DIARY OF A PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST
CHAPTER 1
Horrified and Heartbroken
It was a hot sultry summer evening in 1988 when my friends and I met in a parking lot and rode the elevator up to the second floor of a professional building, and took a long walk down a corridor to what seemed like a clandestine meeting, there was no laughter no loud voices, it was a very somber meeting. The meeting was about life and death, and nothing I had ever seen before shocked me more than what I saw and learned that evening. I saw a film of a baby being aborted, I saw pictures and literature on what abortion was, and I saw the evil ramifications of it. I came away from that meeting horrified and heartbroken. It is true and yet very hard to believe that millions upon millions of innocent little babies are being butchered alive and thrown out in dumpsters, or incinerated. The information I received that night at the meeting was life changing for me. I could hardly believe that people were killing innocent babies and throwing them in dumpsters.

I went to a few more meetings at various places and my name got on some mailing lists. I received a flyer about a lady named Joan Andrews who was in jail for five years for unplugging a killing machine in an abortion chamber. I laid that flyer on my dining room table and said to myself, maybe I can help this lady someday. It seemed such an injustice that a lady who was trying to prevent murder of little children could be thrown in jail for FIVE YEARS, when murderers get less time. Then one day I received a flyer in the mail from Texas, it said that there would be a demonstration in Tallahassee, Florida, which is the Capitol of Florida. We were going there to ask our state government to free Joan Andrews from jail. So I really felt that this is how the Lord wanted to use me to help her. Also there would be a Rescue at an abortion chamber, with the possibility that some of us might get arrested. A Rescue of babies that are about to be aborted consists of peacefully sitting in front of the door to an abortion chamber. God's Word plainly says it all in Proverbs 24:10-12 If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he render to every man according to his works?

I told my husband that I was going to go to this demonstration in Tallahassee, and that it said that we might get arrested. My husband was not too happy about that. A friend rode up to Tallahassee with me, on the way up I told her that there was a possibility that I might get arrested, and she panicked and said well what am I going to do, I don't even drive. I told her that God would take care of her, and He did. When we arrived in Tallahassee we checked into a hotel where people from every state in the union came to assemble for this demonstration. There were quite a few people, as best I can remember about three to five hundred. The first person I met was Joan Andrews sister who had come from Maryland with her baby, she was the most beautiful person, she just glowed. Hundreds of men, women, children, priests, and ministers were arriving by car, buses, and vans, and there was an atmosphere of a great reunion.

As I met other people I would ask them where they were from and if they had ever been arrested before, and much to my surprise almost everyone there had been arrested before and some of them great numbers of times. There were two blind young men, one rode a bus from a northern state all by himself to come to Tallahassee. I wound up inviting him to ride with us to rallys and marches that were held there. We had a march and marched right into the Capitol building and stayed there most of the day listening to speakers. Congressman Robert Dornan flew in from California, and he had with him a list of Congressmen petitioning our Governor to release Joan Andrews. In the afternoon there was a burial ceremony for 800 babies that had been aborted and thrown in the garbage. The burial service was held in a church, and the church was filled to overflowing. There were small white coffins with red roses adorning them. The babies that had been ripped apart and found in dumpsters were in these little coffins. It is a very sad day when we allow the murder of God's most innocent, precious babies made in His image and likeness. The next morning right on the front page of the newspaper was a picture of the little coffins being lowered into the ground by loving hands. One man was standing down in the hole with his hands upstretched to receive the little coffin and it brought tears to my eyes once again. I immediately thought of Jesus when He said suffer the little children to come unto me.

The next day we marched to the abortion chamber and sat down in front of the doors, and on the sidewalk. Just as we were all getting settled down, someone in the crowd said look up! There over our heads in the sky was a perfect cross that the Lord had put there. We believed it was a sign from God that He was there with us. We knew He was there, we could feel His presence. We sang praise songs, and prayed that no babies would die here this day. It wasn't long before many police arrived, they warned us that unless we got up and left we would be arrested. Well in America we have the right under the U. S. Constitution to peacefully protest (SO I THOUGHT). We knew that they killed babies in this place and that if we just sat there that we might be able to talk to the mothers considering going in there, and save them and their babies from the exploitation of abortion. After a while some buses started arriving in which the police were going to take us to jail. One black man who drove a bus there, when he saw why he was there, to haul peaceful demonstrators to jail he walked off and left his bus there. There was a whole lot of praying, and singing going on. When we were arrested we layed down and the police picked us up and put us on a stretcher and carried us over to awaiting buses then we were frisked and got on the bus. On the bus we sang praise songs to God. When we arrived at this big barn, and there was about 100 women, there was no furniture except the tables where the police sat and took all our information, there was one telephone and it took well into the night for all the women to be able to make their one phone call. We were taken a few at a time to go before a judge, he told us we were guilty of trespassing and could pay a fine, and come back later for a court date but none of us wanted to pay money into the system that supports the killing of innocent children, and we must obey God rather than man.We were not criminals, we were trying to prevent murder, by peacefully demonstrating.. Very late in the evening they brought in army cots which we had to set up for ourselves. During the day it had been very hot in the barn so they finally turned on an air conditioner and then we almost froze during the night. It was like torture. The next day there was no air conditioning and it got extremly hot in the barn, and the guards had box fans blowing on them. One of our ladies started having a heat stroke, so when one of the guards was not paying attention I crawled under a table and turned her fan around onto the poor lady that was having the heat stroke. One of the ladies had fractured her ankle during the arrests and they did not get her any help till the next day, so she refused to go with them when they finally called for her, and they dragged her out on her fractured foot with her hands handcuffed behind her.

