I've gotten so many requests for this from folks that missed it the first time around that I decided to post it again. Besides, I finally found a way to convert the final out or WordPerfect into something that posts! Thank you everyone for the great comments and support, I appreciate it. And for those who I have not written back to, check to make sure that your address is included in your email. I've written back to everyone that I could reply to. If anyone is interested in joining BACORR or starting a clinic defence group in your area, please contact me. BACORR has lots of material available on how to beat OR at their own game and we'd be happy to share our knowledge. THIS MEANS YOU DENVER, COLORADO. OPERATION RESCUE IS COMING YOUR WAY NEXT! I won't be among the BACORR defenders going out to Denver, no money and no time, but our folks out there will be working with the local defenders as best we can. We have information on who they are and what to look for, and we're ready to shut them down again. - Ashley of BACORR and Pagans for Choice -------------------------------- CITIES OF REFUSE AN INSIDER'S VIEW OF THE OPERATION RESCUE SIEGE ON SAN JOSE'S REPRODUCTIVE SERVICES CLINICS By hard test and many years, I have learned that self defense is an active thing, that if you want to hold on to your rights, you have to actively defend yourself from those who would take them away, no one else is going to do it for you. Due to a personal experience with anti-abortion demonstrators ten years ago, I already knew what kind of sexist and violent bigotry to expect when I heard that Operation Rescue was coming to San Jose to close our clinics down. If I wanted everyone to have the right to choose, then I had no choice but to get out there and help defend the clinics, the clients, the staff and the doctors. So I took my vacation time here on the streets instead of going to hike in the Sierras or the Cascades. I'm sorely missing the time I had set aside to be alone in the wilderness, but some things just need doing and this was one of them. When I first decided to defend the clinics, I was faced with a choice as to what group to join. NOW was conducting clinic defence classes, but were a little too conservative in their tactics, and besides, I could not get a call back from them. Planned Parenthood was signing up defenders, but Planned Parenthood was not going to defend the homes of the doctors, clients and staff. This was one of Operation Rescue's targets. BACORR (Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights) was easier to locate and had joined up with other reproductive rights groups who were more and sometimes less extreme in their aims under the name of BAAD (Bay Area Abortion Defence). Although I have problems with some of the groups in BAAD, I decided this was where I should be. These people were serious about keeping the clinics open and turning San Jose into OR's waterloo. Furthermore, BACORR/BAAD did not trust the police to protect the clinics or to enforce the laws. I feel that this is a good stance to take considering how the police and federal government responded to ORs attack on Wichita, Kansas. I knew the police would be better here, but still, I did not feel good about leaving defence of the clinics solely to the police. I knew they would not stop the "sidewalk counsellors" from grabbing, harassing and attacking the clients as they tried to enter the building. We agreed that even if we had to trespass on clinic grounds to do so, we would do everything in our power to prevent the ORs from blockading or getting into the clinics. We started the week with a protest in front of the church that OR was using as a base, Evangel Christian Center. The night of Friday the 9th saw over 400 angry screaming people outside chanting slogans and screaming at the ORs. We made sure that going to the church would be difficult and embarrassing for them. The police were there on their horses with riot gear and ready to crack some heads. The ORs grinned and got out their video cameras, getting all our faces for future reference, just as they do with clients at the clinics. Several of our group must have been identified by ORs that they knew because the harassing "Jesus loves you" and "baby- killer!" phone calls at 3 am started rolling in that very night. Many houses in the neighborhood had "PRO-CHOICE" signs up in the windows and most conspicuously, the house directly across the street. It was not until later in the week that I learned that the residents of this house where lesbians who had been harassed since they moved in by the Evangel congregation for their "sinful lifestyle". They were very helpful to the pro-choice mob all through the week. I hope that the ORs and Evangel don't do something nasty to them for supporting us, but since they are already at war, I'm not too worried. I will be dropping off a bunch of flowers and a "thank you" note though, along with BACORR's number if there is trouble. I scouted around the back of the church and found what I expected, many of their people were coming in the back instead of facing the angry mob out front. I also got a good look at many of their cars and saw the bumper-stickers. "Rush is RIGHT! Rush Limbaugh for president" "If you don't like welfare mothers, send them back to Africa" "AIDS is God's just rage upon perverts" "Impeach Billary and keep the faggots out of my army!" and other vile sentiments were well represented. I wasn't surprised to see plenty of stickers from Jubilee Christian Center there either (For those who don't know, Jubilee Christian set up and attacked Bay Area Pagan Assemblies and several other groups in a public Samhain ritual several years back, but that's another story). Saturday saw the beginning of the fight. I was out at Women's Community Clinic at 4:30 for deployment. WCC was smart about it and bussed the clients in from another location, then dropped them in the back parking lot, an area completely secured by the riot-police. Since WCC seemed to be well defended against the ORs, several of us were dispatched to Pregnancy Crisis Center, another hot number on the OR hit list. Nothing was going on there, a small group of ORs was yelling and praying, but our follow cars soon radioed in where the rest were. There were two groups attacking doctor's homes, one in Saratoga, the other in Cupertino. I went to thwart the attack in Saratoga. The ORs had arrived, but had not really set up when I got there. Several of them were making a picket line in the street and individuals were ringing the doors of the neighbors and asking "did you know that your neighbor, Dr. ---- kills babies for a living?" I saw them talking this line of bull to a group of children at one house but fortunately their mother pulled them inside and slammed the door in the OR's face. I'd hate to be the mother of those children. Imagine trying to explain all the sound bite, jingoistic slogans in this battle to a child! Several of the ORs were charging up the lawn of the doctor's house and screaming at the windows, but this ended minutes before the police arrived on the scene. The ORs apparently had people stationed on all the incoming roads with cellular phones so that they could tell their