Absolute Rescue: Absolutism, Defensive Action and the Resort to Force

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 1995, Pages 128-163

  Kaplan, Jeffrey ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84937282819     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: 15561836     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546559508427309     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. Jeffrey Kaplan, ‘America's Last Prophetic Witness: The Literature of the Rescue Movement’, Terrorism and Political Violence 5/3 (Autumn 1993), pp.58-77.
2. For a rare candid discussion of the problem in the rescue literature, see Rev. Bruce Evan Murch, ‘Is Rescue Dead⋯ And If So, What Do We Do Now?’ Life Advocate (Sept. 1994), pp.33, 40. Cf. David J. Garrow, ‘Clinic Violence a Sure Sign Anti-Abortion Movement is Dying’, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Jan. 1995, J4.
3. The term ‘pariah’ was first applied to the rescue movement in 1989 by the only civil libertarian to have taken note of the unusually harsh treatment of rescuers and the remarkable silence of such champions of the right to protest as the American Civil Liberties Union. Nat Hentoff, “‘Pain Compliance” Amounts to Torture’, The Advocate 5/5 (Dec. 1989), p. 15, repr. from undated issue of the State Journal, Lansing, Michigan.
4. Interview with Joe Scheidler, 2 Feb. 1993.
5. John Brockhoeft, The Brockhoeft Report 12’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Dec. 1993), pp.5-7. The reference to a ‘lukewam church’ is drawn from Revelation 3:15-16, ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold -I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’
6. Letter to author from Shelley Shannon, 24 Sept. 1994. Cf. ‘Did She Aim for His Arms?’ Prayer + Action Weekly News (March 1994), p.44; and Spencer Heinz, ‘Praying With Fire: The Genesis of Shelley Shannon’, The Sunday Oregonian, 14 Nov. 1993.
7. Cathy Ramey, ‘Shots Fired: Griffin's Trial in Pensacola’, Life Advocate (April 1994), pp.12-16. Paul Hill cites Griffin's act as the key event in convincing him of the necessity of, in his terms, Defensive Action to prevent the abortionist from carrying out his purpose. See ‘Paul Hill Interview: November 26,1994’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Nov. 1994), p.43. For a diverse collection of conversion stories, Paul deParrie, The Rescuers (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1989).
8. The best exposition of this thesis is Joseph Foreman, Shattering the Darkness: The Crisis of the Cross in the Church Today (Montreat, NC: Cooling Spring Press, 1992). Cf. Randall Terry, Accessory to Murder: The Enemies, Allies and Accomplices to the Death of Our Culture (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1990) and Randy Alcorn, Is Rescuing Right:Breaking the Law to Save the Unborn (Downers Grove, IL; InterVarsity Press, 1990).
9. John Brockhoeft, ‘The Brockhoeft Report 12’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Sept. 1994), P.11.
10. This sociological generalization is drawn from my own research among imprisoned rescuers, and is confirmed by observations of the rescue community in Chicago and elsewhere. Cf. deParrie, Rescuers (note 9).
11. John Brockhoeft, ‘’The Brockhoeft Report 10’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (June 1994), p.5. The source for this view is credited to a public school history textbook; Henry W. Bragdon and Samuel McCutchen, History of a Free People.
12. The genesis of Accessory to Murder may be found in Terry's incendiary Letter from Fulton County Jail, 10 Oct. 1989. See ‘Randy Terry Writes From Jail', The Advocate (Nov. 1989), pp.8-10. Cf. Kaplan (note 2), p.67.
13. A good, published source of these reminiscences is Josephine County Right to Life, ‘Testimonies from Jailed Rescuers: Operation Rescue Siege of Atlanta - July-Oct ‘88’. Cf. Tom Watson, ‘Abortion Opponents Charge Police Brutality, Declare ‘War”, USA Today, 5 Oct. 1988; or ‘Police Get Tough at Protest’, Atlanta Daily News, 5 Oct. 1988.
14. The participation of homosexual activists in clinic confrontations with rescuers was noted in Kaplan (note 2), p.72 n.9. The presence of these activists as escorts was confirmed in my interview with Coleen Connell, the head of the ACLU's Reproductive Rights Project in Chicago, 14 Feb. 1993.
