Abortion Opponents Plan Illegal Sit-in During Democratic Convention, Expect To Be Arrested

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 25 Aug 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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The antiabortion group Operation Rescue on Wednesday said it has planned an illegal sit-in to take place during the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week and its members plan to be arrested, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reports. The group plans to protest Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) support for abortion rights. Randall Terry, Operation Rescue's founder, said the sit-in will take place on either Monday or Tuesday at an undisclosed location. According to Terry, he is expecting 10 to 30 people to be arrested.

Terry also said that the group plans to distribute at least 100,000 pamphlets around the city, including on cars parked outside at least 60 Roman Catholic and evangelical churches on Saturday and Sunday (Gutierrez, Denver Rocky Mountain News, 8/21). According to the AP/Washington Examiner, one of the pamphlets cites a fictional candidate with whom voters agree on every issue but is a supporter of slavery and asks if the voters would support such a candidate. The pamphlet also states that Christians cannot vote for a candidate who supports abortion, claiming that murder is worse than slavery. Terry said the intention of the group is to "jolt the evangelical and Catholic churches back to reality," adding that they are "being seduced by this Obama mania."

According to the AP/Examiner, Terry is in a legal dispute with antiabortion advocate Troy Newman over who has the rights to the name Operation Rescue. Newman's Operation Rescue group, affiliated with the Christian Defense Coalition, plans to hold a prayer vigil Saturday outside the Democratic convention site. Brian Chavez-Ochoa, an attorney for Newman's group, criticized Terry's group for its "racially motivated" brochures, adding, "I would suggest that Christian activists act in a different fashion." Terry said he regrets that more antiabortion groups are not planning civil disobedience at the convention (Slevin, AP/Washington Examiner, 8/20).

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