Operation Miscue

They were never even questioned by police, Terri says, but they nonetheless lost the support of most of Bakersfield’s Christian community, ”because they didn‘t want to be associated with pro-lifers who burned down the clinic.“ The arson was never solved. Four years later, after the clinic moved to its current location, across the street from the Palmquists’ ”Life House,“ Peter Howard, a Bakersfield anti-abortion activist who had taken part in prayer vigils with the Palmquists, drove a truck loaded with propane tanks and gasoline through the clinic‘s glass doors. The fire was put out before any serious damage was done; Howard was sentenced to 15 years. The two attacks have effectively alienated the Palmquists from the portion of Bakersfield’s Christian community that wasn‘t already turned off by Operation Rescue’s confrontational tactics. ”It‘s been a constant struggle, especially dealing with the churches and pastors, to help them understand what we’re doing, that it‘s not something that they should be afraid of being associated with.“

Despite the setbacks, the Palmquists have continued to focus on sidewalk counseling, though since they began leasing this house in 1998, they’ve been offering free pregnancy tests as well, which takes up a good deal of their time. Throughout the afternoon, anxious Latina teenagers shuffle through the door to be tested. Between tests and counseling sessions, Terri explains her methods. She stands on the sidewalk outside the clinic next to a sign like the ones White brought to Huntington Beach. ”When they‘re going in, I just will say, ’Hi, my name‘s Terri. Is there something I can do to help you? Are you going in here? We offer free pregnancy tests over here, and if you’re thinking about abortion, I just want you to know that I‘ll adopt your baby, I’ll help you in any way I can.‘

“Most of them just ignore us,” Terri admits, but if they do agree to come inside, or if they come in off the street for a pregnancy test, she sits them down in a room lined with inspirational posters and framed photos of sleeping infants. She tries to talk to them about the problems in their lives that led to their thinking about ending their pregnancies, and shows them the video, about half of which depicts an abortion, followed by a few minutes of tiny red severed fetal legs and hands being poked and jiggled, for maximum gross-out effect, with tweezers and forceps. Terri says that 98 percent of the women who stay till the end of the video decide against having an abortion.

Before they go she gives them a Zip-loc bag filled with baby paraphernalia: a tiny knit hat or booties, a picture frame and a rubber ducky. “I tell them that if they come back with their baby, we’ll give them some clothes and stuff, if they need any maternity clothes.” In this manner, she says, she and other volunteers dissuade two or three women a week from getting an abortion out of the approximately 75 who she says go in seeking the procedure. Until the previous week, Tim had arrayed 75 white crosses on the lawn in front of the house, one for each “baby” they fail to “save.”

Asked if after the high hopes of the late ‘80s and early ’90s, they are ever disappointed at how little has changed, and how long and hard they‘ve had to work, Terri admits that it is “frustrating to think that we did come close. I think we came real close, and then God came down and blessed the effort, and then because of the price to keep it up or whatever, people decided not to do it.” She won’t admit, though, to feeling defeated. “We have our days,” Terri says, “but for the most part we‘ve just hung in there.”

Tim, on the other hand, jumps at the chance to talk “about wanting to give up,” as he, unprompted, puts it. “It’s been a constant crisis going on for so long,” he says. “It keeps you constantly on the point of saying, ‘I don’t know if I can handle this,‘ but that’s just where we have to depend on God and say, ‘God, we need your strength to be able to make it through this.’ Because on our own I would have given up a thousand times -- I probably have given up at least a couple hundred, and then Terri brought me back.”

Now, Tim says, their work is moving in a new direction. “We feel that God may be leading us to do some things that we haven‘t done before.” The Palmquists are turning their energies inward, toward the Christian community that has kept them at a distance for so many years. “What we want to do is be able to mobilize the churches,” Tim says. “The first thing is for the churches to recognize that this is their concern.” To that end, the Palmquists have been trying to keep track of the church backgrounds of the women they deal with, and eventually to put together a database that they can show to pastors so they can say, “Well, you know what? We’ve had three girls from your church this year come here, and this is something that affects your church.”