15. For a view from the perspective of the escorts, see Judith A. Dilrorio and Michael R. Nusbaumer, ‘Securing Our Sanity: Anger Management Among Abortion Escorts’, Jnl of Contemporary Ethnography 21/4 (Jan. 1993), pp.411-38. For a less enlightening polemic, see Faye Ginsburg, Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley, CA: California UP, 1989).
16. For just such an explicit statement from the perspective of the Lambs of Christ, see Kaplan (note 2), p.63. ‘Pro-abortion satanists’ are noted as attending Shelley Shannon's trial. See Shelley Shannon, ‘Shelley Shannon Trial From the Perspective of Shelley Shannon’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (April 1994), p.4.
17. Shelley Shannon, ‘Toward the Use of Force’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (May 1994), p.55.
18. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 1’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Dec. 1993), p.10. For a discussion of the social construction of Satanism in contemporary America, see Jeffrey Kaplan, ‘Multigenerational Satanism: The Eternal Conspiracy’, American Studies (forthcoming).
19. Rescuer Tom Herlihy ranks these cities according to the scale of police brutality and gives not overly fond reminiscences of each in an undated New York Post article reprinted in the Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, newsletter, The Rescuer. Ray Kerrison, ‘Police Brutality’, The Rescuer 5/6 (May-June 1991), p.10. Randall Terry concurs with this list. For considerable detail, see Terry (note JO), pp. 137–68.
20. Shelley Shannon, unpub. notes, 13 Jan. 1990.
21. Ray Kerrison (note 21). Events in Pittsburgh are described in brief in a full page advertisement in the mainstream Catholic newspaper, The Wanderer. ‘Sexually Molested Pro-Life Women Seek Justice: Offenders May Get Off Free’, The Wanderer, 3 Jan. 1991, p.10. For sources in the rescue literature, see ‘Pittsburgh Police Abuse Rescuers’, The Advocate (May 1989), p.4; and ‘Pittsburgh Nightmare: ‘I Wish They'd Broken My Arms”, The Advocate (Nov. 1990), p.24.
22. Shelley Shannon, unpub. prison notes. Several testimonies from Atlanta are available to this research, but few are as reflective - and occasionally quite humorous - as those of Shelley Shannon. It is instructive of conditions in Atlanta that Shelley Shannon's notes contain an account of her arrest at her Grants Pass home almost immediately upon her return to Oregon. This incarceration is described as a pleasant holiday weekend in comparison to Atlanta's hospitality.
23. A good source for the philosophical dimensions of this split is the anti-violence consensus of pro-lifers and pacifist rescue leaders in ‘Killing Abortionists: A Symposium’, First Things 48 (Dec. 1994), pp.24-31.
24. This latest revision of the Army of God Manual was repr. in The Prayer + Action Weekly News (Dec. 1994), p.11. It is notable that the spelling of ‘Amerika’ strongly recalls the practice of 1960s left wing radicals at a similar stage of despair that the nation could be reformed by legal means.
25. The three proposed restrictions were: (1) The abortion must be performed in a state-accredited hospital; (2) The abortion must be approved by the hospital's abortion committee; and (3) The attending physician's medical judgement must be confirmed by independent examinations of the patient by at least two other physicians [410 US 179 or 93 S. Ct. 739]. An excellent scholarly source for the legal and political implications of the abortion controversy is Barbara Hinkson Craig and David M. O'Brien, Abortion and American Politics (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993). For an explicitly pro-life point of view, see Marvin Olasky, Abortion Rites: A Social History of Abortion in America (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1992).
26. Letter from Portland, OR, legal firm to Shelley Shannon, 10 July 1992.
27. For a brief synopsis of RICO and the Now v. Scheidler suit, see Kaplan (note 2), pp.75-6, n.40. An earlier suit was filed in Portland, interview with Kathy Rumey, 16 Oct. 1995.
28. See ‘High Court Upholds RICO', and ‘Supreme Court Issues Narrow; Harmful Decision in NOW's RICO Suit’, Life Advocate (March 1994), p.20. It is highly significant that so important a decision - a decision which made it unlikely that any rescuer could hope to have a RICO judgment overturned in the courts of America - was relegated to p.20 and was reported in brief, almost terse terms. For an earlier, somewhat more optimistic report on the occasion of the Supreme Court's agreeing to hear the suit, see ‘Clinton Administration Urges Overturning NOW v. Scheidler Acquittal', Life Advocate (July 1993), pp.37-8.
