Anti-abortion protest outside Waco High School draws a few complaints

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

One of Waco’s leading abortion opponents handed out religious tracts and anti-abortion pamphlets outside Waco High School on Tuesday morning as part of a multicity effort to recognize the man the anti-abortion movement has claimed as its first martyr.

Organizers called the event Jim Pouillon’s National High School Witness. The name refers to a 63-year-old Michigan man who was fatally shot in September as he protested abortion at a high school there.

Police say the man who allegedly killed Pouillon did not like the fact that he had signs that included an aborted fetus outside the school, according to the Associated Press. After shooting Pouillon, the same man also killed the owner of a gravel pit business that he had a grudge against, police have said.

Josiah Thomas (right), 11; his sister, Charity (left), 17; and brother Micah, 13, hold up signs outside Waco High School on Tuesday. Their father, Rusty Thomas, a local minister who is a vocal opponent of abortion, handed out anti-abortion materials outside the school. (Rod Aydelotte photo)

The local event was staged by Rusty Thomas, a local minister who also serves as assistant director of Operation Save America. The national anti-abortion group organized the event, which it said was observed in about 50 cities across the country.

Thomas said he worked with Pouillon on numerous occasions before his death, describing him as “a big teddy bear of a man.” Pouillon used to say the reason he visited the high school with signs that included an aborted fetus was because he was “doing for the babies what my Lord did for me,” Thomas said.

Thomas said he and other abortion opponents wanted to honor Pouillon’s memory by going to high schools to protest abortion. The students he approached at Waco High were “wonderful,” he said, but a few of their parents were upset by the materials he gave out.
The pamphlet contains photos of aborted fetuses.

Thomas said he can understand why some parents might be concerned. But students need to know about the realities of abortion, he said, so they don’t repeat the mistakes made by his generation.

“They’re not getting this information in school,” Thomas said. “They’re not getting it from TV. They’re not even getting it in their churches. Someone has to speak the message of truth and love to them.”

Waco Independent School District spokesman Dale Caffey said it received a handful of complaints from parents about the demonstration. The chief concern was that students were being handed the pamphlets with graphic photos, he said.

Because Thomas was on public property, the school district had no control over his demonstration, Caffey noted.

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