Anti-Abortion Leader Terry Free, Back at It

In his first public appearance since serving a four-month jail sentence in Atlanta for charges related to an anti-abortion demonstration, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry implored supporters Thursday to expand their battle to the courts.

Terry said his organization would start giving out work and home phone numbers of judges and district attorneys who are involved in abortion issues and would begin picketing their homes.

“We’re great at getting people at the ‘rescues,’ ” Terry said, referring to their sit-ins, “but we’re miserable at getting them in court.”

Terry drew four standing ovations from a crowd of 5,000 during an anti-abortion rally at the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

It was the second time in two years that Terry has made an Easter Week appearance at the Fellowship. Anaheim is headquarters for Operation Rescue’s Southern California branch, the second-largest of the organization’s 125 chapters nationwide.

Outside the church Thursday, 40 sign-carrying protesters from the Orange County Pro-Choice Coalition loudly jeered Terry’s supporters as they entered the parking lot. One sign said: “The only thing they’re rescuing is Randall Terry--from obscurity.”

Last October the 30-year-old Terry was found guilty of misdemeanor trespassing charges arising from a 1988 anti-abortion demonstration in Atlanta, where 1,300 of his supporters were arrested.

Since his release in January from the Fulton County Jail, Terry has continued to face legal battles of his own. He told the crowd that he has been named in at least 17 civil lawsuits across the nation stemming from his controversial demonstrations.

Terry’s call to rally anti-abortion troops Thursday night is part of a weeklong series of Operation Rescue-sponsored demonstrations, marches and sit-ins at Southern California abortion clinics, in an awareness campaign coinciding with Easter Sunday, Finn said.

Earlier Thursday, Operation Rescue and abortion rights advocates faced off at an Orange family planning clinic. About 50 Operation Rescue supporters armed with pickets, leaflets and rosaries gathered on the sidewalk outside the Family Planning Associates Medical Group, at times clashing verbally with a dozen counterdemonstrators organized by the Orange County Pro-Choice Coalition. There were no arrests.

Past Operation Rescue demonstrations have been marked by high numbers of arrests. For example, during Easter Week last year 373 Operation Rescue demonstrators were arrested at a Cypress clinic.

However, there have been no arrests during 12 sit-ins that have taken place since January. Finn said Operation Rescue uses the same tactics, but police have changed their strategy and limit their activity to a guard-like presence.

Times correspondent Mary Helen Berg contributed to this story.