We had a little bit of time when we were standing in line for the bathroom, or waiting in line to be booked, or during the night, when we could fellowship with each other. It was truly amazing to learn the backgrounds and different ages of the people, and where they had come from, to risk everything to help save innocent children from death. There was one lady that had just celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary, and her name was Mary, and her husbands name was Joseph and here they were both in jail for trying to save babies. The second morning we were there I said let's do some exercises, so we all got up and were doing aerobics and the leader said now follow me, and we were going to go around in a circle jogging, but the guards must have thought that we were planning an escape and they hollered halt, stop that, get back on your cots. That afternoon we were shackled together six to a chain and transported over to the real jail. The guards escorted us to holding cells and put about 15 women to each very small holding cell so that all we could do was stand crammed together until they called us one at a time. Then we were intimidated more by the guards who told us we didn't want to be in here (which we didn't) because there was drugs in the jail, murderers, lesbians etc. 1 Timothy 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers... They also asked each woman what color underwear she was wearing, and if it wasn't white they made them give it to them. When it got to be my turn, and they asked about my underwear, I said over my dead body are you going to get my underwear, and praise God they didn't shoot me, and I got to keep my underwear. When they put us in the cells I walked in and I saw a girl standing against the bars with this funny looking cigarette hanging out of her mouth and I thought oh boy, it looked like a joint of marijuana. It turned out that it was a roll your own cigarette. During the night the guards would bang the heavy metal doors over and over, and when they came around on their rounds they took a lead pipe and banged on the bars of the cells. The jail was a condemned building and over crowded. The pro- life rescuers had to sleep on the floor on thin mattresses, and we were in with the regular inmates. The guards called us the "floor people". We could feel the demonic spirits in there.

We were in there four days. It was no picnic. One of the inmates who was a drug dealer and a lesbian came to me one day and asked me what I thought about being a lesbian? I didn't have time to be scared or intimidated by her, the Holy Spirit gave me what to say. I asked her if she knew what God had to say about it? and she asked me to go to her cell where she happened to have a Bible, she opened right to the scripture that says, man shall not lie with man, it is an abomination. And I told her I certainly could not improve on that at all. If God said it is an abomination unto Him, then it is.

One of the inmates who was in for armed robbery and accessory to murder relayed her horrendous story of what had happened to her while in this jail. She knew she was pregnant because on June 29, 1987 she had a sonogram done in a hospital, and she saw her baby, it was a little boy. She named him Corneus. Three months later she wound up in this jail. The inmate complained of a headache and received what she thought was Tylenol. She saw a doctor in the jail on October 1, they did tests and told her she was not pregnant. On October 2 they did more tests and told her again that she was not pregnant. As she laid in her cell on her bunk on October 3, she began bleeding. There was a button on the wall in her cell that was supposed to be used to call a guard in emergencies, it was not operational. So she and other inmates began calling for help. About 1 hour went by before a guard came to inquire as to the problem, it was 2:00 a.m.. She called another guard, they said they would get her to a doctor in the morning. She went back to bed still bleeding on her already blood soaked sheets. At 3:30 a.m. she was really hemorrhaging, she laid in that bunk bleeding for 4 days. On October 6 she started having contractions that were very painful, a guard took her out to a hallway and made her lie on a concrete floor. Then she was made to walk to the elevator to go to the infirmary. A nurse examined her and sent her back to her cell to continue bleeding. During the night she passed a blood clot which she put in a styrofoam cup. She asked for a guard because she thought it was her baby. The guard told her there wasn't anything she could do for her, and that it was her problem. October 7, bleeding continued and they took her finally to a hospital. Baby was doing fine doctor said. Still bleeding and in pain she was taken back to jail with recommended bed rest. October 8 passing blood clots, she was taken back to hospital. Two doctors examined her and gave her a pill to stop the bleeding. They also gave her a prescription for vitamins. Back in her cell she took 1 vitamin and was knocked out. On November 13th she lost her baby boy. The doctor at the hospital said if they had got her there one hour sooner they could have saved the baby. He was 4 and one half months old. She held him in her hand and saw that he even had fingernails. She has pictures of her baby.

There is no respect for human life anymore. We have become a degenerate society. God help us, and have mercy on us.

We ministered to the other women inmates who were in there for such things as drug dealing, accessory to murder etc. They in turn shared with us a horrifying scenario of how in a period of eight months, seven women had come into the jail pregnant, and somehow they had all lost their babies. We soon drew the conclusion that when these women asked for any kind of medical help, they were given something that made them abort their babies.

The pro-lifers in jail would start singing and the inmates would join in with us, we did alot of praying. After a full HORRIFYING five days we were finally released. On my way back home, I stopped at a Christian radio station, and was allowed to tell a listening audience of the experiences and happenings in Tallahassee. There were many people who called in their approval of rescuing babies. One man called in and said his whole family had been thrown in jail up in Tallahassee for trying to save babies from being murdered.

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