Today is January 22nd, the anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision in 1973 that established abortion on demand in America.
Abortion is murder. I consider it, and all other forms of child-killing, to be the most evil acts of which human beings are capable.
I’ve posted a video today commenting on my awakening to the pro-life position under the preaching of Pastor Alan Hamilton at Portland Foursquare Church in Portland Oregon. I related how my former drug dealer took me there for the first time, a testimony you should watch.
This essay will instead recount my history in pro-life activism.
My career as a Christian social and political activist began when I first saw photos of aborted babies in Life Advocate magazine, the publication of record for the Rescue Movement of the late 1980s. It’s editor was the late Paul DeParrie, who gave my son Noah (then 5) and I a ride back to our car after we participated in the Mothers’ Day March for Life, on a whim, when we saw pro-lifers with pink and blue balloons gathering in a park as we drove by. Noah won an award for “Youngest Boy Marcher,” and I got put in the Life Advocate mailing list. My first issue of Life Advocate was where I first saw the tiny pieces of dead babies laid out on towels by abortionists to ensure they didn’t leave anything behind to kill the mother from sepsis.
I was more deeply shocked at that than anything before or since. “How can this be happening in America?!” I thought, “People must not know.” So I set out to advocate for the babies in any way that I could – mostly protesting at abortion clinics.
I didn’t join any group. I just did it on my own, letting my handyman business die away over the next several months so I could work full time as a pro-lifer. Each afternoon I would call in to the Lew Davies Show on KPDQ Christian radio to give a report on pro-life news and identify which of the three Portland abortuaries I was focusing on that week. I became almost a regular feature of the show.
I also organized many protests, building up a network of allies that culminated in a turn-out of 800 people at an Easter-Eve Prayer Vigil at the Lovejoy Abortion Clinic. When eight of my friends/allies were later arrested for trespassing there – the Lovejoy 8 – and held in prison indefinitely by Judge Nellie Johnson until they agreed to sign a promise never to do it again (a gross abuse of power), I became the chief organizer of the protests outside the courthouse.
Then I met Pastor Lon Mabon, Chairman of Oregon Citizens Alliance, a highly organized statewide Christian political network pushing a pro-life ballot measure. Within two weeks, by God’s providence (miraculous because I had no training or background for it), I became the OCA State Communications Director. Thus began my involvement in issue-driven politics first just in Oregon, and then nationally. In 1990, I was blessed to be just 50 feet from the state when my hero Dr. James Dobson issued his famous pledge never to vote for any candidate that supported the killing of unborn babies, a pledge I took with him that day.
I was in attendance for the most heartbreaking of all abortion cases ever before the US Supreme Court, the Gonzales v Carhart partial birth abortion case, when wicked Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expressly verbally admitted in open court that partial birth abortion was “a gruesome procedure,” before going on to cast the swing vote to ensure it continued.
As I described in my video, my own most effective activism was creating and performing the character “Bubba Satan” (from the deep, deep, deep south) in a full body devil suit, carrying a 6-foot long sign in the shape of an arrow reading “Abortion Special: Kill Now, Pay Later” (with flames rising from below the text). I performed “Bubba” numerous times to great effect, staying in character to mock and belittle pro-abort “escorts” and other counter-protesters, and thanking them gleefully in my deep southern accent for their inevitable use of profanity and other abusive rhetoric.
The very best Bubba event was in Sacramento, CA, when the Teens for Life joined me, portraying a group of angels with pro-life signs across the street from the clinic. I actually arrived late because I had to change into my costume behind the van we all arrived in. As I walked down the sidewalk on the abortuary side of the street I saw three pro-aborts standing in the driveway, mocking the Teens for Lifers. There was a black guy (with a pentagram ring), and two lesbians, the larger of the two being the “Alpha” of the group.
When Ms. Alpha turned and saw me coming down the street toward them, she – in her tiny pea brain – decided I was a pro-abort coming to their rescue as a counter to the angels. She literally started jumping up and down joyfully shouting “Satan’s here! Satan’s here!”, then rushed over and gave me a bear hug. All three of them could see my sign quite clearly, but it didn’t register. Not believing my eyes and ears I took up my post on the side of the driveway – mindful not to trespass on clinic property. But Ms. A said “You don’t have to stand there. Come over with us!” So I did.
Almost immediately, a car approached the driveway and I went into my normal routine, stepping aside while it passed in and shouting like a carnival barker “Please come on in. It’s a great day to kill your baby!”
The three of them looked at me strangely, then Ms. A leaned in and whispered at me “That’s not really a good thing to say.” I replied back in my accent “But isn’t that what we’re doin?”
She then looked suspiciously into the eye holes of my mask, asking “Are you an ‘Anti’?”
“No way, I’m on your side” I said, remaining in the character of Satan.
“You’re an “Anti’!” she exclaimed.
“Hey, I’m the Devil! Would I lie to YOU?”
She looked puzzled for a second then turned on her heel and ran into the clinic. A few minutes later she returned following a woman dressed in scubs – either a nurse or the abortionist herself.
The nurse/killer marched right up to me, looked over the sign, looked at my masked face and then turned to Ms. A with an scornful, exasperated tone “He’s one of them!!” It was obvious she wanted to add “you idiot!”
Ms. A then ordered me back to the edge of the driveway where I remained in character for the next hour, berating the three of them for not believing I was on their side, and explaining what abortion really involved both procedurally and emotionally to the family members, and why I, “Satan,” loved the whole abortion industry.
After I became a lawyer and had other ways to stand for the babies, I stopped performing Bubba, and actually gave my costume to a pro-life activist I met at the Carhart hearing in DC.
My pro-life activist career culminated in my 2014, and 2018 runs for Governor of Massachusetts, where stopping the killing of the unborn was my primary issue.
So, while I can’t be in DC this year for the March for Life, my heart is with all those who are, and – always – with the innocent unborn whom I will never stop fighting to save.