29. Ronald Reagan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1984).
30. Barbara Hinkson Craig and David M. O'Brien (note 28).
31. Interview with Fr, Norman Weslin, 5 Aug. 1993. Wonderfully illustrative photographs making the rounds in rescue circles feature Bill Clinton with a large 666 written on his forehead. A theologically dubious example has a leatherclad Bill Clinton, replete with saxophone, and a nattily dressed Hillary against a backdrop of memorial posters for aborted babies, with both Clintons sporting 666 on their foreheads. ‘Clinton Display at Picket draws Federal Attention’, Life Advocate (Dec. 1993/ Jan. 1994), p.8. An excellent source for the political contexts into which the Antichrist has been projected through the ages is Bernard McGinn, Antichrist (NY: Harper San Francisco, 1994).
32. For a good capsule summary of the tactical models of early rescue from the abolitionists to the Civil Rights movement, see Phillip F. Lawler, Operation Rescue: A Challenge to the Nation's Conscience (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1992), pp, 136–41. For a brilliant analysis, see Foreman (note 10), pp.25-36.
33. ‘Congress Hears Truth on Pro-Abort Violence’, Life Advocate (July 1993), p.15.
34. ‘FACE Bill Passed, Signed by Clinton’, Life Advocate (July 1994), pp.8-9. Sentencing provisions include six months incarceration and a $10,000 fine for a first ‘exclusively non-violent’ offense and 18 months and a $25,000 for each additional offense thereafter.
35. After some puzzlement in rescue ranks, Salvi's statement was characterized as delusional and psychotic and Salvi himself treated as a curiosity with no connection to the rescue movement. ‘Year Ends With Shootings at East Coast Abortuaries’, Life Advocate (Feb. 1995), pp.20-22.
36. The ongoing Brockhoeft Report discusses the fires he set in abortion clinics in Ohio and - Florida in considerable detail. See ‘The Brockhoeft Report 1-4’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Dec. 1993), and ‘The Brockhoeft Report 5-6’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Feb. 1994). Letter from Marjorie Reed, 25 Jan. 1993. Marjorie Reed, currently serving a 12-year sentence for ‘aiding and abetting’ a clinic arson, is considerably less well known outside rescue circles than John Brockhoeft. For a rare public appearance, see Marjorie Reed, ‘Oh Please Spare Me (Or a Day Before the Grand Jury)’, Life Advocate (Aug. 1994), p.38.
37. Michael Bray, A Time to Kill (Portland, OR: AFL, 1994).
38. Galanter (note 35), p. 124. As indicated above, we believe that the functional role of proselytization is to provide a manageable device for siphoning off the anger and hostility that is projected on to contrast groups. Emigration to Guyana deprived the Peoples Temple of such low-level confrontational routines, and exacerbated the difficulty of managing intra-group resentments. This depth-psychological analysis complements rather than contradicts Galanter's system theory approach.
39. The Nazi metaphor is common to the larger pro-life constituency as well. See C. Everett Koop, ‘The Slide to Auschwitz’, in Reagan (note 32), pp.41-73.
40. Corrie Ten Boom is something of a cult icon to rescuers and to other members of the evangelical subculture. She is the stuff of sermons, articles, and even comic books to inspire children. A good example of this praxis in the context of rescue is ‘Kenny Sacht: A Pastor Continues to Rescue despite upheaval in His Church’, The Advocate (Feb. 1990), p.3. For an early source positing Ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer as equivalent models for emulation, see Randall Terry, Operation Rescue (Springdale: Pai Whitaker House, 1988).
41. Joe Bartlett, ‘Dietrich and George and the Time Machine’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (May 1994), p.15. This Christian ‘science fiction’ includes a paean to Shelley Shannon as a ‘Bonhoeffer-like figure’.
42. Klaus Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, Volume One: 1918–1934 (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), p.276. Scholder's two volume history is the best introduction to Bonhoeffer's theology in its historical context. For a good example of how this challenging material is distilled and disseminated to rescuers of a non-scholarly bent, see Alcorn (note 10), pp.1 11–16. So vital is Bonhoeffer's theology beyond the narrow worlds of rescue and evangelical Christianity that the American Academy of Religion plans to hold a panel discussion on Bonhoeffer's legacy at its 1995 meeting in Philadelphia.
