Pro-life leader seeks to make 'peaceful civil disobedience' new pillar of the pro-life mov't
As abortion continues to wane as a top issue of concern for American voters, some pro-life groups are resorting to “peaceful civil disobedience” by organizing abortion clinic blockades and using their arrests to bring greater awareness to the fight to save babies in the womb.
Earlier this month, over a dozen pro-lifers were arrested and jailed for one to three days after blocking the entrance to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Memphis, Tennessee.
Rescue Resurrection is the "umbrella name" that Randall Terry, founder of the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, told The Christian Post is being used for pro-life groups willing to participate in "large-scale peaceful civil disobedience.”
“We are putting together the dream team of courageous activists for the unborn. And another thing that is interesting about this is the spectrum of age, religion and political party affiliation. We have agreed to set aside our differences on [a] multitude of issues so that we can focus like a laser beam on the unborn,” he said.
Terry insisted that in order “to end the killing of the unborn, we have to create social tension.” He maintained that only the creation of social tension would increase public awareness about the horrors of abortion.
“Creating social tension has political impact,” he said. “So right now, abortion is not in the top 10 voter issues on any poll. Our mission is to create the social tension on behalf of the babies so that voters recognize their duty to end this genocide.”
Similarly, he added, “In 1987, abortion was not in the top 10 voter issues. But in 1988, after Operation Rescue had thousands and thousands of arrests, on Election Day 1988, the ABC exit poll showed that abortion was the No. 1 voter issue in America.”
Among the pro-life groups that participated in the blockade was the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), which provided additional details about the legal consequences activists now face in a statement posted on the group's X account on Dec. 5.
PAAU said more than a dozen pro-life activists were arrested, including two former presidential candidates: PAAU founder Terrisa Bukovinac, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president on a pro-life platform in 2024, and Terry, who ran as the Constitution Party’s candidate in 2024.
Others arrested that day include Joan Andrews Bell and John Hinshaw, pro-life activists previously convicted for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, who had their offenses pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Pro-life activists Monica Migliorino Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Nathan Berning of Let Them Live were also arrested alongside pro-life activists Melanie Salazar, Elise Ketch, Emily Mahon, James Carney, Rob Rudnick, Cathy Ramey, Doc Kovaly, Matthew Connolly, Alan Aversa and Alfred Lemmo.
In an interview with CP, Bukovinac noted that all but one of the activists have been charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.
She explained that Carney won't be facing charges because “they lost his paperwork, forgot to release him and then released him so late ... that I guess they just went ahead and dropped the charges altogether.”
Bukovinac told CP that she and the other female protesters were in custody for 24 hours and characterized her detention as “the longest I’ve ever been in custody after an initial arrest.” The male activists were in custody for 48 hours or longer. Terry told CP that he was in jail from his arrest on that Friday (Dec. 5) through Sunday.
Bukovinac stressed that “no matter how difficult these prison circumstances are, it’s nothing compared to what the unborn are facing, which is total genocide — having their arms and legs ripped off, being poisoned by the thousands every single day, literally losing their lives.”
“No matter what we’ve gone through in prison, it really just doesn’t compare to that,” she added.
“It is absolutely worth it and an honor to go to jail … in defense of these children because they have no other defenses,” she declared. “At least in jail, we will live another day. We will fight another day for these children. But they don’t have that chance. And I want to just remind people that there has never been major social change away from such a violent institution without civil disobedience.”
Terry offered a similar reflection on the arrest and incarceration of pro-life activists. “No one ripped off our arms and legs, and no one crushed our skull and threw us in a dumpster or sold our body parts like they are doing with babies,” he said.
“It’s difficult to be incarcerated, but it helps our cause. No social revolution in America has succeeded without people practicing civil disobedience and going to jail at some level,” he asserted.
PAAU described the Dec. 5 protest as “the largest peaceful civil disobedience for the unborn in 30 years, following a two-day launch event for Rescue Resurrection — an effort to bring back the abortion rescue movement of the 1980s and '90s. The event also marked the launch of a newly acquired training facility in Memphis for the purpose of training anti-abortion activists for nonviolent direct action.”
Bukovinac characterized the effort as successful, telling CP that “We successfully blockaded the clinic and … we mobilized nearly 50 people for this direct action.”
She added, “We were able to reach moms on the sidewalk,” and “we had sidewalk counselors on site that were able to talk to a couple of the moms attempting to be shuffled in.”
In a separate statement shared with CP, PAAU said the DOJ’s vow earlier this year to significantly limit prosecutions under the FACE Act was an “opportunity for pro-lifers to engage in peaceful civil disobedience once again without the threat of federal prison.”
In a previous interview with CP, Terry revealed how “between 1987 and 1994, [Operation Rescue] accumulated over 75,000 arrests around the country for peacefully blockading abortion clinics.”
“We would sit there, 100, 200, 500 people and not let anyone in. We closed them for the whole day and saved the babies that were scheduled to die that day,” he recalled.
Under the FACE Act, passed in 1994 and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton, the penalties for pro-life activists who participated in blockades were increased to “a federal misdemeanor for the first offense and a federal felony for the second offense.”
“Once that law was passed, it effectively broke the back of our movement,” Terry told CP.
PAAU pointed to the historical significance between protesting outside the Planned Parenthood facility in Memphis and the assassination of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., saying the Civil Rights Movement was an example of “the connection between civil disobedience and changing the law.”
While abortion is banned in almost all circumstances in Tennessee, Bukovinac contended that a protest outside the Memphis Planned Parenthood was still necessary.
“They are on a regular and often daily basis helping pregnant people and even minors cross state lines in order to kill their baby,” she said. “And that includes arranging transportation and providing gas cards in order to facilitate the deaths of those children. This is a Planned Parenthood facility and Planned Parenthood continues to operate even in states where abortion is illegal.”
Terry also discussed the historical significance of Memphis and King in his interview with CP, identifying the creation of “social tension” as “taking the playbook of the Letter From the Birmingham Jail written by Dr. Martin Luther King.”
Bukovinac and the other protesters facing charges are due back in court on Jan. 7, 2026.
Rescue Resurrection is planning to hold another “mass civil disobedience” outside the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in Maryland on Jan. 22, 2026, to protest against the abortion pill regimen. The group anticipates holding another similar event in early March in one of the several states that held abortion referendums in 2024.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
