Troy Newman: Siccing Operation Rescue Harpies after Dr. Tiller

by Mary

When looking at the atmosphere that led to Dr. George Tiller's death, one cannot overlook the aggressive tactics of Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue. In 2004, Rolling Stone published an article about Newman's crusade against Tiller and his clinic. Having received the word of God (much like Osama bin Laden hears God's voice), Newman was righteous in his cause and his attempts to destroy his enemy.

Operation Rescue is also visiting companies that do business with the clinic and threatening them with a boycott if they don't sever their ties with the facility. This is America's new abortion war, and the objective, in military terms, is to cut off the supply lines to abortion clinics and demoralize their troops.

Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue, calls it the Year of Rebuke -- and if it works in Wichita, he plans to unleash the campaign of intimidation on abortion clinics all across the country. "I want these employees to realize that their lives have changed," he says. "As long as they're embedded in the abortion industry receiving blood money, they can't live a normal life. They just can't."

...Since 1999, when he became the head of Operation Rescue, Newman has been determined to come up with a novel strategy to prove himself. So two years ago, he moved his family to Wichita with a single, shining goal: to shut down Women's Health Care Services. The clinic is run by a doctor named George Tiller, a lightning-rod figure in the abortion wars. Tiller's reputation for performing late-term abortions draws women from all over the world to his clinic -- women whose unborn children have been diagnosed with genetic deformities or whose health makes childbearing dangerous. It also makes Tiller's clinic the perfect target for Newman's campaign of intimidation. "Wichita isn't big enough for George Tiller and me," Newman declared in a full-page ad he took out in a Catholic paper called The Wanderer.

Newman's latest update on his crusade was just last Friday when he and his organization issued a press release opposing Sonia Sotomayer as radically pro-abortion.

So do you think the Republican Senators will pick up his banner and proudly wave it during the confirmation hearings?