Operation Rescue’s week-long “Operation Save America” protests in Western New York ended yesterday.
This year’s protests were relatively peaceful, with no arrests, in sharp contrast to the group’s 1992 “Spring of Life” protest, in which 628 arrests were made. Journalists estimated that only about 200-250 of the 60,000 invitees actually participated in this year’s protests, down from the thousands who traveled to the Western New York region for the 1992 campaign.
Darren Dopp, spokesperson for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said that a temporary restraining order which increased the “buffer zones” between protestors and demonstration sites, was at least partially responsible for eliminating violent confrontations. He also noted that the buffer zones did not prevent anti-abortion protesters’ from sharing their message, saying, “wider buffer zones are not an impediment to free speech.”
Operation Rescue spokesperson Eileen Schopf stated that her organization will be renamed “Operations Save America” in honor of the recent campaign against abortion, child pornography, teenage sex, homosexuality and “godlessness” in schools. Schopf indicated that Operation Rescue’s former goal of outlawing abortion would now be expanded, saying, “We do want to save this country, not just the unborn.”
