In a hallway of the cavernous Armitage Baptist Church in the Logan Square neighborhood, they came in out of the night the Friday before Mother`s Day, some carrying sleeping bags, to greet old friends and prepare to go to jail.
”We`d like a $10 donation, if possible, to help with legal fees,”
Ardith Cooper, a motherly, gray-haired woman said matter-of-factly to one newcomer.
The occasion was the preparation for an anti-abortion protest of a special kind, scheduled for the next morning. Proponents call it a ”rescue.” Chicago police call it mob action and disorderly conduct.
In a rescue, abortion opponents try to block the entrance to an abortion clinic and prevent doctors, employees or patients from entering. If abortions cannot be performed, they believe they have rescued the fetuses that would have been aborted.
”The Bible tells us, `Rescue those being unjustly sentenced to death,`
” said Bob Dalberg, 28, associate pastor of Central Baptist Church in Naperville, after he signed up to block a clinic and thus risk arrest.
A rescue is a military skirmish in the abortion war. Targets are
”hits.” Protesters are ”troops.” Both sides use spies.
After two well-publicized years of such actions, they have become set pieces, elaborately choreographed dramas in which all parties know their roles-except, perhaps, the women who arrive at clinics to get abortions and instead find themselves in the center of the maelstrom.
Participants in this protest, organized by Operation Rescue Chicago, had come out of deep religious conviction. Theirs is a world of fundamentalist Christianity and moral certainty. Abortion is wrong because God says so. There can be no disagreement.
”The truth is the truth, whether you believe it or not,” said one Armitage Baptist Church member.
Their support comes not from public opinion polls, but the Bible. They pray for the souls of abortion-rights supporters, who seem to them selfish and shallow.
”It`s all, `my rights,` and, `how it`s going to affect me,` that`s important to those people,” said Bob Dalberg`s wife, Diane, 23.
Location kept secret
On yellow legal pads, people signed up for picket and prayer duty; to work as ”sidewalk counselors,” who try to persuade women on their way into clinics not to get abortions; or to be rescuers, those who block the doors.
Soon, about 100 people sat on folding chairs in the church`s auditorium. In a corner, forming a tight circle with their chairs, sat Rev. Denny Cadieux, the founder of Operation Rescue Chicago; Orin Cooper, the organization`s president and the main planner of this protest; and Bill Savageau, a purchasing manager from Roselle who was one of the action`s leaders, or
”marshals.”
Cooper, 61, held a file folder of Chicago street maps. Cooper is tanned, fit, soft-spoken and the veteran of 40 rescues, including three actions in New York, 30 arrests, 75 days in jail. He retired three years ago as a quality-control inspector at Caterpillar Inc. to devote his life to fighting legalized abortion. He and Ardith, his wife, live in the western suburbs.
The three men were discussing the protest target. The choice would be made in secret. Operation Rescue leaders worry that if they reveal the target, spies could tip off police.
In this case, their concern was warranted. There were two spies (seen Saturday during the protest wearing vests identifying them as volunteers for the Illinois Pro-Choice Alliance) at the Friday night rally and the Saturday morning worship service.
”The more you throw everybody off, the better chance you have of doing a successful rescue,” said Glen Oikle, 33, a protest marshal who described himself as a ”jack of all trades,” and his hometown as ”around.”
”The faster the information slips out, the easier the cops can get there before you” and prevent protesters from blocking the door, he said.
The organizers started out with seven tentative targets and narrowed them down using reports from scouts conducting surveillance at clinics Friday night and again in the morning.
”We know the layouts, but we want to see if there are any late changes,” Cooper said. ”Maybe they put up another surveillance camera in the area. Maybe they`ve got some off-duty policemen there watching and waiting.” In addition, the Coopers frequently visit abortion clinics, ostensibly to inquire about prices on behalf of a friend, but really to conduct surveillance.
”They let us know what time they expect to open, what time they expect their first customer,” Cooper said.
In making their final decision, Cooper added, they also pray.
Preparing the troops
Soon about 100 people had gathered in the auditorium for the pre-protest rally. Joseph Scheidler, a national anti-abortion leader who is executive director of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago and a veteran of 13 arrests at abortion clinics, prepared the troops for jail.
”It`s humiliating,” he warned. ”They search you and take your belt and tie because you might hang yourself. They slam that door and it smells nasty, and it isn`t pleasant.”
But Scheidler, who wrote a book that has become a manual on how to close down a clinic during a protest, extolled the glory of the cause.
”We`re going to win because we are right,” he said. ”They are wrong. We are good. They are bad. It`s that simple.”
Cooper went through some ground rules. ”Don`t drink anything in the morning if you`re going to rescue,” he said. ”And use the bathroom before you leave church.”
