(LifeSiteNews) — On Thursday, January 22, the day before the National March for Life in Washington, D.C., Rescue Resurrection participants will gather outside Health and Human Services (HHS) headquarters at 200 Independence Ave SW to call on federal leadership — including Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration — to take decisive action to restrict and ultimately ban the abortion pill.
Many pro-life icons will be participating, and your presence is needed as well.
“The pro-life movement in America is hanging by a thread, as far as having true political power to end the killing,” Randall Terry, Rescue Resurrection’s founder, told LifeSiteNews in a series of exclusive interviews.
“The only thing that can turn that around is ‘social tension,’” he explained. “There’s no other blueprint or playbook in American and world history where you can presume that the powerful will roll over for the weak.”
Terry should know. As founder of Operation Rescue in the mid-1980s, he and others were able to drive abortion from being a non-issue in the public’s mind to becoming the number one issue facing voters.
What did it take to grab national attention? Over the course of six years, more than 70,000 rescuers went to jail, demonstrating to the American public just how serious they were about rescuing preborn babies from death.
In the post Roe v. Wade era, that must happen again, if abortion is going to be defeated once and for all.
“No one is going to believe these little babies are people, until we’re ready to rescue them,” said Joan Andrews Bell, in a short video documentary produced by Rescue Resurrection to draw people into joining in much-needed civil disobedience.
Bell has been arrested more than 200 times and spent over 7 years of her life in jail, all in the name of protecting the unborn.
“Randall organized tens of thousands of people to get arrested between 1987 and 1994 — the largest peaceful civil disobedience movement in the history of the country,” noted Terrisa Bukovinac, founder of “Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising” (PAAU), in the video.
“But obviously the work is not done, so civil disobedience is necessary once again,” she added.
“I feel like I have a duty to God to do everything in my power to make the January 22 event as big as possible, so that it captures people’s imaginations and puts fresh fire in their hearts, to do and to say the things that are peaceful, yet confrontational,” said Terry.
In early December, the group staged its first Rescue Resurrection peaceful protest outside the Memphis, Tennessee, Planned Parenthood building.
Terry offered an astounding fact: “The seventeen people arrested at that abortion facility was the largest number in thirty years.”
He would like to at least double that number in Washington on January 22. “If we then have thirty or forty people arrested outside HHS, that then becomes the largest act of civil disobedience in thirty years on behalf of the unborn.”
Why appeal to the Trump administration if abortion is again a “states’ issue”?
The notion that abortion is a state issue is actually “a trap,” Terry told LifeSiteNews. “The pro-life movement cannot adopt the trap set by the baby killers. There is no state right. It is not a state issue. It’s a federal issue. It is an American issue.”
“After the Civil War, there was no state right to own a human,” said Terry. Likewise, “there is no state right to kill a baby, and so there is no state issue here.”
“So by us creating tension at the federal level, we’re setting the stage with what ultimately must be the means by which this is ended.
“If states like California, New York, and Illinois have their way, they will kill children until the end of time … Let the child-killing politicians of California and New York howl their lungs out. We don’t care,” he declared.
“We can no longer continue to pretend that this is a college debate. This is a genocide,” he said.
By inviting people to join him and other dedicated members of Rescue Resurrection, Terry says he’s “trying to give people permission and inspiration to be heroes.” Real life heroes.
“We’re trying to ignite a fire of passion for the babies, a renewed rescue movement, renewed civil disobedience,” Terry previously explained to LifeSiteNews readers. “If we’re going to revive passion to save the babies, it will only happen by producing ‘social tension.”
Abortion currently is not among the top ten issues weighing on American voters’ minds, and Terry believes this “is a crisis for the unborn.”
“Social tension and peaceful civil disobedience drive an issue to the forefront,” he said. “And that is our mission; to make the abortion genocide a top political issue once again, so that we can make it illegal in all 50 states to kill babies.”
“What’s so important about this civil disobedience is that we’ve got the biggest cross section of pro-lifers I’ve ever seen – Democrats, Republicans, whites, blacks, young and old, Catholic and Evangelical – who are willing to get arrested together,” said Terry.
“If abortion is going to again be front and center for the American public, these activities have got to happen on a regular basis.”
Rescue Resurrection organizers say the Washington, D.C., action is intended to be a major public witness, continuing the series of “rescue” events launched under the Rescue Resurrection banner.
Rescue Resurrection organizers say there are two ways to participate in the January 22 event: “Some will stand on the sidewalk in visible support through prayer, presence, and signs. Others will participate in peaceful civil disobedience by sitting at the entrance and refusing to move when ordered, accepting arrest without resistance.”
Those wary of finding themselves behind bars in a D.C. jail are assured by the organizers that their time there will be brief.
“Washington, D.C. has a ‘post-and-forfeit’ policy for peaceful protesters,” they note. “Participants are briefly processed, issued a citation, and released after posting a modest fine, typically $50 to $100. No further court appearances are required. And it does NOT create an ‘arrest record’ for participants.”