Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)Tactics change
mission doesn’t
Abortion foe’s return stirs questions
   Rosa Salter Rodriguez The Journal Gazette
Published: May 27, 2007
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when abortion-rights opponents demonstrated in front of a center-city abortion clinic, a bespectacled young attorney-to-be from New Haven was in their midst. His name: Bryan J. Brown. Often Brown was the one who approached police to reassure them it would be a peaceful protest, says Wendell Brane, a fellow demonstrator who is now pastor of Trinity Evangelical Church in Fort Wayne. “We sort of appointed him the police negotiator. When the police arrived, and they always would, he would tell them what our intentions were, and … how we would behave if they tried to arrest us. We tried to have a smooth association with police,” Brane says. “He was good for that because … Bryan has a very charming personality. He connects well with people and he has a way about him that puts people at ease. He knows how to use humor to defuse a situation,” Brane says. “He’s not going to back down on his convictions, but he’s not going to walk away if threatened with arrest.” Indeed, the protests led to Brown, then affiliated with Northeast Indiana Rescue, being sued, fined and banned by a court from the abortion clinic for a time.

The charges and fines were nullified when, after a lengthy battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled federal racketeering statutes could not be applied against people exercising free-speech rights in abortion protests.

{snip}

The property has not been occupied as an abortion clinic since June 2006, when Fort Wayne Women’s Health Organization moved those services to 2210 Inwood Drive. An entity called the Donegal Corridor, with which Brown is affiliated, has a one-year-option to buy the property, {snip} Brown says his new endeavor, the ArchAngel Institute, is an extension of his religious convictions and career. It also signals a turn in tactics within the movement, he says. Recent federal laws carry high penalties for interfering with access to abortion clinics, he says. So those who oppose abortion on moral grounds are turning their attention elsewhere – to changing people’s attitudes and defending those who challenge society’s acceptance of abortion, from protesters to pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for abortion-inducing drugs on religious grounds. “I, and people who are aligned with me, think that what the nation needs at present is more than a political change but a cultural change,” he says. “Policies and politics will follow.”

{snip}

Brown says the role of his new center downtown will be “commemoration, communication and litigation” in support of pro-family issues. The building was blessed a week ago, and he says he will raise additional money for its purchase. He declined to name his financial backers. Brown says he plans a memorial to the aborted and is seeking input from supporters for additional uses of the building. Brown also has invited the public to tour the former clinic beginning at 2 p.m. today and Sundays in June and says abortions were performed there in less-than-ideal conditions. He says the interior was dirty and parts of the building were in disrepair when he entered it. Calls seeking comment from the Fort Wayne Women’s Health Organization, which had moved out of the building nearly a year before, were not immediately returned. Brown says he sees one battle looming as crisis pregnancy centers – founded and run by abortion-rights opponents – face deception and fraud charges filed by state attorneys general, based on consumer protection law. “I believe I’m uniquely qualified to defend them, given six years in the state of Kansas attorney general’s and 25 years in the movement,” he says. Vicki Saporta, head of the National Abortion Federation, says she knows of no such action in Indiana. She says the federation compiled a report on alleged misrepresentations at centers about two years ago and a bill was reintroduced in Congress last week to give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to proceed against such centers on those grounds.

{snip}

But Brane welcomes Brown, saying it can be difficult to find specialized legal representation. He said Brown’s motivation and drive come “from his faith in Christ.” “He is not a reckless person. … People like him who have a strong pro-life ethic are going to have a strong belief that everybody is made in the image of God, including the unborn child, … and that if we believe abortion is murder, then we have to act like it’s murder. “I can’t imagine anyone in the pro-life movement who wouldn’t be excited at having him back.”

News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN)

