Kristin Sparks: What was the impetus that inspired you to found Life Dynamics?
Mark Crutcher: I founded Life Dynamics in 1992 because I wanted to create a pro-life organization that was more innovative and in some ways more aggressive than what I was seeing in the pro-life arena at the time. It seemed to me that the pro-life movement as a whole was moribund in that we were not very innovative. We just did the same things over and over again. I often said at the time — the pro-life movement was about 20 years old — and I said, “We don’t have 20 years experience. We have one year’s experience 20 times” because we just keep doing the same thing over and over again thinking we’re going to get a different result. So, I tried to create an organization that was a little more innovative then the groups that existed at the time.
Sparks: Aside from the First Step Initiative project — we’ll get to that a little later — what are some of your other recent projects and goals right now?
Crutcher: One of the things we are most known for is our malpractice campaign. We have about 700 attorneys nationwide that pursue malpractice lawsuits against abortionists when a woman has been killed or injured or sexually assaulted while having an abortion. We also have a very aggressive direct mail program into the medical community trying to discourage legitimate physicians from getting involved with abortion. And we do a lot of educational things in the medical community, like direct mail and other vehicles that we use to get the message out. We also produce a television talk show on the pro-life issues, called Life Talk. We do a lot of what we think are pretty innovative things. We do a lot of undercover work; we go inside the abortion clinic industry basically with undercover spies.
Sparks: Such was the case with your book Lime 5?
Crutcher: Yes. That was the result of some undercover work. The most recent example of it was the revelations about the marketing of baby parts. We were the group that was undercover getting that information out. We were undercover for 31 months at an abortion clinic in Overland Park, Kansas. We exposed all the price lists, parts lists, the brochures, the order forms, and all the things these people were using to market the dead bodies of babies they killed at abortion clinics. We have some undercover projects that we are working on right now, but obviously I can’t talk about it. We try to keep the abortion industry off guard with some of the things we do.
Sparks: Do you ever do anything with Planned Parenthood specifically?
Crutcher: The abortion mill we were in where we got all the baby parts information was a Planned Parenthood facility and we treat them just like any other death camp. We don’t treat any death mill any differently.
Sparks: Can you explain your First Step petition and the purpose behind it?
Crutcher: It’s always easier to avoid a problem than to solve one. The pro-life movement started about 28 years ago, or after Roe vs. Wade. Since then we have spent trillions and trillions of dollars and trillions of man hours of our time to return legal protection to the unborn child. People have been beaten up by the police, they have gone to jail, and families have been spilt up. Divorce has happened, careers have been sacrificed. The amount of effort and sacrifice that the pro-life movement has put into this struggle to return legal protection to the unborn child is astronomical. And yet to this day we’ve never returned legal protection to one baby in even one state. And that’s a fact!
Every baby conceived on January 22, 1973, and every baby conceived in America since then became legally abortable. Today as you and I have this conversation every baby conceived in America remains legally abortable. And that includes having gone through 12 years of two presidents who told us they were strongly pro-life: Presidents Reagan and Bush. And yet neither one of these people did anything to return legal protection to even one baby. Now we have another president who’s telling us he’s pro-life. But here’s the thing, I said a moment ago, we need to avoid problems rather then solve them. Here’s what I am trying to avoid. If we don’t do something now, we are going to look up four years from now and every baby conceived in America is still going to be legally abortable. As we have this conversation, every baby that would have been killed had Al Gore been inaugurated has been killed in the Bush administration.
We haven’t returned legal protection to one baby. So every baby that would have died through abortion under Gore has been killed under Bush. If we don’t want that to be the case four years from now, we better get busy now. I for one am just sick and tired of hearing pro-lifers say we need to be patient and we need to give President Bush some breathing room and we need to back off. I’m hearing this all over the country: “Back away and let Bush have some elbow room and he’ll come around, he’ll do the right thing.” I wonder how patient those people would be if they were the ones to be killed.
