wfn.org | Anti-Abortion Protests at Presbyterian Church

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3-February-1999 
99057 
 
    Anti-Abortion Protests at Presbyterian Church 
    Drive Some Away, Bring Others Together 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
 LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Rev. Carl Horton said good-bye and put the phone 
back into its cradle. "The call was from another family that wanted me to 
know that they had left," he said sadly. 
 
    Horton is an associate pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in 
Lincoln, Neb., which has been picketed by banner-waving abortion foes for 
nearly two years. 
 
    So far, about 100 Westminster members have departed for new 
congregations since the protesters first showed up at the suburban church 
on Feb. 23, 1997. 
 
    An average of about a dozen picketers show up regularly in front of the 
church before Sunday services and various other church events, holding up 
posters featuring gruesome pictures of aborted fetuses and mangled body 
parts. 
 
    Their target is Dr. Winston Crabb, a Westminster elder who is also a 
gynecologist and sometimes performs abortions. 
 
    Sometimes they attach leaflets bearing Crabb's visage to churchgoers' 
vehicles. 
 
    In the beginning, the protesters were from Rescue the Heartland, an 
anti-abortion group from Omaha, but that group recently gave way to new 
demonstrators. 
 
    "I would not have gotten on session if I'd realized it was going to 
create this hassle," said Crabb, who has also been ordained as a deacon and 
is in his final year on the session. "But after you are (on session), you 
can't give in to them." 
 
    Crabb admitted that some members of Westminster have asked him to step 
down, but he said those who believe he doesn't belong in church leadership 
are "full of beans." 
 
    Despite the protests and the drop in membership, Horton said 
Westminster remains a vital congregation of 1,500 members who continue to 
stand together, although they aren't always in agreement about abortion, or 
about the picketers outside. 
 
    "I think the community of faith has seen beyond the issue of pro-life, 
pro-choice or beyond any one person's position on abortion," Horton said of 
the congregation. "You kind of band together as a community to make it 
through the storm, and there's this sense of putting those differences 
aside." 
 
    Crabb, who has practiced medicine in Lincoln for 25 years, said Rescue 
the Heartland activists have "been chasing me around" for years. But it 
wasn't until December 1996 that the anti-abortion group learned that he was 
a deacon at Westminster and began focusing its efforts on the church, said 
the Rev. William Yeager, then Westminster's pastor. (He retired last Sept. 
1.) 
 
    According to Yeager, Rescue the Heartland initially asked the church to 
denounce Crabb publicly and to repent of its "evil ways" in supporting an 
abortionist. He said church officials told the group that they had taken 
the suggestion under advisement. Then, in February 1997, after Crabb was 
elected to serve as an elder, the protests started in earnest. 
 
    Yeager denied that his retirement after 40 years in the ministry had 
anything to do with the protests. 
 
    Horton noted that Westminster and its session included people with a 
variety of beliefs about abortion, but acknowledged that some members left 
because they were pro-life and didn't think an abortion doctor should hold 
a church "leadership position." Others left when their "tolerance for the 
demonstrations" was spent, he added. 
 
    Some fled recently in fear of violent repercussions from the sponsors 
of a controversial Internet Web site that has photos of Crabb and 
Westminster and calls members of the congregation "pew-sitting butchers of 
God's children." Federal authorities are investigating the site to learn 
whether it is connected with the shooting death last year of a New York 
abortion doctor whose name was on a list maintained at the site. 
 
    "There are really members who are alarmed by the web site, as far as 
the safety of this congregation," Horton said. "Their sense is that, even 
after the picketers are gone, the volatility is still there. And our 
congregation being named on the Internet site increases the risk to this 
church. Some believe the church is a link to violence." 
 
    Although some members have called for Crabb's removal from the session, 
other church officials have declined to do so, arguing that the 
obstetrician-gynecologist is not violating church policy by performing 
legal abortions. 
 
    "He's done nothing wrong according to the understanding of the 
Presbyterian system of church government," said Roger Harp, executive 
presbyter of Homestead Presbytery, which has offices in Lincoln. "He was 
elected in good order. He was nominated in good order, ordained in good 
order and installed in good order." 
 
    Meanwhile, parishioners  and Westminster officials have complained that 
the graphic photographs on some of the protesters' signs may be harmful to 
children. That complaint has spawned a city picketing ordinance that has 
landed in the jaws of a First Amendment battle in federal court. 
 
    "The kids, especially young children . . . were very disturbed by the 
encounters that they and their families would have with protesters," said 
Ross Thompson, a Westminster member for about 10 years. 
 
    "Younger children had difficulty comprehending the issues that were the 
focus of the protests. But what they picked up pretty quickly was the 
hostility of the protesters," added Thompson, a psychologist who teaches 
child-development courses at the University of Nebraska. 
 
    Thompson, a former elder, served with Crabb on the Westminster session. 
He said he and their fellow session members had no problem with the doctor. 
 
    "There was no animosity toward him," Thompson said. 
 
    Harp, whose office also has been picketed, said Rescue the Heartland 
protesters have yelled anti-abortion propaganda at children arriving for 
church services with their families. Among the taunts, he said, were these: 
"A baby killer is in your church," and, "Aren't  you glad that your parents 
didn't take you to Dr. Crabb?" 
 
    The anti-abortion demonstrators have said in published reports that 
they were exercising their constitutional rights to effectively demonstrate 
against abortion, and have denied targeting children. 
 
    The city's disputed ordinance requires picketers with signs, banners 
and placards to be either 50 feet away or across the street from 
Westminster or any other place of worship for 30 minutes before and after 
services. It is designed to protect young children from seeing the graphic 
pictures thrust at them as families enter Westminster for services. 
 
    Abortion foes argue that the ordinance is illegal because it stifles 
their Constitutional right to free speech. Some who have protested in front 
of the church have challenged the ordinance in a federal lawsuit filed on 
Sept. 23, 1998, a few days after Lincoln City Council members overrode a 
veto by Lincoln Mayor Mike Johanns. 
 
    On Nov. 4, U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a preliminary 
injunction barring enforcement of the measure, extending a temporary order 
he issued in September. 
 
    Kopf ruled that the ordinance bars "substantially more speech than is 
necessary" to achieve a legitimate government interest. On Jan. 11, the 
Lincoln City Council decided to appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals in St. Louis, Mo. 
 
    "We are dealing with an ordinance that, at least in our opinion, is 
clearly unconstitutional," said attorney Gene Summerlin, who representing 
the four plaintiffs in the suit. "The plaintiffs' activities in protesting 
on the public sidewalks in front of this church in a peaceful manner are 
protected by the Constitution." 
 
    An end to the protests seemed imminent on Jan. 3 when Rescue the 
Heartland officials announced, after the closing of an Omaha clinic where 
Crabb had performed abortions, that the group would no longer picket 
Westminster. (Crabb still performs the procedure at a facility in Lincoln, 
about 60 miles west of Omaha.) 
 
    On the following Sunday, however, new picketers, who said they weren't 
associated with Rescue the Heartland, started demonstrating at the church. 
They picketed there again on Jan. 24. 
 
    Larry Donlan, the director of Rescue the Heartland, did not return 
phone calls to his Lincoln home seeking comment. 
 
    The Westminster congregation now needs time to heal, Horton said - 
adding that he hopes the worst of the turmoil is over, so that his church 
can get back to its important work. 
 
    "We've been trying to get out of the news and basically go about the 
business of being a church," he said. "This is a vital, healthy church, and 
it has very, very committed members." 

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