Operation Rescue® is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation and has become the voice of the pro-life activist movement in America. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.
Operation Rescue announces today that it has chosen Rev. Johnny Hunter as Man of the Year for 2007.
Rev. Hunter is the President of L.E.A.R.N., Inc. (Life Education And Resource Network), the largest African-American Pro-life organization in the country. Under Rev. Hunter’s leadership, the African-American community has become aware of the devastating effects of abortion on their racial group, and have activated like never before to stop abortion. African-Americans now comprise the fastest growing segment of the Pro-Life Movement.
“We do not want our people to perish because of ignorance. Ignorance and apathy has hindered the proper response to the main destroyer of our future and the child. The single biggest threat to the survival of children, especially children of color, is imposed death by induced abortion,” said Rev. Hunter. “The African American community alone has lost over 12,000,000 people due to this most racist act. In the United States, over 36,000,000 human beings have been unjustly destroyed and the numbers are getting worse by the addition of over 4,000 more deaths each day.”
“The revival taking place in the African-American Community regarding the Sanctity of Life is an amazing and underreported story,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “This remarkable awakening is a direct response to the leadership of Rev. Johnny Hunter and L.E.A.R.N. Operation Rescue is proud to announce Rev. Hunter as our 2007 Man of the Year.”
Harrisburg, PA – Ed Snell, 69, received serious injuries that doctors feared could have cost him his life during an attack on December 22, 2007, outside the Hillcrest Abortion Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The responding female officer not only let the attacker go, but threatened to arrest witnesses that identified the perpetrator and demanded his arrest.
Mr. Snell was standing on a sturdy platform he had attached to the top of his vehicle in order to offer help to women over a fence that had been erected to prevent pro-lifers from speaking to them. Witness John McTernan said that a man who was escorting a woman into the abortion clinic, “leaped on the vehicle with Ed and catapulted him off of the vehicle and onto the ground.” Mr. Snell struck the pavement with his head. He was transported by ambulance to the hospital where he was treated for multiple trauma, bleeding in the area between the brain and the tissues that cover the brain, compression fractures of four vertebrae, right scapula fracture, and fracture of the fourth and fifth ribs.
Three officers arrived to investigate but allowed the perpetrator to leave the scene. When Mr. McTernan objected and demanded an arrest, the female officer threatened to arrest him for interfering with a police investigation. (Click here to read the entire story.)
“It is unbelievable that an officer would allow an attacker to go free after inflicting life-threatening injuries on an elderly gentleman, then threaten to arrest the witness to the crime,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “That was not only unprofessional conduct, but it showed a fundamental lack of respect for Mr. Snell’s life and beliefs. She should face serious discipline.”
Mr. Snell was released from the hospital the following day. His recovery is expected to take a full 8 weeks. Meanwhile, upon learning the seriousness of Mr. Snell’s injuries, the police finally arrested and charged the man with felony assault.
This incident adds to a growing list of attacks on pro-lifers in recent months, which have all included unprofessional police conduct. Operation Rescue recommends that pro-lifers establish regular communications with local police supervisors in order to educate them as to the peaceful nature of pro-life activities and their protection under the First Amendment.
Any concerns about Harrisburg Bureau of Police conduct may be addressed to:
UPDATE: Eight minute video excerpt is available on YouTube.com (Link posted below)
On October 17, 2007, a television show in the United Kingdom called “Dispatches” aired an investigative report on late-term abortions and the movement there to lower the maximum gestational age at which a pre-born baby can be aborted. The program included footage and shocking narration of an actual late-term abortion.
The program touched off a firestorm of debate on the 40th anniversary of abortion liberalization in the UK. Two months after the airing of the show, the station’s discussion board is still active, with 28 pages of messages – several times the number of messages posted to their other discussion topics.
Currently, the upper limit on abortions in the UK is 24 weeks, the landmark age of viability accepted in the medical community worldwide. Efforts have been made to lower the abortion limit to 20 weeks.
Interesting, the Dispatches program interviews women who have had late abortions as well as physicians and abortionists, and nearly all were very uncomfortable with the thought of post-viability abortions. Yet in America, where the survival rate for babies born at 24 weeks is now 85%, with many showing no permanent damage from the prematurity, abortions well past 24 weeks are easily obtained throughout the country in states including California, Colorado, Nebraska, Ohio, Florida, New York, and Kansas, the unlikely but undisputed Late-term Abortion Capital.
It says something about our country when a liberal nation like the United Kingdom has more of a conscience about post-viability child-killing than the more conservative and religious United States where medical advances in neonatology are far superior.
While every abortion is a heinous act, no matter the gestational age of the baby, we think the discussion about abortions past the first trimester can help people to better understand the horrific tragedy of every abortion.
The video footage of this program has been removed from the station’s web site, and to our knowledge it is not now available on the Internet. Thanks to our friend Nedd Kareiva of the Stop the ACLU Coalition (www.stoptheaclu.org), Operation Rescue is making the audio portion of the powerful program available on our web site. Mr. Kareiva will soon be launching a new web site www.closeallabortionclinics.com, and we hope you will check that site for important information when it is available.
The program has been divided into three parts and most of the commercials have been edited out. We hope you will take the time to listen to all of this shocking and thought provoking program, and forward the links to your friends. Until we can face the horrific nature of what abortion does to the most vulnerable among us, we can never hope to abolish it.
Dispatches – “Abortion: what we need to know” (Audio of entire show)
(Republishing of these audio files on other web sites is prohibited without the expressed permission of Nedd Kareiva. To obtain permission, please contact info@stoptheaclu.org.)
Part 1 (18 min. 28 sec.) Part 2 (18 min. 11 sec.) Part 3 (13 min. 5 sec.)
8 min. 15 sec. Video excerpt from Dispatches – “Abortion: what we need to know” Warning: Graphic Content