There are many things President Bush can do and that’s what this initiative is all about. What we’re calling on President Bush to do are two simple things — both of which are within our authority to ask him to do, and both of which are within his authority to do.
First, we want him to set up a Presidential Blue Ribbon Committee made up of pro-life legal experts. I’m talking about attorneys, judges and law professors — whoever you can think of who is dedicated to the saving of human life and has knowledge of the legal profession. I want that group to be charged with the responsibility of providing, to President Bush, a plan to return legal protection to every unborn child in America. That’s what their job is. Now, we’ve done this with many, many other issues. This idea of a Presidential Blue Ribbon Committee is nothing new. We’ve done it every time we’ve had a crisis in America. Whether it was a military crisis or a financial crisis. We did it for pornography with the Meese Commission, for government spending with the Grace Commission, and the list goes on and on. Back in the early 60s we had all these presidential commissions on organized crime. So it’s nothing unusual that we are asking him to do. We are simply saying put this panel together. And their job is to bring to President Bush a written plan, including an implementation plan for how we are going to return legal protection to the unborn child.
Second, is the launching of a National Abortion Education Campaign. We all see these campaigns to eradicate smoking, illiteracy, violence, spousal abuse or racism. We have all these government public education campaigns, for example the “Just Say No” campaign under Nancy Reagan. All of these use public money to accomplish a goal that the current administration or the administration at that time thinks is worthy. Well this administration says the protection of human life is worthy. Okay, then let’s establish this National Abortion Education program. I want to see public service announcements like those ads that you see on television. If we educate the American people about the realities of abortion, then support for abortion would plummet. President Bush repeatedly said during the campaign that he wanted to bring America into a Culture of Life. Do you remember that?
Sparks: Yes. Very strong statements.
Crutcher: How are we going to do that? What’s the plan for doing that? Well, this First Step Initiative campaign is the plan.
Sparks: To make President Bush act on his words?
Crutcher: Exactly. If we don’t do this what we are going to see is what I predicted a moment ago: Four years from now every baby that would have been killed in the Gore administration will be killed in the Bush administration. What was the point of the election? Why did pro-lifers care who won or lost?
Sparks: Do you have any speculation as to how President Bush will receive this petition?
Crutcher: I have no idea. I would like to think that this truly is a heartfelt issue with him. I am not convinced of that. But this is a way to find out. These things are very simple to do and are well within his power to do. If he can’t do just this, then do you think he’s really going to go to bat for us for a Supreme Court justice? This is minor compared to that battle.
Sparks: What can people do to help this First Step Initiative be a success?
Crutcher: Well, first they can get everyone they know to sign it. And they can contact us or they can go to our website. We have a toll free number they can call and we’ll send them petitions they can sign and get all their friends to sign. The number is 1-800-800-LIFE. Or they can go to our website, www.ldi.org and download a petition or sign up on the website. The petition can also be accessed on HLI’s website at www.hli.org. But we must have this done by July 31, 2001.
Sparks: What happens on July 31? Is that when it will be sent to President Bush?
Crutcher: That is when we start compiling the petitions and all the names to send to him — delivering them to Washington, D.C.
Sparks: Can you speculate on how long it will take him to respond?
Crutcher: I have no idea. No way of knowing that. He may never respond. But if he doesn’t, then we have a very good answer about him.
Sparks: Do you see the First Step Initiative as a way to get at least some pro-life groups to work together?
Crutcher: Oh yes, we have many who are already supporting us. The list has been growing by about three organizations per week and we are still talking with a couple of others. Some of the organizations that are supporting our initiative are: Human Life International, Life Dynamics, Inc., Operation Save America, Campaign for Working Families, Traditional Values Coalition, Republican National Coalition for Life, Pro-Life Action League, American Life League, Human Life Alliance, Life Advocacy Resource Project and Pro-Life America.
(Kristin Sparks is the editor of HLI Reports. This article courtesy of HLI Reports, published by Human Life International.)