people to behave and have them off the private property by the time the cops arrived. We decided that the best way to deal with this hit was to use our signs to cover the more offensive of their signs, and to do our own version of "sidewalk counselling". We followed beside them and quietly and incessantly talked to them, asking questions like "so what's it like to be a inbred sexist bigot?". One woman looked up at an older BACORR defender with a twitch in one eyelid and a wart on her face and called her an "ugly old witch". In seconds she was surrounded by a group of several real Witches and this made her none too comfortable. We chattered at her about the Goddess and how nice it was not to have to live under the fist of a patriarchal god and be free of all the restrictions of sexism. Then we began singing Goddess chants and sinning Goddess songs. A group of jackbooted OR bully boys cut in around her and glowered at us, pounding their fists into their palms, but with a police presence, they could do nothing else. One of them mentioned to one of the girls that she needed a "good strong christian man" to put her in her place. She responded with a beautiful line like "no, I need a woman for that" and french kissed her girlfriend in front of the shocked and deeply offended OR. He made some vague threat about giving her what she needed in the week to follow and ran off to join the other ORs as they got in their vans and drove away. Not having enough gas to follow the OR vans, I headed to the Alameda Planned Parenthood where things were loud and ugly, but so far, not a riot. The Alameda PP is like a fortress. It's one of those imposing large, square building so popular in the late fifties and early sixties. With a small police force at the entrances, it is impenetrable. So the ORs marched in lines with their bloody pictures of still-born children and miscarriages and we stood by, ready to block them if they tried to charge the clinics. The police were out in force and they were nervous and unfriendly. I should mention at this point that PP and BACORR/BAAD have some disagreements. Many of our defenders attended their classes and were asked to sign their non-violence agreements and refused. Not that we wish to be violent, but our people are not looking to get injured. The PP non-violence agreements stated that if you are assaulted by the Ors, you must fall to the ground, cover your head, lay on your side and yell "stop hitting me". This is a very good way to get trampled and kicked. Since none of us are willing to present OR's bullies with such a perfect opportunity to hurt us, we refused to sign. This makes us a little unpopular with PP. Later in the week, after some of the clinics had seen how poorly this "lay on the ground and beg for mercy" tactic worked when OR hit them, many of the PP clinics changed the non-violence agreement so that this and some other foolish and idealistic tactics were not in it, but the division between PP and BACORR/BAAD was still present. PP also had a problem with our intent to physically pull Ors out of the clinics and doorways if they attacked the clinic, so we were not allowed on their grounds and had to stay on the sidewalk were there was little to do but try to prevent the Ors from surrounding, detaining and "sidewalk counselling" incoming patients, infiltrate their picket lines, and generally make coming out to the clinic a humiliating and painful experience for Operation Rescue. For those who have not seen the signs Operation Rescue carries in front of the clinics, you should know that they have very graphic pictures of dead fetuses and babies. They say that these were found in garbage cans behind clinics or in trash bags and are the real results of abortion. This is a load of crap. All of the OR pictures of "murdered babies" are actually of still-borns and miscarriages. Any educated person knows, aborted fetuses are not complete and undamaged as most of the fetuses in their pictures are and biological medical waste is marked "biohazard" and disposed of as toxic waste. Finding a whole fetus in a garbage can is ridiculous. With a little knowledge, you can prove that the pictures are fakes or at least misrepresented. I managed to anger the ORs by pointing out that one of their favorite dead baby pictures came from an FBI forensics handbook that I am familiar with. The fetus was miscarried when the mother overdosed on some narcotic or another. They pointed out the scrapes and the wounds were they claimed "the doctors steel hooks had lanced and harpooned the fetus to drag it screaming and crying out of the womb of it's mother". Oh please, spare me the lies and rhetoric. I pointed out that these were obviously post-mortem and were animal bites. The woman who ODed and miscarried this fetus had a dog and her body was not discovered for several days. The dog got hungry, that's why the head was chewed up and the remains were covered with what were obviously canine dentition marks. The Ors were not too happy about this, I think several of them were rather ill in fact. I guess I put them off their lunch. Anger and nausea will do great things for appetite reduction. OR's marchers often carry heavy rosaries that they swing as they walk and I was struck with a heavy lead rosary by an OR woman shortly after confronting them about the true nature of their dead fetus picture. After the second time this idiot swung her cross at me, a helpful cop took it away from her as a weapon and told her she could pick it up at police headquarters that evening. This caused a little stir about "freedom of religion" between the police and several OR organizers. I believe Mike Ross was the one who tried to bully the cop with a lot of "what's your badge number" and "expect to be sweeping floors soon, mister!" type stuff. The police were not amused. Shortly after this I found a Priest sitting in the shade of the bus stop, being heckled by a very aggressive young OR. A crowd had gathered around to hear. This puzzled me for a moment as the only Priests I had seen where with the ORs. It turned out that this silver haired Lutheran Priest was with the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, a pro-choice group. Being opposed by recognized and respected religious groups is something that makes ORs very upset, so they were attacking him. And leading the attack was a young man who claimed to be an "abortion survivor". This man stood there firing off a venomous screed at the elderly Priest, making condescending statements, insulting the Priest's family, telling him he was in league with the devil and spouting simple jingoistic slogans. When it became obvious the Priest was not going to be drawn in by his insults and taunts, he resorted to threats. He threatened to expose his support of the pro-choice cause to his congregation, to out him to his neighbors as a "baby-killer", to blockade his home and church. The Priest said he hoped his congregation and neighbors would be inspired by this and join him. The "abortion survivor" then made vague references to "God's judgement coming in the night and told the Priest that even worse things might happen to him before storming off to join the pickets in front of the driveway. All through