43. Shelley Shannon, ‘Toward the Use of Force’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (May 1994), p.55; ‘Did She Aim for His Arms: Report on the Trial of Rachelle Shannon’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (March 1994), p.47. She recalls two of these titles as: Life Together (note 51) and Letters and Papers From Prison.
44. The preamble of the Order's declaration states: ‘We, the following, being of sound mind and under no duress, do hereby sign this document of our own free will, stating forthrightly and without fear that we declare ourselves to be in full and unrelenting state of war with those forces seeking and consciously promoting the destruction of our faith and our race’. See Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, The Silent Brotherhood (NY: Free Press, 1989), pp.357-8. Good sources for the war imagery of the early rescue movement are Randall Terry's first two books, Operation Rescue (note 42) and Accessory to Murder (note 10).
45. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 15’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Jan. 1995), p.11.
46. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 14’, ibid. (Nov. 1994), p.54.
47. ‘Paul Hill Interview’ (note 9), p.42.
48. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 12’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Sept. 1994), p.15. John Brockhoeft would not take this (or any other) public position without biblical warrant. In this case, his formulation is based on Ecclesiastes 3:8 ‘A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace’.
49. Imprecatory prayer was introduced in these pages in Kaplan (note 2), p.77, n.49. While it would be impossible to document the efficacy of this spiritual weapon, the Missionaries and other rescuers believe in its power without question. More, it should be noted that as of 1991, Milwaukee abortionists have had unusually high incidences of strokes (Drs Tarver and Woo) and sudden death (Dr Leon Gillman), all within the space of a year, and all after having been the subjects of imprecation. ‘Craft Quits!: Sixth Abortionist to Stop Killing in 10 Months’, The Advocate (May 1991), p.6. The Missionaries did not however pioneer the use of the imprecatory psalms as a weapon of war. No less a figure than Dietrich Bonhoeffer counseled: Can we, then, pray the imprecatory psalms? In so far as we are sinners and express evil thoughts in a prayer of vengeance, we dare not do so. But in so far as Christ is in us, the Christ who took all the vengeance of God upon himself, who met God's vengeance in our stead, who thus - stricken by the wrath of God - and in no other way, could forgive his enemies, who himself suffered the wrath that his enemies might go free - we, too, as members of this Jesus Christ, can pray these psalms, through Jesus Christ, from the heart of Jesus Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, John W. Doberstein, trans. (San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1954), p.34.
50. Joan Andrews tells her story in Joan Andrews with John Cavanaugh O'Keefe, I Will Never Forget You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989). Butyric acid became something of a fad among rescuers determined to close a clinic but unwilling or unable to take sterner measures. Shelley Shannon appears to have been among these aficionados. ‘Shannon Hints at Butyric Acid Involvements’, Life Advocate (April 1994), p.6. That the tactic remains in use today, see ‘Clinic Acid Dosing Raises Fear’, Life Advocate (Oct. 1993), p.16.
51. Joseph M. Scheidler, Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1985). Joseph Scheidler's role in the movement is controversial. The father of the rescue movement, Scheidler felt it necessary to update his book in 1992, stressing his commitment to non-violence against persons. At the same time, Scheidler never met a rescuer or pro-lifer he did not like. Thus, he gives unqualified support and counsel to all who ask, whether they be committed pacifists, clinic bombers or those who would resort to lethal force. Thus too the interest shown in Scheidler by the current Portland Grand Jury inquiry into the possibility of a national conspiracy against the abortion industry, and so too the decision of NOW to file the flagship RICO suit against Scheidler and his Pro-Life Action League. On the conspiracy inquiry, see ‘FBI Undertakes Conspiracy Inquiry Into Clinic Violence’, New York Times, 4 Aug. 1994; and ‘Abortion: Who's Behind the Violence?’ US News and World Report, 14 Nov. 1994.
52. An excellent example of the lengths to which this can go can be seen in the pretzel-like contraption employed by two rescuers in Fargo, ND. These rescuers chained themselves with Kryptonite locks into a clothes dryer, and in turn had these dryers fixed into the body of an old car with an array of chains and metal. The car was then pushed in front of the clinic door. One of the rescuers, Tim Lindgren, commented that his predicament, helplessly encased in total darkness, unable to know what was happening outside of his steel tomb, reminded him of the unborn baby in the womb. ‘Rescuers Go Far in Fargo to Save Babies’, Life Advocate (Jan. 1995), p.19.
53. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 3’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Dec. 1993), p.31.
54. Movement figures have clinic bombings peaking in 1984 when 18 clinics were bombed and 11 others suffered damage from arson. These numbers sharply declined from 1985, although the numbers are in some dispute in movement literature. Kaplan (note 2), p.60. For its part, the National Abortion Federation generally agrees with these numbers, finding 1984 to be the most active year with 18 clinics bombed and 6 damaged by arson. NAF figures from 1977–91 count 34 bombings and 60 arsons. Dallas A. Blanchard, The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Rise of the Religious Right: From Polite to Fiery Protest (NY: Twayne Publishers, 1994), pp.56–7.
55. For a riveting step by step account of the destruction of an abortion clinic, see ‘The Brockhoeft Report 5 and 6’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Feb. 1994). For an intensely negative scholarly polemic against clinic bombers, rescuers and conservative Christians in general, see Dallas A. Blanchard and Jerry J. Prewitt, Religious Violence and Abortion (Gainesville, FL: Florida UP, 1993). Blanchard's vendetta is reprised in Blanchard, The Anti-Abortion Movement (note 58). Cf. Julie Ingersoll's review of the Blanchard and Prewitt volume in Terrorism and Political Violence 6/1 (Spring 1994), pp.98-100.
56. Letter to author from imprisoned rescuer, name withheld, Feb. 1994.
57. Name of author and recipient withheld, 1991.
58. For details of these lesser known cases, see ‘Bottom of the Barrel: Abortionists - The Dregs of Society’, Life Advocate (Nov. 1994), pp. 10–14; ‘Canadian Abortionist Shot’, ibid. (Dec. 1994), pp.28-9; and ‘Canada Targets Pro-Lifers: Media and Government Forces Seek to Destroy Pro-Life Movement’, ibid. (Jan. 1995), pp.10-15.
59. Letter from Shelley Shannon, 10 June 1994. She is reacting to Jeffrey Kaplan, ‘America's Last Prophetic Witness’ (note 2), p.59.
60. Joseph M. Scheidler (note 54), pp. 154–6. Cf. ‘Taking the Battle Home: Tactics Get Tough With Abortionists’, Life Advocate (Feb. 1994), pp. 10–13. For an example of the occasional success story, see ‘After Home Picket, Abortionist Quits’, ibid. (July 1993), pp.18-19.
61. There is no dearth of reporting on abortionists who seek other means of livelihood out of fear of violence in the rescue literature. Typical are ‘Abortionist Shooting Spurs Another to Quit’, and ‘Women's Center Discontinues Abortions’, Life Advocate (Nov. 1994), pp.28, 31. For an example of the justifiable homicide argument, see Cathy Ramey, ‘Strategy for the Future: The Pro-Life Exception or “By Any Means Necessary’”, Life Advocate (July 1993), pp.66–7. On the dearth of candidates to become abortionists, see ‘Abortion Clinics Search for Doctors in Scarcity’, New York Times, 31 March 1993; and ‘Planned Parenthood Starting to Train Doctors in Abortion’, ibid., 19 June 1993.
62. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 4’, Prayer + Action News (Dec. 1993), p.48.
63. The ongoing ‘Brockhoeft Report’ is serialized in Prayer + Action Weekly News, where the first installment appeared in Dec. 1993. Shelley Shannon was until her arrest the original editor, Fortuitously, Dave Leach in Iowa, editor of the various Prayer + Action Weekly News editions, stepped forward to continue the work. Perhaps the best summaries of absolutism are contained in the Dec. 1993 edition containing ‘The Brockhoeft Report 1–4’, and ‘The Brockhoeft Report 7’. Prayer + Action Weekly News (March 1994).
64. ‘The Brockhoeft Report 7’, ibid., p.19.
65. ‘Florida Pro-Lifers ID Replacement for Gunn’, Life Advocate (Sept. 1993), p.19. The term ‘bottom feeder’ is taken from a comic book issued by a Texas ministry portraying abortionists as the catfish-like bottom feeders of the medical profession. The comic book was mailed to students in medical schools across the country. See “‘Bottom Feeder” Humor Upsets Abortionists’, ibid., p,21.