He asked a group of volunteers to demonstrate the basic techniques of crawling forward toward an imaginary door, then collapsing limply when arrested by the practice ”police,” a policy known in Operation Rescue lingo as ”going non-co-op.” Police are thus forced to pick up the protesters and carry them to squadrols.
”This is called buying time for the babies,” Cooper said. ”It blocks the doors longer.”
The gathering broke into small prayer circles. Afterward, some of the sidewalk counselors sought advice from Karen Schustek, a Northwest Side homemaker in charge of that detail.
”Should we wear anything to identify us?” one man asked.
”No. We want to look as normal as possible,” Schustek said.
She handed a pink plastic model of a fetus about three inches long to one man.
”This is an 11-week-old baby,” Schustek said. ”You`ll be able to say,
`This is what your baby looks like.`
”And call them `Mom` and `Dad,` ” she advised. ”That`s the reality they`re running from.”
About a dozen people headed down to the basement, where they would spend the night.
The planners had chosen three clinics as targets. Their first choice was Concord Medical Center, 17 W. Grand Ave. Cooper hunkered down with a telephone.
”OK, it looks like we`re set for 7:30,” he said softly into the phone.
”Come in on Ohio. We`ll barricade the back door.”
The protesters began to settle down for the night in sleeping bags on the basement floor, the women in a separate room. Cooper sat in the dark, eating a banana, and spoke of his commitment.
”You will see the Holy Spirit strong at the rescue, on what we call the
`church on the doorstep of hell,` ” he said. ”You will see prayers answered almost immediately.”
Ardith came over and handed him a softly ticking alarm clock. They use the same clock for every such protest. It has proved reliable.
An early rise
On Saturday, people began stirring at 4:30 a.m. Other protesters started arriving at the church at 5:30. Lori Steele, 23, of Woodridge, was there with her 9-month-old son. Her family had urged her to have an abortion. A volunteer with a local anti-abortion group had been her childbirth coach. The woman still baby-sits for her.
There were other children. Schustek`s 10-year-old daughter, Kori, and 13- year-old son, Nathan, have participated in many such protests.
”Abortion`s wrong,” Kori said, with a shrug that implied the obvious nature of the answer. Those who disagree, she said, ”just need to get saved.”
Cadieux sat at the edge of the platform and led the group in prayer. People fell to their knees. They took turns praying aloud, some of their voices breaking with emotion.
Cadieux told the protesters that the day might feature a series of ”mock rescues,” in which demonstrators would descend on one clinic and block the door, but disperse when ordered to by police, thus avoiding arrest and freeing them to move on to another clinic.
Orin Cooper took over. ”When we`re on the site and any marshal tells you what to do, you will obey,” he said. ”Don`t argue with us on the spot.”
He divided the rescuers into small groups, assigning first-timers to veterans.
Wes King, 32, a machinist from Bolingbrook, went over a long list of rules with Joan Welbourn, 33, a mother of four from the South Side, who was risking arrest for the first time: No speaking to reporters, police or women entering the clinic. No chanting. No resistance to police other than going limp. Any violence was to be met by saying, ”I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
”If you can`t do any of this, it`s time to step down now,” King said, looking at Welbourn. She stepped nowhere.
”Because Christ died for me, I feel that I have to do this today,” she said.
People formed circles and prayed. Ardith Cooper circulated, offering plastic trash bags to protect against a nasty drizzle.
At 7 a.m., Orin Cooper ordered the troops to start loading onto the gray church bus. He figured he had 100 pickets, 12 counselors and 50 rescuers for the action.
The bus, following a small convoy of cars, headed east on Logan Boulevard, those in the bus singing hymns. The bus pulled up around the corner from the Concord Medical Center to unload the protesters.
About 25 people swiftly piled in front of the door, facing the street and locking arms. Cooper and a group of others went through the alley and blocked the back entrance to the clinic.
Less than a minute after they took their positions, the police arrived, squad car sirens howling and blue strobe lights flashing. A squad car had been waiting since 6:30 a.m. in case that clinic turned out to be the target for the anticipated Mother`s Day action. Within moments, police had closed Grand Avenue between State and Dearborn Streets to vehicular traffic.
Abortion-rights supporters had mobilized troops of their own. The Illinois Pro-Choice Alliance had sent 300 volunteers to about 20 Chicago abortion clinics, concentrating large contingents at six Chicago clinics and one in Des Plaines. The volunteers ”escort” women seeking abortions through phalanxes of protesters.
About a dozen escorts wearing blue vests stood on the sidewalk around the Concord Medical Center. Like the Operation Rescue protesters, they had gathered at 5:30 a.m.
By blocking both doors, Operation Rescue had succeeded, temporarily, in keeping women from entering the clinic. As women arrived, escorts walked them to a submarine shop on the corner, trailed by sidewalk counselors shouting,
”Don`t kill your baby!”
”This is not a lot of fun for anybody,” one escort said grimly.
