'This fight will end when Terry and his allies realize that pro-choice is the majority'

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16 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1989 important video ever made."

After finally making my way through all the OR vendors, I found a seat and waited for the show to begin. A group of a dozen or so angelic-looking school children were ushered onto the stage. They sang a capella with the chorus: "Hear them cry/ Won't someone save the children/ Don't let them die/ Oh Christians, we must try."

While I had to suppress gags of revulsion at this exploitation of children and the unabashed sentimentality, most of the audience was transfixed. Many pulled out handkerchiefs to wipe their eyes.

Despite this heart-tugging ploy, there were a number of surprises in store for me. The first one came when the moderator asked for all of the pastors and assistant pastors from all the churches represented to stand to be acknowledged and to show that the "churches are behind their congregants."

Only 30 professional church officials were there, and there was no hiding the disappointment of the organizers-as bravely as they tried to hide it. I too was surprised, until I realized that the powerful churches behind OR need not be blatant about their support so long as they have an adequate number of foot soldiers to do their dirty work for them.

"You are the revolutionists!"

The next surprise came at the type of speakers on the platform. The first was a Black minister, Pastor Martin, who used a bit of street lingo and jive in his rhetoric, saying, "This is not the time to walk the walk and talk the talk. No! It is time to put our bodies on the line. To put our lives—if that's what Jesus wants—on the line!"

He was well received, especially by the very small number of middle-aged Blacks present among the overwhelming white audience.

Other speakers followed, like Jamey Brey, who claimed to be a real feminist, "unlike those in the National Organization for Women, who don't know what it's like to be a real woman and to love anyone, especially children.

Having heard from a Black and a woman, we now heard from a medical doctor, Bernard Nathanson, a born-again Christian. Nathanson had been active 20 years ago as a pro-choice activist, but when he was "saved" he "got out of the child-killing business," as he put it.

He worked up the crowd when he demagogically proclaimed: "You are the freedom fighters! You are the Maccabees! The French revolutionists! The American revolutionary fighters! The civil rights activists! The antiwar students! The anti-apartheid fighters!"

"Twenty years ago," he declared, "I marched in the streets for the other side. This was won on the streets and will be again. But by the other side this time—our side. Amnesty for the unborn!"

He and others repeatedly called on "the memory of Martin Luther King to guide us," before introducing the keynote speaker of the evening, Randall A. Terry.

"Make up for your mistake!"

A former used-car salesman, Terry founded Operation Rescue in 1988, using this quote from the Bible as its motto: "Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don't stand back and let them die."

Terry consciously cultivates a yuppie, New Age, and political-activist style. Thirty years old, he speaks of the shame of "our" generation for not having stopped the "25 million murders of kids and the exploitation of their mothers."

He told the rapt crowd that "those among you who were misled by the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood and others, by having had an abortion, can now save yourselves if you rescue one baby, if you stop one abortion, if you prevent one murder. You can make up for your mistake— and end your own exploitation."

This part of Terry's rhetoric was especially galling. Response to earlier speakers had made it clear that at least 40 percent of the women under 50 years of age had, in fact, had abortions. Numerous teenage women were also at the rally, fearfully holding their mothers' hands.

Terry's appeal to their guilt was quite effective. The tragedy of this is that many do feel guilty about having abortions. Unfortunately, there are no post-operative or counseling centers-except for the wealthy. These same women need to be able to have confidence in their decisions and to be supported by society as a whole.

Instead, some fall into the clutches of the likes of Randall Terry. He said that evening in Melodyland: "We have a vested interest in ending the holocaust of baby-killing because God is upset with us. God is saying, if we don't want to protect babies, I'l hand you over to your enemies. Blood guilt is not only on the hands of the baby-killers, but on the hands of those who don't prevent it."

"We must get angry at our enemies," he went on. "We must get angry about dead babies and exploited mothers! If not, we are dead inside."

At the end of the rally, I headed home to gather a few hours sieep before joining the 5 a.m. clinic defense team in my area. In the wee hours of the morning, thinking about the rally, I realized that there actually was one small part of one of the speeches with which I agreed Dr. Nathanson was right when he said that this battle will be won in the streets. But he was wrong about which side will win.

I and others who "penetrated" OR, along with thousands upon thousands of other women and men, have become even more determined to protect the rights of all women to control their own bodies. We have been in the streets defending clinics, defending women, defending the right to choose. We will stay in the streets and at the clinics for as long as we have to-for as long as the Terrys of this world force us.

The fight will not end with the Supreme Court decision on the Webster case, but only when Terry and his allies realize that pro-choice is the majority and is here to stay.