Abortion Rescue
At PAAU, we speak of a Rescue as a method of nonviolent direct action in which one defies existing law in order to put their body between an abortionist and a baby scheduled to be killed.
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At the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, we have a firm commitment to nonviolence in everything we do. Nonviolence is more than just not hurting anyone. It’s a strategy and a way of life using peaceful resistance to achieve change and reduce harm.
PAAU defines nonviolence as “an active response that directly addresses injustice or violence. It can appear as noncooperation, intervention, protest and the creation of alternative systems.” Nonviolence goes far beyond simply not using violence against someone, and instead uses tools and different tactics to apply pressure for change in a way that never uses violence or threats of violence.
Nonviolence is both a morally and ethically correct commitment, but is also a pragmatic commitment. It has been shown throughout history, both in the pro-life movement and in other movements, that the use of violence does not result in systematic and sustainable change for good. Rather, it harms people, creates fear and isolation, and consistently breaks apart movements for worse.
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A key difference between Rescue and sidewalk counseling is that Rescue includes some element which challenges the legitimacy of the status quo currently protected by existing law. This can be something minor, such as crossing the property line, which frequently does not result in arrest or jail time.
We can’t let the reality that the law is on the side of the oppressors dictate what we ought to do. Our goal is to change that reality, not to live with it! Opposition to Rescue implicitly affirms that the choice to kill is permissible. We have no ethical obligation to follow unjust laws; in fact, we may challenge unjust laws with civil disobedience. We must use our bodies as shields to stop the main aggressors of abortion from hurting the babies because law enforcement upholds the violent status quo of the state.
In love and solidarity, we must take on some of the violence intended for the babies upon our own bodies. When a Rescuer is sentenced to jail, it is an opportunity for non-Rescuers to hold the entire legal system accountable each day for the murder it protects until it is as safe and legal to protect children as it is now safe and legal to kill them. It is not our right to Rescue; it is the right of the preborn to be Rescued.
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In specific types of Rescue (such as Human Shield) this takes a concrete form, but primarily this is a communicative function of Rescue as a campaign within our strategy of nonviolence. Rather than intended as a literal physical intervention to obstruct an abortion from proceeding, Rescue is a principled disruption of the cycle of violence by an act of radical love for a particular baby. Any action that intuitively communicates our purpose of loving preborn people by putting our bodies on the line for them is a Rescue tactic. Lives saved by Rescue are an unexpected yet foreseen outcome that we celebrate; people loved well is the intended outcome of Rescue.
At PAAU, we base our actions on the principle that the unborn have a right to be rescued, and we must weigh that truth with the reality that legal consequences have an impact. This is why PAAU expanded the tactic of Opportunity Rescue from west coast Rescuers of the 80s. In this type of Rescue, along with Parking Lot Rescues, although a law is challenged, it is not necessarily broken. For instance, entering an abortion facility is not against the law. However, staying inside the building after you have been declared a trespasser is against the law. In both cases, the property lines of the abortuary were crossed and their legitimacy challenged. Only in the latter case are legal consequences expected to follow.
Rescue is a Direct Act of Love
Preborn people deserve to have someone show up for them. An attempt to Rescue a preborn child may be the only act of love they ever receive before they are murdered. They have no one else as they are taken legally and unjustly to their deaths. The success of a Rescue is not measured by how many babies were saved that day; it's determined by how well the babies were loved. If you were facing death, wouldn’t you want someone who loves you to stay with you to the last possible second? Your physical presence in their moment of suffering matters. It is meaningful, even if the baby will never know your love; those who observe your act of love for them will know it.
At PAAU we believe in creating a sustainable and attractive movement of nonviolent direct action for persons in the womb, which requires us to employ a variety of tactics and risk levels to ensure sustainability in our movement and within our activists.
Underlying Frameworks for Rescue
The Framework of Disability Justice
During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many rescue missions took place to try and save people who were stranded and needed help. While these efforts resulted in many lives saved, it also resulted in many people being left behind, unable to be rescued from this disaster. Tragically, it was found that a certain population was deprioritized during this time: people with disabilities, who numbered nearly half a million in the New Orleans area. The reality was that this group of people were going to have a harder time evacuating and receiving help either because of financial reasons, physical reasons, transportation reasons, or others. This population of people had unique circumstances that required unique help. Because of their unique circumstances, they became a population that was not rescued. Just because they had a disability, this group of people died.