this the Priest never got upset and maintained a calm face and continued to be supportive of the OR's belief in Christ. he didn't falter once. I was very, very impressed and I thanked the Priest for coming. We both got a laugh out of the fact that such opposites as a Witch and an Lutheran Priest should find so much in common. And the irony was not lost on me that in fighting a group of fundamentalist Christians, I could end up defending the home of a Lutheran Priest. Just after noon I saw some OR people speed up to ram a parked car. Despite what the driver said to the police it looked intentional to me. I have not been able to find out who this car belonged to, but considering how violently the car was rammed by the OR people, I believe it must belong to a doctor or staff member at the clinic. That afternoon, after the clinics closed their doors for the day, we had a fund-raiser at the park . I didn't make it to this, found it in my best interest to take a nap since I had gotten up at 3:00am. All the clinics are closed on Sunday, so there was no confrontation, but we did once again go to their church and make a lot of ugly racket. By now the neighbors were getting really annoyed about the noise caused by the ORs staying at Evangel and the news trucks parked on their lawns. Monday the 12th at 5:00am I was at Sunnyvale Planned Parenthood. I arrived to find the front door blockaded by a nervous group of Planned Parenthood volunteers and all other entrances undefended. Several of us got the volunteers set up around the building at the other entrances and on the corners, on the lookout for incoming ORs making a hit. The PP staff was not too crazy about the BACORR/BAAD people being there, but due to the small number of defenders, they didn't say anything and we were allowed to remain on the property. At about 7:00am, Jeff White and a small group of OR thugs rushed on to the property and began looking for an undefended door. Since none of the PP volunteers recognized them, it took a little while to identify the ORs and get the cops to tell them to get off the property. We had to remind the PP staff and volunteers that there was a restraining order against everyone but guests, staff and clients. The cops marched them out of the building, but Jeff White refused to leave the property and debated the legality of the law with a cop, demanding his badge number and threatening him with a lawsuit. Consequently, he spent 10 minutes blocking a driveway with no arrest before he left. The ORs left a small squad of "sidewalk counsellors" and a prayer circle, but the clinic opened up on schedule and the clients were brought in by another entrance. They never had to confront White and his bigot boys. Later on in the day, one of our spies in the OR ranks called in and reported that White and his boys had an epoxy gun and intended to glue the locks shut on the doors. If we had not been there, they may have succeeded. The rest of the day was a lot like Saturday, more violent screaming matches and subtle violence, but no clinics were actually hit by anything more than the standard harassment of clients and doctors. By now I was recognizing several of the ORs and was getting a good idea what their tactics were. One of the most disgusting and hypocritical was the way one woman used her infant child to cut through the crowds, holding the baby out in front of her whenever she was trying to get through a mob to scream at a patient. Now many of the OR's use children, I saw one man spank his grandchild often when the child complained of cramps in his legs after walking for hours with his sign in the hot sun with no water. But this one really bothered me. This woman used her baby as a human shield, shoving the baby into the face of anyone who got into her way. When I asked her about this later, she said she was trying to get the client to see just what she was going to kill by having an abortion. I asked her how she could endanger her child by bringing her into an angry mob like that, but she was convinced that God was on her side and God would protect the child from the crowd. Secretly I hoped one of the defenders would grab the child and had it over to one of the police with a report of how the child was being abused. During the next couple of days I worried about what might happen to the infant should things get rough, but I would not see this woman again until Wednesday night at Randall Terry's speech. Late monday evening Operation Rescue attacked the Blossom Hill Planned Parenthood. Blossom Hill was completely undefended; they had informed BACORR that they were going to be closed and had sent all their PP clinic defenders away. No police either, so they were up the creek when OR attacked and blockaded the doors. Fortunately, the police were ready for trouble and responded quickly and efficiently. In 20 minutes 37 ORs were arrested. Unfortunately, the clients and a group of 15 girls on a high school field trip were trapped inside, threatened and berated by the ORs as they were leaving. The absence of video cameras has made an assault case or two against the ORs impossible to prosecute. The Blossom Hill PP was very lucky that the ORs did not have acid or a locksmith with them or the clinic would have been destroyed. On Tuesday the 13th, amongst other hits on doctor's homes, Operation Rescue made it's first hit on a patient. Apparently they had recorded the license plate of a woman who had visited a clinic at an earlier date and they traced her to her home. It was much like the hit on a doctor's house on Saturday with the exception of the fact that the ORs went door to door telling this woman's neighbors that she had "murdered her baby" and was "living in sin" and "committing the sin of fornication" with a man to whom she was not married. The client was smart enough not to open her door or confront the ORs. It was a quick hit, the ORs were dispersing by the time we got there. I never saw any police or media at this hit, so I doubt there was any news coverage or any arrests will be made. I was at Los Gatos Choice Medical in the morning, along with a hand full of clinic defenders from BACORR/BAAD and a few renegade Planned Parenthood defenders and escorts. What was PPs defenders doing there? Well, the clinic director at Choice found the whole OR campaign distasteful and didn't want the police there, much less any clinic defenders. It was all too unsightly and she felt that we should all go home and leave her alone and somehow OR would not notice her clinic. She must have believed that if she ignored the threat, it would go away. Now even PP knew better than that and with even a small OR presence things would get rough for the patients, so some of them had come over to help the patients get in. The police had orders to be there and so the clinic director could do nothing about them, but we were told on no uncertain terms that if any of us stepped on inch on her property, she would have us arrested and prosecuted for trespassing. This made our job very difficult. We could not surround the clinic with people, we didn't have the number for that, and there was the additional problem of the abandoned senior care home next door and the holes in the fence