Protest anniversary shows splintered anti-abortion movement

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Protest anniversary shows splintered anti-abortion movement

Roxana Hegeman, Associated Press

Updated 1:22 pm, Saturday, May 21, 2016

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Thousands of anti-abortion activists gathered in Wichita in 1991 for the Summer of Mercy, sparking tumultuous mass protests that led to nearly 2,700 arrests outside local clinics and crowning the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue as the symbol of the movement.

As protesters prepare to return this summer for the 25th anniversary, the broader movement has splintered into disaffected factions and its strategies have evolved along with the shifting political and legal landscape of the abortion debate.

Perhaps most telling is the decision by Operation Rescue and its leader, Troy Newman, to distance itself from the July 16-23 event. Ever since abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was fatally shot in 2009 in his Wichita church, the group has tried to disassociate from more radical activists.

"I am concerned about the sort of zealots that follow them around and the sort of rhetoric," said Newman, who's also a founding member of the Center for Medical Progress, the group whose secretly filmed videos alleged Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue and set off legislative attempts to cut funding for the largest abortion provider in the U.S.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Protest-anniversary-shows-splintered-7911031.php

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. These people are scary.

I had to look at them in civil court, first in 1992 when they protested when the Repub National Convention was at the Astrodome, and they wanted national attention, and then later during the trial in 1994 of PP etal. v. Operation Rescue, et al.

They are scary. I think I got post-traumatic stress just from having to sit in the courtroom a few feet away from them and do my job.

[dembotoz]

2. for a splintered group they do seem to keep winning all the fucking time

[Dont call me Shirley]

4. That's because they're funded by the same psycho-billionaire families.

[fasttense]

3. Just a bunch of terrorists pretending to be Christian.

They are as bad as the KKK only without as many murders.

[NutmegYankee]

5. + 1,000,000. NT