This situation is not unlike that of the unborn. They are a group of people with unique circumstances that require different aid to continue living. But we must remember, no human being is disposable! When faced with hardship, their parents are required to provide more diligent help to their preborn children because of their location, level of development, dependency, and age. However, this set of unique circumstances does not disqualify them as full people, and does not cancel out their right to be Rescued! They deserve to have their wellbeing included in the “disaster planning” of an unplanned, unwanted, or difficult pregnancy. Those most vulnerable in crisis deserve our effort to preserve their lives, and we are refusing to abandon them! Yes, they might be deemed not worth it by some, but we are taking the extra steps to Rescue them because they worthy of it and they are not disposable.
The Framework of Preborn Personhood
Any human organism in active and inherent relation to our collective humanity is a person. Human embryos are individual living organisms. At fertilization, they start actively attaining a manifestation of their latent nature. Humans then retain this manifestation, or it is impeded and they start reattaining it. When humans are prevented from inherently manifesting their nature, their relation to humanity becomes passive and they die. So, all living humans are in the active and inherent relation that makes them full people with equal rights, including the persons in the womb. We must prefigure a world where the preborn are seen and treated as full people within society, deserving of equal moral consideration and legal protection.
The Framework of Community Defense
Community defense centers on three ideas: the needs of individuals are best met by community care, we build collective strength by aiding each other mutually within our solidarity networks, and only we can keep us safe. This horizontal organization challenges the status quo of hierarchical structures because it proves that we don’t need institutions and systems more powerful than us to meet our needs. Those who benefit from positions of power within the hierarchy try to sabotage community organizing efforts in order to create the illusion that it’s common sense to need them; they fabricate situations of scarcity and violence in order to convince others that, for the price of their submission, the powerful will protect them. To redistribute the hoarded power, we must destabilize the powerful and build our own legitimacy. By taking actions that force the power-hoarders into dilemmas, we can expose the logic that enables their exploitation and establish a common sense that empowers the community.
There is a science to nonviolent conflict that has been documented by political researchers such as Gene Sharpe. From privileged people putting their bodies between Black protesters and the police who brutalize them during the Black Lives Matter movement, to tenant networks mobilizing to blockade around the homes of vulnerable neighbors at risk of eviction by their landlords, the resistances of both the past and today have proven these tactics save lives and advance change. Other examples include the Moms 4 Housing actions in Oakland, California, to the examples we saw of local activists suspending themselves from bridges to block the oil vessels leaving the harbor. These are just a small number of examples from across the globe of community defense when action is needed to protect each other. If we want to see success in the anti-abortion movement, then we must follow proven social science.
Principles of Rescue
Nonviolent Direct Action is Proven Effective
From Gandhi’s Indian Independence Movement to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement, to Serbia’s student-led resistance Otpor! and more, two things are consistently linked with the success of civil resistance movements: a commitment to non-violence and the necessity of risking arrest. That’s because we can only challenge oppressors, expose their exploitation, shake up their power, and revoke their authority when regular people are willing to take risks and make sacrifices in order to create social tension. Seeing other people get directly involved in a struggle motivates the mass participation needed to start a revolution.
The Preborn are People of Equal Moral Worth
There is no sound evidence or consistent logic that proves preborn people are the only class of human beings exceptional to the rule that humans are people with equal rights. All people have the equal right to not be deliberately, violently killed, regardless of their lack of power or the power of others over them. No one has the right to murder a vulnerable person who is captive and utterly at your mercy. Using developmental dependency to dehumanize the preborn in order to justify denial and violation of their human rights is ageist and ableist. The preborn deserve to have someone witness them as full people at least once in their life.
