How a Former ‘Pro-Life’ Leader Woke Up & Faced Reality

It took a night in jail for him to understand his hypocrisy and leave Operation Rescue

Reverend Rob Schenk spent years as a big fish in the forced-birth movement, and by his own admission, raised “tens of millions of dollars” in his quest to end Roe Vs. Wade. As the movement became a giant money-making machine, Schenk now realizes the ‘prolife’ movement was anything but.

The focus, he explains, went from truly caring about the moms burdened with an unwanted pregnancy, to what he calls “the Rush-Limbaugh-ization of our movement.” The attitude within the movement, Schenk explains, became about shaming and judging pregnant women, while ignoring the great needs of pregnant people living in poverty.

“I thought very little about the individuals and their experience in all this, and more about the political landscape and whether we were going to be victorious or not,” Schenk says. “And of course we were — both on the political and judicial levels — meanwhile, of course, the movement did turn violent, there was not just destruction of property, and ultimately, murder.”