Randall Terry, one of the most annoying pro-life figures out there. It almost wouldn’t surprise me if he’s really a NARAL plant working undercover.
Ok, I’m coming out really hard against someone many people look up too and even admire in the the pro-life movement. Randall Terry is one of the founders of Operation Rescue, the “Direct Action” arm of the movement, meaning they spend their time trying to get as much attention as possible through shock value protests at abortion clinics. Terry’s done some rather questionable things lately, such as hinting at violence to pro-abort politicians, and giving only the most grudging of denunciations of the murder of George Tiller (“George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God”).
I’m sure that direct action can useful, and no doubt a few pregnant women have seen/talked to Operation Rescue folks at clinics and decided not to abort. On the whole though, I think shock value tactics which assault the viewer with graphic photos of aborted fetuses and fire and brimstone comments about the damnation of the country over abortion and slinging invectives at abortionists does very little good for pro-lifers, but gives all sorts of ammo to our opponents. Operation Rescue and Randall Terry’s ilk are essentially an unexaggerated picture of the stereotype pro-aborts love of crazed religious zealots. Just tactically speaking, the visual graphicness of a ripped and bloody aborted baby actually turns people away. It’s so heinous (and no question, true) that the average person will want to turn away and avoid the issue altogether. If you haven’t tried to come to grips with the realities of a saline abortion or the fact that every thirty seconds another abortion is performed in America, it’s much easier to pretend it’s not happening. A far more effective tactic is to emphasize the humanity and beauty of an unborn life. Clearly establish the humanity of the unborn in an undecided person’s mind, and let them make the mental connection to abortion that way.
I’m on this high horse because of Randall Terry’s latest stunt:
(ChattahBox)— Randall Terry the militant anti-abortion activist, who has threatened violence against the government, appeared on Thursday outside of a Capitol Hill Metro stop, to protest health care
reform that he falsely claims will pay for publicly funded abortions. Terry and his merry band of extremists were dressed for Halloween in demon attire, with two of the protesters wearing Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi masks, splattered with blood and draped in chains.
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, the controversial militant anti-abortion group, launched a similar stunt earlier in the week, encouraging his followers to burn Senators Pelosi and Reid in hell on Halloween night, by igniting their images in effigy.
In a video of today’s extreme street theatre, made by Talking Points Memo, Terry can be seen orchestrating the scene saying, “Okay, you stand here and she’s gonna whip you with this whip.”
Two protesters dressed as demons armed with whips then proceeded to whip the activists dressed as Pelosi and Reid screaming, “The pain of the fire! I can’t take it! No one told me it would be like this!”
Another activist used a bullhorn to heckle staffers on their way to work: “Staffers, Hill rats, join Nancy Pelosi in hell!” “Behold the dreadful price of killing babies Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will die in Hell”
Groan. I’ll allow there might be a twisted humor to the event, and I’ll be the first to note that Terry has a flair for the dramatic and the attention getting. But is the likely outcome of the event going to be repentance and contrition on the part of the pro-abortion Congressional leadership? Probably not. Most likely, Terry gets to feel superior for having preached the Gospel to the heathen, and moderates who might be iffy on supporting health care reform over potential funding of abortion will look at it and say, “gee, these antiabortion folks’re crazy, guess the stuff they’re saying about Obamacare might not be all that serious after all.” Just in that quote above you’ll notice the article rips Terry because he showed up to protest “health care reform that he falsely claims will pay for publicly funded abortions.” Well Terry just does happen to be correct on that account, but how do you feel about trying to correct the authors of this article when it seems to put you in the same camp as Randall Terry?
Weak sauce, Randall, weak sauce.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:10 am
50+ million dead babies is what we have from the methods the pro-life
movement has been using to ‘change hearts.’ When is enough enough?
Randall Terry is taking lessons from movements of the past that were
successful. We don’t have segregation, slavery & child labor, and
women can vote because people were willing to go against the culture
and cause social tension. This social tension brought the injustice
to public attention and could not be ignored. The people who caused
the social tension were criticized the same way then, as Randall is
now. I urge you to check out Insurrecta Nex and see for yourself
where he is coming from.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Correction: 50 million dead babies is what we have from the pro-abortion movement, atheists, feminists, liberals and general ignorance. Do no blame the crime on the good Samaritan – he didn’t cause this, the bad people did. He’s just trying to clean it up.
Also, John Brown did more to ensure a civil war would be fought than anyone else. Slavery was dying peacefully, but in his self-righteous haste he caused much greater damage.