around it that could easily provide a quick access to the clinic. We set up a visual relay around the perimeter and posted most of our people in the front by the driveway with a few around the back just in case. Happily, it was a quiet morning and we were only scouted by OR, not hit. The police presence had relaxed considerably compared to Saturday. The cops seemed to be falling for the idea that OR was just a bunch of peaceful praying protesters and not a big threat. The riot police were no longer out in such strong numbers at the clinics. This made us very nervous. I spent the afternoon at the Alum Rock Planned Parenthood, a clinic that serves a less affluent, hispanic community. It was a quiet defense, but an easy strike for OR. Sharing the same parking lot as the PP was one of OR's fake "crisis pregnancy clinics". These exist in every city. Operation Rescue or one of their splinter groups keeps their eyes open for property in the same building or adjacent to a reproductive services clinic and opens one of these. The "consultation/crisis clinics" are basically a trap for women who believe that they are going to get the advertised "free pregnancy tests, counselling and services". In truth they will be given a lot of ugly and misleading propaganda and incorrect information about minor or utterly non-existent risks associated with birth control and abortion. One pamphlet I saw lied blatantly, saying that condoms cause penile and vaginal cancer, another went on to state that 90% of all abortions permanently sterilize the patient and cause "intra-uterine tumors" and "permanent and painful yeast infections". Utter hogwash from our friends, the sexist bigots of Operation Rescue. Since this fake clinic was behind the police line, we were worried that some ORs might be admitted past the line to go there and then charge across the parking lot to get into the PP. There would only be a few PP road-kill at the door and two cops in the parking lot to stop them, the rest of the police and all us clinic defenders were by the driveway, many yards away. A perfect opportunity to throw acid into a clinic, shut it down until it get's cleaned up, get arrested and be a martyr for their cause. Around 5:30pm a couple of women approached the PP volunteer coordinator and volunteered to defend the clinic. Before they could get on to the grounds we, the BACORR/BAAD defenders linked arms and blocked their access. I and several others had recognized the woman who had made the disparaging remarks about Witches at the hit on the doctor's house in Saratoga. Now this woman was trying to get on PP's property to and was very specific in that she wanted to "defend the front door". On our advice the PP volunteer coordinator signed her and her friend up and put them by the road with signs saying "this clinic is open", far from the incoming clients and with us between them and the door. No more than fifteen minutes later we were rushed by a group of 6 men who said they also wanted to defend the clinic. They charged at our line and tried to pull a few of us out and get through, but we held firm. Sure enough, two of them were recognized as ORs who had been carrying signs at the Alameda clinic on Saturday. They were put on the street side of a police barricade and given signs to hold. Amazingly, they did not attempt to rush the clinic and stayed where they were told to be for the rest of the evening until the clinic closed and we dispersed around 8:15pm. I suspected that we had mistreated some actual volunteers until later in the week when I recognized one of these men in an OR "minuteman" squad. I still wonder what must have been going through their heads as they stood on the street with our "Keep Abortion Legal" and "This Clinic is OPEN!!" signs. I hope it made them sick in their hearts. Wednesday was a big day. Since Randall Terry was coming to town OR wanted to have a victory to lay at his feet. So they hit Los Gatos Choice Medical in a "minuteman" attack. So much for the director's belief that she would be ignored. "Minutemen" is the term OR uses for their assault teams of muscle-bound thugs. (note:there are NO "minutewomen") These are small groups that charge into the clinics with the intent of assaulting doctors and patients, destroying equipment, bursting in on patients and taking pictures during medical procedures, splashing bitric acid about and causing a chemical hazard. They are often parading under a different name and OR usually denies knowing them when they are caught, although a check of the OR roster will turn up their names. So far we had not seen a "minuteman" attack in San Jose. That was about to change. The attack came suddenly. A group jumped out of a van and blockaded the driveway and two "minuteman" teams came at the clinic from two sides. The first group came in from the front, battered and smashed through a line of clinic defenders on the sidewalk, charged down the alley between the clinic building and a fence and assaulted two police officers. One officer was trampled, the other was battered, but he managed to catch three of the ORs. A group of BACORR/BAAD clinic defenders went in after the ORs, going onto the property in violation of the no trespassing rule and caught and dragged out five of the ORs. That left two who rounded the corner of the clinic and were caught by the police at the front door as they tried to enter. No doubt they were going in to break and damage the equipment. Fortunately neither of them had acid, but one of our people was arrested for trespassing. The second group of 10 "minutemen" tried to come over the fence of the abandoned senior care home adjacent to the clinic. There were 6 BACORR/BAAD volunteers at the back fence and these people did a valiant job pulling the ORs out of the trees and off the fence. Only two ORs succeeded in getting over and rushing the clinic. Thanks to our relay, the cops were alerted that they were coming. They arrested them before they could do any damage. During the attack on Choice a couple tried to get into the clinic for a Norplant implant and were assaulted. The ORs surrounded them, using their bodies to block the view of cameras, then the ORs began to jab at them with their fists. The man tried to cover his girlfriend, and turned and punched one of the ORs. When he raised his fist above his head, the police saw it and arrested him for assault. Fortunately, he was released when he showed them the numerous bruises he had received from the ORs. OR claims that the people who did this were not theirs, a standard tactic. Just like Lambs of Christ, the group that shot Dr. Gunn in Florida, this was an OR splinter group. They are the same terrorists, parading under a different name to keep the blame from the mother organization. OR claims that they are a non-violent group and they did their best to show that to the cameras, but this vicious attack showed San Jose their real face. The news media didn't catch this example of OR's goon-squad tactics at Choice, but there were plenty of BACORR/BAAD and PP defenders who saw it. If only some of the police had, the couple may have been able to press charges on the ORs. That evening on the news the chief of the Los Gatos police department came on