Rescues Affirm the Equality of the Preborn
By taking the risk to Rescue, you practice solidarity with preborn people and parents who believe abortion is their only option. You have the power as a privileged born person to put your body between the powerless and their oppressors, between an abortion provider and a helpless child. How do we show the world that fetuses are the same as us when we are nothing like them? The answer is simple: we make ourselves more like them. When Rescuers stand in solidarity with the preborn, they become as vulnerable as the preborn are. If we say that a woman needs to sacrifice her lifestyle, relationship, body, and future for her unborn child, then we are hypocrites if we’re not willing to do the same. When we Rescue, we are willing to sacrifice the same to prison for her child, ergo Rescue is solidarity with moms too. Some people will never affirm the humanity of persons in the womb. It’s our job to do so by being physically intolerant of abortion through Rescue.
Points of Unity for Rescue
Rescue is a Commitment to Nonviolence
Because we will never outspend the abortion industrial complex, the only way we can win is with people power. Abortion Rescue disrupts violence in progress, applies pressure to the people complicit in perpetuating it, and reduces violence on the fringes of the pro-life movement by providing a nonviolent outlet of expression for frustrated individuals. Nonviolent Rescue interrupts injustice against the preborn people without unjust action and disarms the abortion providers without harming them. Rescue unsettles the narrative that Big Abortion feeds parents seeking a solution to an unwanted or crisis pregnancy. Rescuers hope to save not only the child, but also their mothers, families, and communities. Rescue is intended to free even the abortion workers from the cycle of abortion violence. Until we disturb the negative peace of abortion with civil unrest, thereby raising consciousness of abortion violence and creating social tension, it will continue to be the default “neutral” position for the law to allow abortion.
Rescue is a Natural Extension of Non-Discrimination
Abortion Rescue is a conscious encounter with the reality of abortion as it is happening. Unable to ignore the physical presence of the Rescuers with their senses, the public is forced to reckon with Rescue’s representation of abortion violence within their intuitions. No one can pretend the unborn don’t exist when the Rescuers are right there, embodying them. In this way we practice solidarity with the unborn without falling into self-identification; we are not the victims of abortion, but we stand-in for them and take upon our own bodies some of the discriminatory violence that befalls theirs. If we fully understand the unborn to be people, then we must stand in solidarity with them as we would with any other person in need of Rescue. Do for a preborn person what you’d do for any other person you love.
Rescue is the Logical Conclusion of Preborn Equality
Do your actions reflect the reality that the preborn are people equal to ourselves? Rescue fully expresses what it means to understand that the persons in the womb have the same humanity as us. Our sacrifice forces others to see the humanity of preborn people, because if they aren’t people, why would we risk jail and potentially worse for them? If the preborn have the right to life, then we have a responsibility to make sure their right is respected. Rescue offers a final tangible act of love to a child as they are being taken away to be exterminated. If you KNOW our preborn siblings are people and abortion is murder, then ACT LIKE IT!
Types of Rescue
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In an opportunity Rescue, an autonomous Rescuer or a group of Rescuers often spontaneously decide to do a Rescue at a local abortion facility. They buy a bunch of roses, tie resource cards to them, and hand them out to folks in the waiting room of the facility who may or may not be waiting to get an abortion. The idea is to inform those inside of the resources available to them, and ask them if they are interested in learning about other options. In the case of an empty waiting room, the Rescuer might leave literature and exit the building. In either case, the Rescuers performing an opportunity Rescue will leave when asked, and do not intentionally risk arrest or charges.
According to trespassing laws, someone must be declared a trespasser by a sign or by a person with authority over the property, and then refuse to leave in order to be at risk of charges. Although not fully without risk, Opportunity Rescue is a relatively low-risk Rescue tactic.
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In the instance of an abortion facility having a parking lot on their property, one low-risk option is to conduct a Parking Lot Rescue. This is where an individual or group of Rescuers enter the private parking lot and distribute literature, resources, and/or roses onto the cars of those inside the facility. This often also includes the Rescuers waiting in solidarity to speak to those coming out of the facility, although this element is not necessary. This type of Rescue is quick, easy, and a very low risk way to participate in Rescue.
