NEWS PROVIDED BY
Rescue Resurrection
Dec. 5, 2025
MEMPHIS, Tenn., Dec. 5, 2025 /Standard Newswire/ — This morning, approximately 20 pro-life activists wil risk arrest by peacefully blockading the doors to the Planned Parenthood center located at 2430 Poplar Avenue in Memphis, TN.
The action is the largest peaceful civil disobedience for the unborn in 30 years, following a two day launch event for Rescue Resurrection-an effort to bring back the abortion rescue movement of the 1980s and 90s. The event also marked the launch of a newly acquired training facility in Memphis for the purpose of training anti-abortion activists for nonviolent direct action.
Among those participating are two former Presidential candidates: Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, and Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), as well as two activists convicted of FACE and pardoned by President Trump Joan Andrews Bell and William Goodman. Others include Dr. Monica Miller, founder of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Nathan Berning, co-founder of Let Them Live. Activists Melanie Salazar, Constance Becker, and Elise Ketch are also arrested among others.
Operation Rescue, led by Terry was the largest peaceful civil disobedience movement in the history of the United States.
Memphis was chosen because it is where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and is the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, which highlights the connection between civil disobedience and changing the law.
Abortion is illegal in Tennessee but Planned Parenthood continues to traffic people and minors across state lines (including providing gas cards), in order to kill their babies.
Today, abortion is no longer in the top ten issues facing voters. In 1987 abortion was also not a top ten issue, but the advent of Operation Rescue culminated in thousands of arrests, and by election day in 1988 abortion became the number one issue.
Like the former Operation Rescue, Rescue Resurrection plans to engage in additional mass civil disobedience actions to harness the necessary social tension to make abortion a top issue again.
It is noteworthy that between 1966 and 1999 nonviolent civil resistance played a significant role in fifty of sixty seven transitions of power across the globe.
Large Rescues ended in 1994 when the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (F.A.C.E) became law, making it a federal crime to blockade an abortion facility. President Trump pardoned 23 pro-lifers who were serving long federal prison terms under F.A.C.E. for peaceful civil disobedience at abortion facilities.
In January the United States Department of Justice announced they would significantly limit FACE Act prosecutions, providing an opportunity for pro-lifers to engage in peaceful civil disobedience once again without the threat of federal prison.
Learn more at www.RescueResurrection.com
SOURCE Rescue Resurrection
CONTACT: Caroline Smith, 919-525-4431, carolinesmith@paaunow.org