to denounce Operation Rescue as (paraphrase:) "gestapo, thugs and criminals". He went on to say that he did not want to think of what would have happened if the clinic defenders had not been there. Quite a media victory for us, but it was overshadowed by the fact that two of our people had been arrested. One for fighting an OR, the other for trespassing as she hauled ORs off the clinic property. So much for gratitude from Choice Medical. There was a humorous note to this attack though. Later on in the evening we found out that a dental office down the road from Choice had been blockaded and invaded by the ORs about 20 minutes before they arrived at Choice. They had to go in and see for themselves that what they had shut down was a dentist's office before they went away. We got a few good laughs at their expense about the right-to-life of cavity making bacteria and plaque. That evening Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue came to town and spoke to his troops at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. We put out the call for pickets and that evening there were over 400 angry people marching outside the auditorium. I brought my drums and made as much noise as I could to disrupt the proceedings and aid the chants that the crowd was shouting. We had some real doozies, "Sexist, Racist, Anti-gay, born again bigots, GO AWAY!", "Go Back to WACO!" and "Just Drink the Kool-aid!" are some of my favorites. During this time I chased the OR people down the ramps on either side of the entrance, pounding my drum and riling up the crowd to heckle and jeer at the ORs. One of them walked past me and bumped into me, then quickly punched me in the stomach as he slid by. Brave little christian! I shouted him down "Hey asshole, you like hitting people? Come over here and let's have it out! Hey Officer, that man just punched me!" He shouted "leave me alone, I've got protection" then to the police, "officer, arrest that person, they're in my bubble!!" The rat was using the bubble law on me, the law that prevented ORs from harassing patients and staff at clinics was now being used on me by a man that had just assaulted me! It took 10 minutes of discussion with the police to sort it out, but no one had seen him hit me, so I could do nothing, they would not arrest him. And for violating his "bubble", the police let me off with a warning. I made a note to myself to "burst his bubble" next time I saw him at a clinic. Inside, Randall Terry was being hard on his people too. He instructed them to get up out of their chairs and look at their butts. Then turn and look at their neighbor's butts. He told them they should see footprints there because "you all are gettin' your butts kicked!". Even he was conceding that we were rubbing their nose in it. Terry went on to tell the crowd that the floods along the Mississippi, the heat wave on the east coast and AIDS were God's vengeance on a sinful and evil generation and nation and if his people did not succeed in turning this country into one whose laws were based on the bible and the ten commandments, they might as well be Pagan. (!) Somehow, I don't think we'd accept them. While drumming outside the front doors (and getting a fantastic echo for every smash on the skins from the curved ceilings of the foyer), I saw that woman who had been using her infant as a shield when she chased after clients through the mobs in front of the clinics. She had the child with her now too, and I could see that my fears had found an unhappy confirmation. The child had bandages on her face and her arm was wrapped in an ace bandage. The woman screamed something at the crowd of pro-choice people outside the building, and held up and shook her infant at us, but we could not hear what she said clearly. Those closest person to her thought she said something to the effect of "see what you've done to my baby?" A wonderful case of denial, I don't think any one of the pro-choice crowd is enough of an idiot to bring an infant to a violent protest that could easily become a riot. The clinics were strangely quiet on the morning of Thursday the 15th, there were only a few ORs at every clinic, but between 40 to 100 defenders at each one. Every clinic was scouted many, many times, but no hit came. Instead, the ORs went off to picket the homes of doctors. They had left the information about which doctors they had targeted on their hotline number and they followed it to the letter. We tailed them and waited in the neighborhoods for them wherever they went. The police tried to dissuade us, giving us false information and trying to hide the fact that they had dozens of officers hidden a few blocks away from every house the ORs hit. It was the same scenario at every house. The ORs began marching down the street with their signs, pictures and mutilated baby dolls, they refused to admit that they were targeting one house or another, and BACORR/BAAD blocked the doctor's house and used our signs to cover theirs or make fun of them. Some of our signs: "Please Pardon This Mess - Sexist Idiots At Play" or thought balloons that we held above their heads: "I'm in a mindless trance", "I love to bomb clinics!", "Hey honey, wanna be my baby machine?" We stayed as long as they did, which was usually until the police began chalking off a 300 foot zone from the targeted property. Then we dispersed to avoid arrest and followed the ORs off to the next doctor's house. After they had hit all the houses that they had mentioned on their hotline recording, they scrambled and we lost them. I spent the rest of the day at Mountain View Planned Parenthood. They were teaching the defenders there much more aggressive tactics than Planned Parenthood had used before. I guess the attacks on Blossom Hill PP and Choice in Los Gatos reminded them of just what they were dealing with. The "lay on the ground/no hitting back" clause that had gotten the PP volunteers the nick-name "road-kill" from the BACORR/BAAD volunteers was gone. Instead these people were being taught how to block blows and physically repel an attack. I was glad to see that at least one Planned Parenthood clinic director understood what they were up against. It was a trip full of memories for me. Although the clinic had moved, it was just a building away from the building where in 1983 I had been attacked and beaten by a group of anti-abortion demonstrators while trying to enter the building. As I sat and watched the sun set, waiting for a hit that never came, I remembered every minute of the beating I had received 10 years earlier at the hands of the anti-choice people. I imagined myself trying to get into a clinic now and I wanted to cry for the women I had escorted through the picket lines during the past few days. Having an abortion is never an easy thing and "Operation Oppress-you" is the last thing anyone needs to deal with when going through that. And imagine the frightened teenagers trying to go into the clinic to get birth control, facing all that "sex is sin" religious dogma, having it shoved down their throats. Who has the right to foist their religion and morality on someone else? And even if they are of a similar mind, they may abstain for now, but next Saturday night is a