Former abortion clinic now a house for pro-life causes
Ceremonies were held to rededicate 827 Webster St.
   K.E. Casey, kcasey@news-sentinel.com
Published: May 21, 2007
Outside a former abortion clinic at 827 Webster St. on Saturday morning, about 30 people waited for ceremonies to rededicate the building for pro-life causes. Pastor Wendell Brane of Trinity Evangelical Church stepped onto the sidewalk and motioned his arm at the ground. “There’s an injunction here,” he announced. “You guys are going to have to move.” He smiled, and the crowd laughed. “It’s my injunction now,” responded Bryan Brown, walking up to greet him. In 1990, U.S. District Judge William Lee issued an injunction that kept pro-life demonstrators from moving closer than 25 feet to the clinic, according to News-Sentinel archives. The address had been a battleground for pro-life and pro-choice causes in the late 1980s into the 1990s. Brane and Brown led demonstrations and civil disobedience there. The News-Sentinel reported last week that Brown and his group, the Donegal Corridor, purchased the building and plan to convert it for pro-life causes. Brown coordinated the Saturday morning inter-faith ceremonies, which included an Orthodox exorcism, a Catholic blessing and an evangelical dedication of the site where about 700 abortions were performed each year between 1978 and 2006. Saturday’s group was different from a May morning on Webster Street in 1992, when more than 50 city and county police officers separated a crowd of more than 250 pro-life demonstrators on one side of the street from pro-choice advocates on the other, according to News-Sentinel archives. During ceremony preparations, Father David Meinzen of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church of Crescent Avenue said the rite of exorcism has been exaggerated in popular culture. In the Orthodox Church, exorcisms don’t always assume demonic possession. He said the rite can be performed as protection against further attacks from evil and “wherever we believe evil has been working.” Four Knights of Columbus members stood behind Meinzen and Deacon Mike Myers also of St. Nicholas, as they intoned the Orthodox rite. Incense filled the cool morning air, and when Meinzen began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, it spread to the crowd, and the voices competed with the drone of cars on Washington and Jefferson boulevards. Meinzen made a crossing motion with a scepter of holy water before leading the procession through the building. Inside the house, the voices of Meinzen and Myers continued the ritual. Outside, a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.” Pro-life activist Frank Avilla and Brane spoke to the crowd. Brane lauded the day’s success, but said the “horrid stench” of abortion “still rises” in the city. Outside, a few people stopped to watch the ceremonies. “Instead of going forward in life, we’re going backward,” said Brenda Wilson, who disapproved of the ceremonies. “They’re not offering jobs or financial support” for women considering whether to continue a pregnancy, she said. After the ceremonies, organizers opened the building to the public as a second bagpiper played outside. Inside the building, a long table pushed against the wall was covered in newspaper clippings describing protests at the site.
Illustration: PHOTO (2)
Caption:Pastor Wendell Brane of Trinity Evangelical Church speaks to the assembled crowd during a ceremony at the former abortion clinic at 827 Webster St. He is flanked by the Knights of Columbus. During the ceremonies, two bagpipers played “Amazing Grace.” Photo By K.E. Casey of The News-Sentinel Longtime pro-life activist and former Fort Wayne resident Father George Gabet of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter speaks to the assembled crowd after blessing the former abortion clinic at 827 Webster St.

Copyright (c) 2007 The News-Sentinel

Contact: Bryan J. Brown www.flythecorridor.com (800) 399-4620

Ecumenical Religious Ceremonies to Take Place at
Former Abortion Clinic Site on May 19

Former Abortion Clinic Redeemed One of Fort Wayne’s most notorious addresses, 827 Webster Street, will be the subject of an ecumenical redemptive act on Saturday morning, May 19.

Feminist leader Susan Hill oversaw an estimated 24,000 abortions from this site between the years 1978-2006. Because of that, an Orthodox Church exorcism, Roman Catholic blessing and Evangelical dedication service will take place at the same location on Saturday morning, May 19, 2007.

The building at 827 Webster Street, located a mere 100 yards from the newly remodeled Allen County Public Library and directly across the street from Fort Wayne’s historic First Presbyterian Church, served as NorthEast Indiana’s sole abortuary for almost 30 years.

Susan Hill opened the clinic at 827 Webster Street as one of what was to eventually become ten “franchise” sites of the National Women’s Health Organization in numerous states. With demand for abortion waning, her for-profit, child killing business has fallen on hard times. Susan Hill is no longer affiliated with the Fort Wayne clinic, and now can claim only five clinics in her franchised operation.

The clinic at 827 Webster Street opened with great controversy in 1978. Susan Hill filed litigation against the City of Fort Wayne to locate her mill in a community that did not welcome the grisly “business.” See FORT WAYNE WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INC. V. CITY OF FORT WAYNE, 1978. (CASE # F78-31)

A year after opening, the Fort Wayne clinic sued seven nurses who did nothing more than offer alternative to abortion on the sidewalks surrounding the clinic. Highly-respected Fort Wayne resident Phyllis Avila, the President of Nurses Concerned for Life, was one of those nurses. Many, including her widowed husband Frank, have credited this baseless, pro-abortion and frivolous lawsuit for hastening Phyllis’ untimely death. See FORT WAYNE WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INC., ET. AL V. NURSES CONCERNED FOR LIFE ET AL, 1979. (CASE # F-79-9)

A decade later, the good people of Northeast Indiana rose up by the thousands in an ecumenical and unified attempt to warn their neighbors of the great danger inherent in abortion and to protect their friends, the volunteer sidewalk counselors, from more baseless litigation and continued disruptive harassment at the hands of the pro-abortion activists who routinely gathered outside the abortion clinic. This populist, pro-life movement calling itself NorthEast Indiana Rescue was crushed by the National Organization of Women’s legal team led by Susan Hill. See FORT WAYNE WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INC., ULRICH KLOPFER, M.D., & JANE DOE V. WENDELL BRANE, BRYAN J. BROWN, NORTHEAST INDIANA RESCUE ET AL., 1990. (CASE # F90-66)