66. ‘FBI and BATF Start Reno-Inspired “Witchhunt”’, Life Advocate (Oct. 1994), p.8.
67. ‘Pro-Life Pastors and Leaders Declare Justice of the Use of Force’, Life Advocate (October 1993), 18. The statement can be found as well in the Prayer + Action Weekly News (Nov. 1994), pp.17, 19.
68. Paul J. Hill, ‘Should We Defend Born and Unborn Children With Force?’ Prayer + Action Weekly News (Sept. 1994), pp.25-38. This essay was written to further clarify points made by Rev. Hill on the occasion of his appearance on the Phil Donahue television program. A transcript of that interview can be found in ‘Phil & Hill', Prayer + Action Weekly News (Aug. 1994), pp.45–8.For other useful material on Paul Hill, see: ‘Paul Hill Interview (note 9), pp.42–6; Paul J. Hill, ‘Who Killed the Innocent - Michael Griffin or Dr. David Gunn?’ Life Advocate (Aug. 1993), pp.40–3; and ‘An Interview With Paul Hill', ibid. (Jan. 1995), pp.26–9. On Hill's killing of John Britton and James Barrett, as well as the strong condemnation of the act from pro-life and rescue quarters, ‘Hill Says, “Now is the Time⋯”.’, Life Advocate (Sept. 1994), pp. 10–15.
69. Hill (note 73), p.27.
70. Ibid., p.28. The example of Phineas and his resort to deadly force in a successful effort to shield his people from the wrath of a justly angry God is of considerable importance to a number of contemporary American millenarian appeals. In the world of Christian Identity for example, Richard Kelly Hoskins draws on this source to posit a phantom order of avengers from the dawn of time, the Phineas Priesthood. See Richard Kelly Hoskins, Vigilantes of Christendom (Lynchburg, VA: Publishing Co., 1990). Cf. my review essay on the influence of this text in Syzygy: Jnl of Alternative Religion and Culture 1/2-3, pp.271–3.
71. Ibid., pp.36-7. The Posse Comitatus was a (very) loosely organized movement in the American heartland which rejected the legitimacy of all civil authority above the level of county sheriff. For an introduction through the perspective of the late Posse founder William Potter Gale, see Cheri Seymour, Committee of the States: Inside the Radical Right (Mariposa, CA: Camden Place Communications, 1991).
72. Hill (note 73), p.37.
73. Letter from Shelley Shannon, 9 Sept. 1994.
74. The intensity of this emotion can be glimpsed in ‘An Open Letter From Joe Bartlett to Shelley’, Prayer + Action Weekly News (Oct. 1994), pp.43–7. This letter, most notable for comparing Shelley Shannon to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, canonizing her and Paul Hill as movement martyrs, and excommunicating Michael Griffin from their number due to his having ‘flip-flopped, compromised, betrayed his friends, and threw away his honor for nothing’, was written in lieu of an installment of ‘The Brockhoeft Report’ due to Brockhoeft's despair at having been asked by Shelley Shannon to leave her out of his writings lest she be further glorified for her actions.
75. Those named on the list are: Joseph Booker (Jackson, MS) George Tiller (Andover, KS) David Allred (Los Angeles, CA) Warren Hern (Boulder, CO) James and Elizabeth Newhall (Portland, OR) Steven Kaali (Dobbs Ferry, NY) Thomas Greysinger (Fort Washington, MD) George Kabacy (Canby, OR) Douglas Karpen (Houston, TX) Howard Silverman (Boston, MA) Paul Seamers (Oconomowok, WI) Ulrich Klopfer (Fort Wayne, IN) Of these, recent television news reports have singled out Joseph Booker as at greatest risk, and Mississippi rescuer and signer of Paul Hill's original Direct Action statement, Roy McMillan, as the most likely to act. On the warmth of the McMillan/Booker relationship, see ‘Abortionist Accused of Pointing Gun at Crowd of Anti-Abortion Protesters’, Life Advocate (June 1994), p.32. On the history of the ACLA and its actions in Mississippi, see ‘ACLA: New National Activist Coalition Begins in Mississippi’, Life Advocate (Oct. 1994), pp.15-18.