long ways away and temptation and unpreparedness might bring on the need for another trip to the clinic, this time for an abortion. OR's policy of trying to make birth control inaccessible as a tactic to prevent people from having sex is beyond stupid. I was more determined than ever to keep these clinics open. That evening the ORs went to a prayer rally at the Holiday Inn in downtown San Jose, the only hotel that would have them since Evangel Christian was booked for the end of the week and they had been kicked out. We jeered and shouted at them there too, not letting them have a moment of peace. Friday morning at 5:00am I was outside PCC in San Jose. The police were a lot more serious now since the hit on Los Gatos on Wednesday. We were relieved to see it, no one wanted to be arrested if the police were overpowered and we had to rush across the barricades to stop the ORs from getting into the clinic as had happened in Los Gatos. A few ORs turned up and read their Bibles at us and prayed. I went over to their side of the street and talked to some of them. The woman I spoke to most was named "B---". She was rocking on the balls of her feet, humming a hymn under her breath and grinning frenetically. Your stereotype of a grinning Jesus-freak zombie, so conservatively dressed and coordinated that her dress even matched her lace ruffled Bible cozy. I learned a lot about what it must be like to be a member of OR by talking to her. After figuring out that talking to me about Jesus was not going anywhere and the I was not going to put the sign I was holding above her head down ("I'm a Bible Nazi!!"), we began to talk about adoption. "B---" told me how she could not have a child of her own for biological reasons and had been refused adoption by the county services because she wanted to raise a child with Jesus in his heart and the county adaption services were in league with Satan and prejudiced against Christians. I suspected that if she was being refused for reasons having to do with her religion (and for some reason I suspected that she had actually tried to adopt a child), then I ought to find out why. It took me some time to so without sounding over inquisitive, but I eventually maneuvered her around to the subject of her church and her branch of christianity. She did not have a denomination, but told me that her church took all her and her husband's income and gave them an allowance. the church had total control over their lives and had to approve of everything they did. She had to be subservient to her husband at all times, asking his permission to do anything, and she justified this with a statement that nearly caused me to fall on the ground laughing. "Well I tried to be a feminist back in college when it was so popular" she said, "but it was so difficult to think for myself like that and go against God. So now I let my husband and the church tell me where I should be and I'm much happier because I have Jesus in my life!!" Well, welcome to the dark ages!! Now I could see why the county refused to adopt to her. And no, I didn't see any little incision scar on her forehead, but you never know. Around 10:00 the ORs treated us to a parade. About a dozen ORs came up the street loudly singing hymns and carrying a life sized painting of Virgin Mary in a glass frame. Several of us Pagans looked at Mary standing on her crescent moon, grapes and wheat at her feet and a five pointed star on her forehead and shouted "Hail Diana!!" The ORs didn't like that and began swinging their incense censor in wide arcs, towards our faces. Then a young priest got out the holy water and using his little sprinkler, spattered us. The holy water burned our skin and soon white spots appeared on our clothes. When one of our people pointed out to the police that the ORs were splashing us with bleach, they made a hasty retreat. Although we stated that we wanted to press charges, the police did not chase them down or arrest them. No more was happening after that, so I left to chase down a hit they were making on a doctor's house in the Rose Garden district of San Jose. I've mentioned before that Operation Rescue uses children in their attacks. Up until last week I had never heard of "speedbumping", and when I saw it attempted, I was horrified. At this doctor's house a young boy, about 8 years old, flung himself to the ground directly in the path of a doctor's car as he was backing out of his driveway. His father stood by and egged him on, telling him "Jesus and the unborn babies will thank you son!" and other inanities. A group of BACORR people stopped the doctor before he hit the child. This tactic is supposed to point out to the world that the doctors who perform abortions really are child killers. I'm told that happily it usually results in no more than a broken arm or leg for the child. It could be much worse. From the hit in the Rose Garden it was only a few blocks to the Alameda Planned Parenthood where I met up with a friend with a headache. Screaming at Ors all day in the hot sun will do that to you. On our way back from my car where I got her a pain-reliever out of my medi-kit, we ran into an OR that she knew personally and I had been itching to meet. This guy can be seen all over San Jose in his white pickup with the "abortion is murder" stickers and the license place "X PAGAN". Yes, he told me, he was once a Pagan, but now he has found Christ. But somehow, when I questioned him about what path he followed, he could not name a single one, drew a blank when I mentioned Starhawk, and had no idea who Gerald Gardner or even Aleister Crowley was. "It's about selfishness, it's about looking out for yourself and not caring about others, right? That's what you do right??? You need black cats and chickens and babies blood to do it, I know that, I was a Pagan too. But I found Jesus..." He had absolutely no idea what Paganism is about, and although he said he knew all about Wicca, he could not tell me anything about it. He also claimed to know all about several paths that I made up on the spot. Certainly had never read a book on Paganism or attended a circle. His claim to be a converted Pagan was an utter lie. Maybe Eric Pryor is his hero? Yep, this guy was really full of it. He started going off about how conception is a divine thing and if a woman gets pregnant, it's God's will that she have that baby. My friend asked him what about rape; should a woman be forced to carry to term the child of a man that assaulted her sexually? He responded that yes, she should, that if she conceived, then that was God's will. She exploded at him telling him just what she thought of that and how very glad she was that she had not conceived when she had been sexually assaulted and that people with opinions like his made her sick. Her tears did nothing to dissuade him, he continued to spout his bigoted sexist dogma like a leaky sewer main. After trying to foist his God on her for a while, he left, but that didn't end it. From that minute on, at every clinic she visited the ORs would taunt her saying "poor little rape victim", "ask Jesus and he will forgive you, rape victim" and "God loves you and will forgive you for tempting those boys, rape victim". One old man even