Protesters Who Push the Limits
WICHITA, Kan. — In the failing light of dusk, a dozen protesters pace a street corner in silence. They wave photos of tiny, dismembered limbs. On the posters, in neat black letters, they have written the name, address and apartment number of a nurse who works at a local abortion clinic.
She lives in the worn brick building behind the picket line; a protester points to her window with a plastic arrow, the kind that might direct traffic to a garage sale. Only, this one says in red: "ABORTION NURSE."
The men and women, and several bundled-up children, stand vigil for an hour in a cold gray wind, then head home for supper. They will return. For this is just the start of a campaign that tests the far limits of free speech: a crusade to expose abortion providers, to isolate them, to shame, even harass them into quitting.
They have chosen Wichita to make their stand because it's home to one of the few clinics in the country that offer abortions to women in advanced stages of pregnancy.
Local activists maintain a steady vigil outside the clinic, clutching baby blankets as they kneel on the sidewalk in prayer.
Bent on more aggressive confrontation, Troy Newman, president of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue West, moved his family here from Southern California two years ago. He then persuaded half a dozen like-minded friends to join him.
Forces marshaled, he drew up the most far-reaching battle plan that abortion rights advocates have ever seen -- legal, but deliberately invasive. He calls it the Year of Rebuke.
Over the next 12 months, Newman and his followers will point their arrows at everyone who works for Women's Health Care Services, from the chief physician to the armed security guards.
Photos of the mangled heads of fetuses will greet the receptionist at her favorite restaurant. Protesters will point out the nurse as she walks into the mall, the office manager as she heads into church. Every clinic employee can expect pickets at home, yellow arrows pointed at their front doors.
Newman will pick through clinic workers' trash to figure out where they do business; he'll trail them at a distance to learn their routines.
His goal is not just to make their lives uncomfortable. He wants to unsettle and disgust their friends and associates, so their hairstylists and their pharmacists, even their neighbors, make it clear they're not welcome in Wichita.