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As in an opportunity Rescue, these Rescuers hand out roses in the waiting room. However, they intend not to abandon the preborn facing their deaths until the last possible moment. The consequence of this action is usually arrest, sometimes resulting in an immediate release and drop of charges, sometimes resulting in trespassing or other similar charges. A Red Rose Rescue may include prayer, a Pink Rose Rescue indicates a secular Rescue.
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During Christmastime, Rescuers will go inside an abortion facility carrying Christmas gifts for mothers and babies, and singing Christmas carols. This creates a warm, welcoming mood inside the abortion business and reminds the parents inside they are loved. The calm environment created by the music and peaceful presence of the Rescuers allows the counseling to extend into the lobby and gives the parents a chance to leave.
A similar tactic is used on other holidays like Mothers Day and Valentines Day. Rescuers will bring some sort of holiday specific gift such as flowers, cards, baby clothes, or diapers, and the environment creates a lower risk level of Rescue with the holiday atmosphere. After the FACE Act became law, these types of Rescues were performed every year starting in 1998 and still happen to this day!
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Truth Teams is a tactic developed in the late 70s where a couple will go inside an abortion facility with an appointment, and take a seat inside. They will then begin discussing out loud that they saw the protesters outside, what they told them, and come to a decision together to leave the facility. This is a form of theatrical protest that allows others in the waiting room to listen and also come to the same conclusion that they should leave the facility.
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In a human shield Rescue, masses of Rescuers use their bodies to block the entrance of an abortion facility or enter the facility and sit-in. This may effectively shut down the abortion facility for the day. This is often done on a "killing day", when surgical abortions are known to be scheduled. The Rescuers may link arms, sit down, or stand with bicycles. They gently and lovingly speak to women and workers who try to get by. While always nonviolent, this type of Rescue does include the risk of violating the FACE Act.
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In this type of Rescue, an autonomous Rescuer or a group of Rescuers might identify a way to put bike locks on door handles or a gate of an entrance, or to chain together pieces of furniture or their own bodies to create a barricade. They never lock anyone in the building, only out! They usually then act as human shields in addition to the barricade and are almost always arrested. While always nonviolent, this type of Rescue does include the risk of violating the FACE Act.
To reiterate: the success of a Rescue is not determined by how many babies were saved that day, it's determined by how well the babies were loved. There is no Rescue type that is more effective than others in radically loving preborn people.
Historical Overview of Rescue
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The first pro-life sit-in was organized by Michael Schwartz in 1970 and took place at the Planned Parenthood offices of Dallas to disrupt the arrangement of travel plans for out-of-state abortions. The first “clinic occupation” was led by Brent Bozell in 1970 and took place at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC, and resulted in five arrests during the rally that would later be recognized as the first “march” for life in DC.
In 1975, liberal activists Burke Balch, Chris and Thomas Mooney, inspired by their experiences in the anti-war movements, organized an all-female sit-in at a facility in Rockville, MD. Seven of fourteen women were arrested, and they nicknamed themselves the “Sigma Seven”. These women included: Chris Mooney, Jeannette Reinecker, Eileen Renzi, Amy Donohoo, Lisa Donohoo, Mary Hayes, and Ann Schutt. They were convicted of trespassing and received six months probation.
John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe, a leftist inspired by his experience in the anti-war movements, is considered the “grandfather” of abortion Rescue. He was first arrested during a clinic sit-in in January of 1977 in Norwich, CT, then in 1978 he published the pamphlet “A Peaceful Presence” that outlined the philosophy of nonviolent direct action against abortion. O’Keefe began organizing sit-ins throughout Washington, DC and its suburbs, and continued to do so until 1988.
Inspired by O’Keefe’s pamphlet, Jack O’Brien began a campaign of sit-ins in Philadelphia and called them “Rescues”. In St. Louis, leftist Vincent Petersen founded the longest anti-abortion civil disobedience campaign to date, and Samuel Lee drilled their recruits on O’Keefe’s nonviolent discipline.
Women were the heart of the early Rescue movement. Juli Loesch Wiley, another leftist, organized militant sit-ins in Pittsburg, as well as the first series of consecutive rescues between cities. Jo McGowan was the first rescuer to go to jail in Massachusetts in 1977; Jeanne Miller followed behind her and went on to organize the first national rescues; Kathie O’Keefe organized rescues in Latin America and Europe.