yelled at her "Harlot! You just wanted to sue those poor boys for their money! I bet you're on drugs!" It was very difficult for me to not beat these people into a pulp when I heard them taunting my friend like that. But she reminded me I would be of less use behind bars than in front of the clinics and doctor's homes, so I restrained myself. Barely. In the afternoon, the ORs left to meet at a secret location for "something big". We overheard some of their plans and our spies reported to us that they intended to use all their forces to make a giant hit that afternoon. The only clinic open and doing procedures at that time was Blossom Hill Planned Parenthood, so we left skeleton crews at each of the other clinics with walkie-talkies just in case, and headed off to meet the ORs at Blossom Hill. Blossom Hill had rewritten their non-violence agreements since the attack on their clinic earlier in the week and the attack on Choice in Los Gatos, and they were busily training their volunteers on how to hold a door against a serious attack. No instruction on how to deflect a blow like at the Mountain View PP, but still, an improvement. If an attack came, these folks would not be laying on the ground screaming "stop hitting me", they would not be "road- kill". The clinic looked like a war zone. The police barricades extended from the front side of the building for at least 25 yards and there were defenders lined up along them at ten foot intervals. The PP defenders were lined up inside the barricade in two rows and there were at least 20 cops, some in riot gear. From experience I knew that there were probably three times as many a few blocks away at a staging area. The cops had video cameras on the roofs of the surrounding buildings, a helicopter hovered nearby and the police vans were ready for prisoners. Word came from BACORR that the ORs were on their way. Five vans were coming towards us and three of them were full of large men in jackboots and OR t-shirts. It was going to be a "minuteman" hit. We came up with a loose plan for their arrival and got ready for the hit. We spotted the OR scout approaching the clinic when the vans were just a few miles from us and tailed him. Although he had not gotten close enough to see what awaited the "minutemen", the scout ran like a scared rabbit and got on a pay phone in a nearby shopping center. Our follow cars radioed that the OR vans had turned away and were tearing off in different directions. We lost them but there was no hit. The clinic had stayed open. We knew that Operation Rescue was not going to end their campaign with the crushing defeat as we had dealt them during the week, so Saturday the 17th we geared up early and were waiting for them at 4:00am. I was at the Sunnyvale Planned Parenthood. Sunnyvale has many glass windows and needs sentries completely surrounding the clinic. Fortunately, the director of this clinic was not quite as hostile as some to the BACORR/BAAD people, and all of her staff were relieved to see experienced people defending her clinic. So we set up and waited. Word soon came over the walkie-talkies that the ORs were gathering at Starbird park, a few blocks from PCC in San Jose. They were over 150 to 200 strong. Reinforcements were sent to PCC and we waited. Around 8:00 the ORs marched on PCC and started confronting our defenders. Unlike Planned Parenthood, PCC has no defenders of it's own, so it was just us and the cops there. The ORs were angry and aggressive, pushing our people around and shoving against our signs, stomping feet and spitting in faces. Then one of the ORs drove her car into the driveway and charged a police barricade. The cops told her to stop, but she drove on, through the barricade and slammed into a cop, smashing into his knee. She was hauled out of her car and arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. The police doubled then tripled their forces and the ORs ran back to Starbird park and got into their cars and moved out. PCC had become too inaccessible, too well defended. In fact all of San Jose had. There were an average of 100 defenders at every clinic that morning, they didn't have a chance. So all 150 of the ORs got on the 280 freeway and went north. One of our spies was in their caravan and we heard exactly what the plan was. They had scouts headed towards Sunnyvale Planned Parenthood to see how well defended we were, and if they didn't think they could take it, they would go for another clinic. We sent people to San Mateo Planned Parenthood and got ready to mobilize for San Francisco. We also found out that they had bitric acid. Sure enough, minutes later a prayer circle and a few scouts turned up at Sunnyvale and began to case out our defenses. It didn't take them long to see that we were too well defended for them and they left, wheels screeching on the pavement. We knew then they were headed for San Mateo, one of our people had snatched a map from their hands, so we headed up the freeway. San Mateo Planned Parenthood was in no way prepared for an attack, but fortunately the clinic director worked with us and by the time the ORs arrived the few of us there had a plan and were ready to take the hit. The ORs stormed our defense lines at the front and side of the building, displacing the clinic defenders there and began to work on getting inside. But we were hot on their heels and there were 125 BACORR/BAAD people on the grounds minutes after they blocked the entrances. So much for picking the locks. The police had arrived but not nearly enough of them. They told the ORs to disperse and when they didn't, they sprayed them with pepper spray. The ORs didn't move. A few of our defenders got some drift from the spray and the police actually apologized to us for this! The director of the clinic then asked the head cop how long it would be until the ORs were removed. He told her it would be several hours, so she turned to the BACORR/BAAD defenders. We gladly hauled the ORs out of the doorways bodily, dragged their asses across the parking lot, giving them lovely pavement burns in the process, and threw them into the street. We had removed 15 of them when the police gave another dispersal order and Mike Ross told the ORs that they had succeeded in keeping the clinic shut during the "window of murder" and that his people had saved the babies and now could leave. And at last they did, but fortunately Mike Ross was wrong about the clinic being closed. Our defenders had set up an entrance to the clinic through the back before the hit that the ORs had not found out about. All the clients scheduled for the morning had been brought in through the back and had gotten in without seeing or being confronted by any ORs. Our front door defenders were just a diversion. Their success at closing a clinic was, in fact an illusion and a dismal failure. Once again, the clinic stayed open. Several other interesting things had happened during the hit on San Mateo. First, someone had seen a man matching Mike Ross's description pouring "something that smelled really bad, like vomit" down a storm drain about two blocks away in a residential area. Also, we saw for the first time Operation Rescue's new front shock troops. They had brought in Nazi