The submarine shop started to fill with trembling, silent women. Cindy Ramirez, 35, a sidewalk counselor, approached a young woman and her boyfriend, who were sitting at a booth. The boyfriend rose and told her to get out of his face.
She moved on to another young woman, who was sitting with two friends and looking down at the table, eyes brimming with tears. Two clinic escorts blocked Ramirez.
”They won`t care how you feel afterwards,” Ramirez called as she left.
”Believe me, I know.”
Ramirez then stood on the other side of the window and held up a plastic model of a fetus. The young woman, a 21-year-old from the South Side named Sandra, glanced at it, then looked away.
”I really don`t want an abortion, but I can`t help it,” Sandra said. She said she has an 8-month-old daughter and had just gotten a job as a janitor. Her supervisor had said her health insurance would not cover pregnancy and childbirth so soon after being hired.
”They`re making me feel bad,” she said of the sidewalk counselors. ”I wish they wouldn`t, but I know they`re trying to do the right thing.”
Other escorts arrived. Sandra rose, surrounded by escorts, and headed down the alley behind the clinic toward the back door.
There in the alley, where reporters were forbidden to enter, the rescuers were being arrested-24 of them, some picked up by police as they went limp and some dragged, according to Judy Heifner, a protest marshal and one of three women arrested.
”I got up to my knees and attempted to crawl back to the door, but I was thrown down to the ground by a police officer,” said Heifner, 51, a high school health education teacher from Morris, Ill.
Police ordered those blocking the front doors to disperse. They did so, for with women getting in through the back door there was no point in being arrested for blocking the front door. They joined the picket line on the sidewalk.
Escorts started taking women through the front door. The sidewalk counseling reached a fever pitch.
At one point, a kind of moving, organic creature was created, with two women seeking abortions as the nucleus.
They were surrounded by clinic escorts, who were in turn surrounded by anti-abortion demonstrators. As the knot of people moved toward the clinic door, protesters shouted at the women, who kept their heads down.
”Don`t kill your baby!”
”Honey, pray!”
”You`re going to be sorry!”
Savageau and Ardith Cooper (Orin Cooper had already been arrested)
discreetly led away some of the rescuers who had not been arrested. Fifteen people squeezed into a van driven by another protester.
They headed to the Planned Parenthood clinic at 1201 N. Clark St. It was not one of the original three targets, but it had an important quality to recommend it.
”Planned Parenthood only has one door,” Savageau said.
The clinic was already open, but Savageau was hoping to siphon off enough police from the Concord Medical Center to wreak confusion.
”The other side will feel, `Why are you leaving us?` ” he said. ”It puts fear in their heart.”
They formed a circular picket line in front of the clinic, which is inside an office bulding. Suddenly, they lunged for the sidewalk in front of the doors. As if the music had stopped in a game of musical chairs, clinic volunteers rushed to get behind them.
The protesters sat in a tight pack in front of the doors, some of them pressing up against clinic volunteers. Neither side spoke to or acknowledged the other.
A car salesman named Dominick Marre arrived and tried to enter the blocked doors.
”I have to get to the savings and loan,” he explained to the sitting protesters.
”They kill babies in there,” one man told him.
”I`ve got to go to the savings and loan,” he said.
”Which is more important, the savings and loan or saving babies?” a woman asked him.
He shrugged. ”Saving babies,” he said. The protesters burst into cheers.
But the protesters dispersed as soon as Chicago Police Deputy Chief John Corless warned that they would be arrested if they did not.
They resumed picketing. A protester tried to engage a police officer in theological discussion.
”As far as we`re concerned, we`re Robocops,” the officer replied. ”We have no opinion, and it`s none of your business.”
As they marched, the Schusteks snacked on Pop-Tarts they had bought in a nearby grocery (”There`s 90-minute parking if you`re a customer,” Karen Schustek explained). Someone else brought doughnuts.
Sara Manewith, a clinic volunteer who works in community health education for Planned Parenthood, watched.
”We come from entirely different world views,” she said. ”I think morality can be circumstantial. Ethical decisions are not made in a vacuum.
”They disrespect my rights, my opinions,” she said. ”As a Jewish person, it is meaningless to me for them to evoke Jesus as the only reason I might do something.”
At 11:15 a.m., it was over. The pickets dispersed, some heading over to Area 6 police headquarters to wait for those arrested to be released.
Schustek said the protest had caused one woman scheduled for an abortion to turn away from the Concord clinic. She did not know whether the woman had rescheduled her appointment.
Spokesmen at both clinics said that only a few women with scheduled appointments did not show up, and that a certain number of no-shows is usual. At the Planned Parenthood clinic, manager Ann Evenson said, one upset woman rescheduled her abortion.
Twenty-six people were arrested at the Concord Medical Center and charged with mob action and disorderly conduct. They plan to plead not guilty.
