Ripple effects

MOST PRO-LIFE PROTESTERS stay outside abortion centers, where they pray and plead with women to spare their unborn babies. Only a small but dedicated group of activists is committed to blocking abortion center entrances to prevent mothers from keeping their appointments. Under the Biden administration, they risk decades in prison for doing so. For her story, “Ambassadors in chains,” in this issue, Leah Savas traveled to Linden, Mich., to learn about one woman swept up in the government’s new crackdown on pro-life activists.

Heather Idoni is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She’s been in jail for about nine months. Her family misses her, but so does her community. What did people in Linden tell you about their loss? Olivia Porter at Heather’s former bookstore said Beloved Books is where she fell in love with reading as a young girl and remembers how Heather would regularly bring the Lord into conversations. Barber shop employee Mary Spooner said she missed Heather’s stability in the community as a business owner who faithfully ran her shop and cared for others. Tonya Sutter, the wife of the Linden police chief, told me Heather turned her bookstore into a Ukraine relief center after Russia invaded. Photos Heather posted to Facebook showed body armor and hospital supplies lined in front of the bookshelves.

One of Heather’s eight co-defendants, Jonathan Darnel, wrote you a letter from prison. What did he say? He expressed disappointment with the response Christians have had to the story of their charges and incarceration. “We’d hoped that by rescuing and faithfully enduring the consequences, others would be inspired to do the same, or at least do more than merely wait for secular authorities to fix the problem,” he wrote. “[That] hasn’t happened … yet.” He was also unhappy about how conservative media have painted their story. He wrote that many outlets have pegged them as “just another example of Pres. Biden’s persecution of conservatives, not as a clarion call for Christians to take up their crosses and personally come to the rescue of preborn children.” Darnel wishes that would change.

Do you think that’s likely, now that the Biden administration has significantly increased the cost? There will almost certainly be fewer of these rescues while the pro-lifers convicted in these cases serve yearslong prison sentences, since some of them were leaders in this type of activism. I’d say that’s more likely to deter others from joining than it is to inspire new activists.