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Joan Andrews Bell, the “matron” of the Rescue movement and the first full-time Rescuer, joined the St. Louis campaign in 1979. In 1986 she was incarcerated for a Rescue in Pensacola and due to her intentional noncooperation was not released until 1988. She became a martyr for the movement, and inspired the masses that came together in 1987 as Operation Rescue.
In 1986, Randall Terry gave an impassioned argument for a new era of Rescue that began the largest nonviolent civil disobedience movement in the history of the United States. Under his leadership, over 70,000 people were arrested for blockading abortion clinics with their bodies. Anti-abortion terrorism dropped from 12 incidents in the previous decade to 3 during this era.
In 1991, Operation Rescue executed the “Summer of Mercy”, in which thousands of Rescuers flocked to Wichita, Kansas to prevent babies from being murdered by the notorious later term abortionist George Tiller. Approximately 100 babies were saved that summer alone. During the Operation Rescue era, it’s estimated that 60% of mothers with appointments for abortions on the day of a Rescue never rescheduled.
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In May 1994, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act was passed, making it a federal felony to block access to “reproductive health” services, including abortion. This effectively ended the Operation Rescue era. Dedicated Rescuers continued to cross property lines in creative ways, such as caroling inside of clinics during winter holidays beginning in 1998.
In 2012, Rose Rescue was conceived by Mary Wagner, who has since served over six years in prison. She is credited with reviving the idea of Rescue (and expanding upon a Rescue tactic developed by west coast activists in the 80s), which American activists then adopted in September 2017 with Red Rose Rescue. 2019 saw a wave of Rescues during a fresh push to revitalize the Rescue movement. In 2021, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising introduced a secular form of rose Rescue called Pink Rose Rescue. In 2023, the founders of Let Them Live confirmed that nearly every Pink Rose Rescue has connected a parent in need with their organization.
Frequently Asked Questions
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If you are pregnant and incarcerated, you are the forgotten of the forgotten. Pregnant prisoners are either pressured into abortion, mistreated into a miscarriage, or forced to suffer a dehumanizing birthing experience, and predatory adoption agencies lie in wait to take and profit from their babies. Pro-Life activists imprisoned for Rescue are presented the unique opportunity to advocate for better conditions for pregnant prisoners, to defend the lives of their unborn children, to organize support for their families from the outside world, and to serve grieving post-abortive women behind bars. Even incarcerated women deserve better than abortion. Thus abortion Rescuers continue to Rescue even while in prison.
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No. Never.
Rescue in its very nature demands nonviolence, so any persons entering or approaching an abortion facility with the intention to threaten or commit violence are not performing a Rescue.
If violence is implied or implemented, the action is not a Rescue.
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Not every pro-life person can be an abortion Rescuer. Factors like finances, family, disability, and racialized police brutality prevent many folks who support Rescue from feeling confident in participating. Luckily, there are many ways the pro-life community as a whole can participate in Rescue without being a Rescuer!
• Sponsor a Rescuer financially. If you can't Rescue, donate to a Rescuer who will do it for you! As Rescuer Herb Geraghty said, "let us be your hands and feet". Offer monetary and emotional support to the families of Rescuers.
• Do jail support. Demonstrate in front of police stations, courts, jails, and prisons that are holding Rescuers. Write to the Rescuers frequently. If you are on a legal team, offer your local Rescuers pro-bono defense.
• Share Rescue stories on your social media in a positive light. Comment on news stories that frame Rescue badly. Make videos about Rescue and why you support it.
• Do culture jamming around facilities frequented by Rescuers. Make posters and wheatpaste them to sidewalks, sharpie pro-life messages to the backs of signs, put Rescue stickers on the alley walls around the facility.
• Help organize the Rescues. Do research about the facilities for the Rescuers. Keep the Rescuers updated about police scanners while they perform a Rescue. Coordinate supplies, donations, first-aid, and legal defense. Be there with food (ie. hummus and chips) before and after Rescue.
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