Imprisoned Pro-Life Activists Honored with Operation Rescue’s Malachi Award
Operation Rescue has awarded its prestigious Malachi Award to imprisoned pro-life activists who faced persecution for their peaceful defense of unborn children. “Many prolifers prosecuted” and imprisoned for peaceful action on behalf of the preborn since the days of the first rescue movement,” said Troy Newman, president of the organization.
Springing up in 1986, Operation Rescue led the largest movement of peaceful civil disobedience in American history. During those early years, thousands of men and women willingly sat in front of the doors to abortion clinics to prevent the killing of innocent children. Rescuers often paid the penalty in arrest and prosecution on misdemeanor trespassing charges. However, when the FACE Act was passed in 1993, misdemeanors became felonies, and the movement was forced to adapt with new strategies for closing down clinics.
Pro-life activists remain in prison or await sentences on federal charges brought by President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice. The strategy is different and the groups of rescuers smaller, but the quiet heart of this sacrificial act remains the same.
“Like so many of us in those early years after Roe, these courageous citizens have willingly and peacefully placed their own bodies between a preborn child and the people scheduled to murder that child,” Newman said. “That is an act of kindness and compassion.”
How many are imprisoned?
Currently, nearly a dozen prolifers are in prisons across the nation, with a dozen more convicted and hit with heavy fines, probation or house arrest. Sentences reached 57 months for some activists, and some of these prisoners have experienced severe medical complications, including multiple strokes.
The treatment of these citizens has been horrendous
“The treatment of these citizens has been horrendous,” Newman said. “Operation Rescue and the entire pro-life community responds are united in calling for each of these brave advocates to be pardoned on day one of Donald Trump’s presidency. These men and women are not hardened criminals — they are political prisoners of the Biden administration, which is deeply and darkly devoted to eliminating any and all efforts to save preborn children from the brutal violence of abortion.
“As it says in John 15:13, ‘Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.’ We pray that the love of God wins the day for those being persecuted, and that pardons for these deserving men and women come, and come quickly.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