skinheads. One of the skins admitted they were from WAR (White Aryan Resistance, Tom Metzger's racist hate group) and several had WAR tattoos. Several of our people got into confrontations with the skinheads, and there was one arrest based solely on the testimony of a skinhead with no other witnesses. The police were rough with this clinic defender, referring to him as a "faggot" and threatening to take him out to a lonely field and shoot him. He was bruised up by the cops, but not seriously injured. Nonetheless, a frightening omen of what may be yet to come. But all the trouble and dark undertones aside, the clinic stayed open and all the clients had gotten in, as had all the clinics all week. We had turned Operation Rescue into "operation fizzle" and we were damn happy about it too. It was time to party. Saturday at 2:00 found us having a "Chili for Choice" fund- raiser lunch and celebrating our victory. It was a giant collective sigh of relief. Sunday we went to their last prayer rally at Evangel Christian and jeered at them through the riot fences. The cops joked with us and dropped the iron faces they had kept all week. A plane flew over with a banner flying off it's tail that read "OR GO HOME GOOD RIDDANCE SJ IS PRO CHOICE". We were ecstatic. I noticed that the young kids who had taken part in the protests had adopted a symbol of their unity. A vastly inappropriate, or maybe, vastly appropriate symbol. Black bandannas in their right rear pockets. The "code" in the gay community for a masochistic leather boy. I couldn't help myself, I was at the fences jeering them and laughing so hard there were tears in my eyes. "Hey little boy, are looking for a leather daddy? Lemme take you up to the Castro in San Francisco, I bet we can find you a nice leather daddy, maybe I'll get finders fee for procuring a sweet and tender slave boy like you! You'd look awfully cute hanging off the ceiling with a pair of nipple clamps on! Do you know what the `seven gates of hell' are??" Apparently the OR kids did not find it funny. They took their bandannas out of their pockets and hung them over their belts like a loincloth. Aww..... On Monday we received the news that our joy and celebrations were premature and the ORs had not left town at the end of their campaign as they said. At 8:30 am, they hit Abortion Acceptance Center, drove a car up the ramp to block the front door and tried to storm the building. The doctor at this private clinic had been getting an average of six death threats a day, so the police were there in a hurry and no one was injured. Although the doctor had to close the clinic for a little while, all the clients got in through the back or rescheduled for later in the day. Another supposed OR victory was shown to be a fiasco. The good thing about this hit was that two of ORs big boys were arrested. Chet Gallager, the ex Las Vegas cop who used his uniform to get into a clinic and destroy some equipment was nabbed and pleaded no contest. He is currently doing time, but will be out in the first week of August to head up his new extremist group, "Ministries to the Preborn". This group promises to be a west coast version of "The Lambs Of Christ" and no less violent. Also arrested was Mike Ross, who pleaded not-guilty to a number of charges and is currently sitting in jail for lack of bail money. Mike is an aryan supremacist and another head of their organization. That leave us with Jeff White and Tom Tammey on the streets to lead the ORs and cause problems. Tammey is not likely to give any trouble because OR does not trust him. He may be good at spouting bible verses and storming clinics, but he's dumb as a post. And Jeff White is much better at playing with publicity and sneaking around at night, putting up wanted posters of clients and doctors in their neighborhoods. The last move OR made in San Jose was a march on Mayor Susan Hammer's house on Saturday the 24th to protest the bubble laws that were supposed to prevent them from assailing clients and blockading the houses of doctors. It was a peaceful march with about 50 of our people thrown into 150 of theirs, holding up signs to block theirs and chanting slogans like "You suck, you lost, go nail yourself to a cross!" At the clinics there was only one incident similar to what we had been treated to the week before. At Alameda Planned Parenthood, an OR videotaper, pretending to be clumsy, began shoving, stomping, elbowing and pushing his camera into the faces of various clinic defenders who were standing on a street corner with "pro-choice" signs. It turned into a shoving match and he was surrounded by a group of women who locked arms, making a human bull-pen to hold him until the cops arrived. He slammed against them and screamed that he was being kicked and beaten, but it was easy to see him and obvious that any damage he was sustaining was caused by hurling himself against the women. The police arrived and he tried to have one woman arrested for assault, but could not find his supposed assailant. Consequently, no one was arrested. Aside from this and the usual idiots and nuts at the clinics, Saturday was a peaceful day. So where does that leave us? BAAD has merged into BACORR South and we are slowly settling up our debts for defending the clinics. Currently we are working on setting up a photo exhibit of scenes from the week plus, and putting together a book of our accounts of the siege. We expect it to be quiet for another few weeks, until Gallager gets out of jail. Then we have to contend with his "Ministries to the PreBorn" and his new stormtroopers, the Nazi skinheads. At least the recruitment of white supremacists to their movement shows them for what they really are. There are new groups forming on our side of the line too. A Pagans for Choice group formed out of several Pagan BACORR volunteers during the week of the invasion with the intent to do a circle and cast a spell to protect the clinics, clients, doctors, staff and defenders while marching in an OR picket line. The Goddesses Kerridwen and Hecate were to be called down to protect and bless the clients, doctors and staff. Herne and the Wild Hunt were to be summoned to aid the clinics defenders in tracking down the ORs and preventing them from successfully attacking the clinics. Doing this ritual publicly and in an OR picket line would do wonders for disrupting the ORs, distracting them from harassing the clients and it would be good press for Pagans. Although this ritual did not occur due to the hit on San Mateo Planned Parenthood, the Pagans for Choice will be marching in the Walk for Choice and are looking for Pagans to join and help them defend the clinics and do public rituals in the future. Kevin Kaos is organizing them, if you are interested, email me and I'll get you in contact with him. We know there will be more hits, they aren't going to go away easily after a defeat like the one we handed them. They will probably get more violent and more desperate. We're expecting it, and when they do hit us again, we will still be here and we will keep the clinics open the doctors safe. We will rub their noses in the dirt again and again until the grow up and leave us alone. Ashley of BACORR, and Pagans for Choice.