Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue National) is a fundamentalist [1] [2] Christian conservative organization based in Concord, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte, that opposes human induced abortion and its legality, Islam, and homosexuality. In 1994, Flip Benham became the director of the organization, then called Operation Rescue National. Benham replaced Keith Tucci, who had replaced Randall Terry. [3] Terry, Tucci and Benham have all been convicted of crimes related to their protest activities. [4] Rusty Thomas became the national director after Flip Benham stepped down.
In the late 1990s, Benham abandoned the name of Operation Rescue, and changed the name of his organization to Operation Save America. Once Newman's organization (the former Operation Rescue West or California Operation Rescue) began to grow in prominence and use the name Operation Rescue, Benham also began using the name Operation Rescue. After a feud with Newman, and after Benham was named in a lawsuit from the United States Department of Justice, Benham officially changed the name of Operation Rescue National to Operation Save America. [3] Meanwhile, Benham broadened the scope of Operation Save America to include criticism of homosexuality, pornography, and Islam, and formed alliances with other Christian conservative groups and the Constitution Party. [7] In 2002, Benham moved Operation Save America's headquarters from their longtime home in Dallas, Texas to Concord. In 2014 Operation Save America's new director Rev. Rusty Thomas moved the headquarters back to Dallas, Texas.
Operation Save America conducts mass protests at abortion clinics to promote an anti-abortion cause. Operation Save America has mobilized its members for other causes common to the Christian right, for example, opposition to Gay-Straight Alliances in public schools. At South Rowan High School, near Charlotte, when a Gay-Straight Alliance was forming at that school in 2006, Operation Save America arranged to have some 700 people to show up at the school board meeting and get the board to ban the club from the school. [8]
They have also been involved in burning the Islamic holy text, the Qur'an, despite the opposition of most of the Muslim community to the practice of abortion. Their actions have been described as "an affront to Islam, all people of faith, and to our society as a whole... not Christian [and] not American" by the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference. [9]
On July 12, 2007, three members of the organization (Ante and Kathy Pavkovic, and their daughter Kristen) were arrested after they tried to shout down a Hindu clergyman as he offered the traditional morning prayer on the US Senate floor. [10] The protest was denounced by Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. [11]
On July 20, 2014, members of the organization interrupted a worship service at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans. [12] During a moment of silence for a member of the church who had died in the previous week, OSA member Deanna Waller began to speak about "abominations". [12] [13] Rev. Deanna Vandiver, a guest pastor who was leading the service, asked Waller and the other OSA members either to remain and be respectful of the service or to depart; church members escorted Waller and the more vocal OSA protestors out of the service, while others remained until the service was over, and attempted to engage church members during the coffee hour. [12] [13] [14] Vandiver described the intrusion as "religious terrorism"; on its website, OSA described their action as presenting "the truth of the Gospel in this synagogue of Satan." [12] [13]
On July 21, 2017, concern was expressed by national and local leaders over plans for rallies and protests starting Saturday, July 22, 2017. [15]
On August 2, 2022, a Tennessee federal judge issued a restraining order against the organization after several of their members were arrested during protests at clinics in Nashville, Tennessee and Mt. Juliet in late July. [16] [17]
Randall Allen Terry is an American politician and activist. Terry founded the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue. Beginning in 1987, the group became particularly prominent for blockading the entrances to abortion clinics; Terry led the group until 1991. He has been arrested more than 40 times, including for violating a no-trespass order from the University of Notre Dame in order to protest against a visit by President Barack Obama.
Barnett Abba Slepian was an American physician and abortion provider who was assassinated in his home by James Charles Kopp, a militant member of the US anti-abortion movement.
Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, as well as arson and terrorism, such as bombings.
Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, 547 U.S. 9 (2006), was a lengthy and high-profile U.S. legal case interpreting and applying the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO): a law originally drafted to combat the mafia and organized crime, the Hobbs Act: an anti-extortion law prohibiting interference with commerce by violence or threat of violence, and the Travel Act: a law prohibiting interstate travel in support of racketeering.
Troy Edward Newman-Mariotti, known as Troy Newman, is an American anti-abortion activist. He is the president of Operation Rescue, which is based in Wichita, Kansas, and sits on the board of the Center for Medical Progress.
Philip "Flip" Benham is an Evangelical Christian minister and the national leader of Concord, North Carolina–based Operation Save America, an anti-abortion group that evolved from Operation Rescue.
Operation Rescue, the operating name of Youth Ministries Inc., is an American anti-abortion organization. The organization originated in California and is now based in Kansas.
Operation Rescue New Zealand was a short-lived New Zealand anti-abortion civil disobedience group (1988–1993), partly formed from Wellington and Christchurch "Pro-Life Action Groups", but initiated by a group of four young men who first sought to "rescue" unborn children through prayer and non-violent means. The first New Zealand "rescue attempt" occurred outside Parkview Clinic in Wellington in October 1988, involving four men: Columban and Fintan Devine, Brendan and John Greally. Operation Rescue NZ later adopted much of its philosophy from Joseph Scheidler's Pro-Life Action League, more so from Joan Andrews-Bell's "Operation Rescue". It was formally established in different regions by well known abortion opponents Mary O'Neill (South), John Greally (Central) and Phil O'Connor (North), but only after a series of "rescues" involving the four mentioned above.
George Richard Tiller was an American physician and abortion provider from Wichita, Kansas. He gained national attention as the medical director of Women's Health Care Services, which, at the time, was one of only three abortion clinics nationwide that provided late-term abortions.
Donald Spitz is an American Pentecostal minister and anti-abortion extremist who serves as the spokesperson and webmaster for the Army of God, an anti-abortion Christian terrorist organization that has been identified as an active underground terrorist organization by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security's joint Terrorism Knowledge Base. He lives in Chesapeake, Virginia, where he has been watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for over 20 years.
40 Days for Life is an international organization that campaigns against abortion in more than 60 nations worldwide. It was originally started in 2004 by members of the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life in Texas. The name refers to a repeated pattern of events lasting for 40 days in the Bible, such as Noah’s Ark, Moses’s 40 days on Mount Sinai, and Jesus’s 40 days in the desert.
What's the Matter with Kansas? is a 2009 documentary film by filmmakers Joe Winston and Laura Cohen. It is based on the book What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004) by Thomas Frank.
Operation Rescue may refer to:
The history of Operation Rescue involves the split of an American anti-abortion group into the two separate organizations Operation Rescue and Operation Save America.
On May 31, 2009, George Tiller, an American physician from Wichita, Kansas, who was one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late terminations of pregnancy, was murdered by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist. Tiller was shot to death at pointblank range during a Sunday morning service at his church, Reformation Lutheran Church, where he was serving as an usher. Tiller had previously survived an assassination attempt in 1993 when Shelley Shannon shot him in the arms.
Cheryl Deann Sullenger is an American anti-abortion activist and felon. Sullenger is the senior vice president for Kansas-based Operation Rescue, an organization that works to oppose abortion and to document legal violations by abortion providers. In 1987 she was convicted and imprisoned for two years for participating in a felony attempt to bomb an abortion clinic. She has previously made false claims against individuals that have endangered their careers and lives.
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in response to the legalization of elective abortions.
David Benham and Jason Benham are American identical twin brothers who are authors, speakers, real estate entrepreneurs, former Minor League Baseball players, and filmmakers known for their conservative Christian views.
Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization, except to "prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman".