his penultimate words that night that calmed our fears about whether he could be trusted to follow through with his promises to us: “I happen to believe very deeply in the worth of each individual human being, born or unborn. I believe in teaching our kids the difference between what’s wrong and what’s right, teaching them respect for hard work and to love their neighbors. I believe that America will always have a special place in God’s heart, as long as He has a special place in ours.”