Sixteen years after the lawsuit against Northeast Indiana Rescue was filed, a pro-life entity calling itself the Donegal Corridor has purchased the building and announced plans to locate an Institute in the building dedicated to advancing the Culture of Life.
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News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN)Clinic’s sale was `sign’ to return home
Pro-life activist Bryan Brown has a plan for the building on Webster St.
   Kevin Leininger, kleininger@news-sentinel.com
Published: May 8, 2007
In 1991, a federal judge fined Bryan Brown and other pro-life activists $61,600 for picketing near the Women’s Health Clinic at 827 Webster St. Now Brown is in the process of paying an almost identical amount for the former abortion clinic – just one of many signs from God, he believes, that are leading him home after a lengthy exile. And when Fort Wayne’s prodigal son does return, the pro-life movement and other conservative Christian causes will gain an ally whose dedication is matched only by the controversy that follows him. “I’m not coming back to fire up Northeast Indiana Rescue,” the 48-year-old New Haven native said, referring to the group successfully sued by the clinic in U.S. District Court. “But we will be involved in commemoration, communication and litigation in support of natural law and pro-family issues.” Brown is the face, heart, mind and soul of the “Donegal Corridor,” the group that was virtually unknown until The News-Sentinel and the Allen County Right to Life Committee revealed its existence last month. The organization’s name refers to a mountain pass opened by a secret treaty with the “neutral” Free Irish Republic during World War II that allowed Allied planes to refuel in Ireland while hunting German submarines. Just as those warplanes fought evil, Brown said, so too will his organization battle forces that have twisted humanity’s laws while ignoring God’s. And just as many of those pilots made the ultimate sacrifice for their cause, so has Brown suffered for his. Brown admits to indulging in a certain amount of hedonism before becoming a Christian around the time he graduated from Woodlan High School in 1977. But a year after graduating from Indiana University in 1986, Brown and others formed Northeast Indiana Rescue and began to picket the clinic where abortions had been performed since the late 1970s. That’s where Brown’s struggle to reconcile the laws of God and man began. After organizing three “rescues” of more than 100 people each, Brown and others began plans for a 1990 rally they hoped would attract 1,000 people. But the clinic sued, and Judge William C. Lee ordered pro-life picketers to stay at least 25 feet from the clinic. Nine months later, Lee ordered Brown and the others to pay the clinic’s legal fees and expenses. Not wanting his wages garnisheed for the benefit of “abortion providers,” Brown quit his $45,000-a-year factory job, stopped making payments on his home, stuffed his belongings into his Chevette and headed for Wichita, Kan., expecting to participate in “Summer of Mercy” pro-life rallies for two weeks before moving on. He ended up staying for two years, supporting himself as a pro-life missionary before attending Pat Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia, where he earned a law degree in 1996. By then, Brown had been arrested 12 times in connection with his pro-life activities but had been convicted only once. In 1992 he spent 68 days in jail for refusing to obey a judge’s order to stay away from an abortion clinic there. “I believed I owed my obedience to another,” Brown said. Ironically, Brown’s law degree placed him in the midst of the very legal system he had often confronted. After serving as an attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy between 1996 and 2002, he ran the Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division for Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline from 2003 through last year, when the staunchly pro-life Kline was defeated in his re-election bid. The way Brown sees it, losing that $74,000-a-year job was part of God’s plan, too. Having been portrayed by political opponents as a lawbreaker employed by the state’s top attorney, job offers were scarce. So when he heard the Fort Wayne clinic he had once picketed was for sale, Brown saw the handwriting on the wall – literally and figuratively. The exterior of the Webster Street house will be turned into a memorial for the unborn. Brown hopes to pass the Indiana bar exam and move to Fort Wayne with his wife and four children, reuniting with his parents, John and Berenice Brown of New Haven. He also hopes to find financial backing for his fledgling ArchAngel Institute and pay off the loan on the building, which had been listed for sale at $125,000. “We’re going to sprinkle each room (of the former clinic) with holy water,” said Brown, a Catholic. “People get a second chance; why not this building?” Last year the clinic moved to an office building on Inwood Drive. In a nation as diverse as ours, believers inevitably will define “God’s law” differently, which is why those who engage in civil disobedience should do so with discernment, and be ready to accept the consequences. Even Brown admits anti-abortion efforts must address not only the supply, but the demand. He knows the work ahead will not be easy. “But I hope that our efforts on the supply side educated people to what abortion really is – an affront to God and bad social policy,” he said. “We want to defend the targets of the `culture of death.’ In the heart of the heartland, there’s still a great repository of sanity.” Kevin Leininger’s column appears in The News-Sentinel every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The column reflects his opinion, not necessarily that of The News-Sentinel, and discusses issues affecting Fort Wayne. To pass along ideas or feedback, contact him at kleininger@news-sentinel.com, or call 461-8355. Blessing service
What: Blessing service for former abortion clinic When: 9:30 a.m. May 19

Where: 827 Webster St.