ARTICLES

Connie Was Such a Threat

THEY MAY NOT HAVE LIKED HER SIGNS

By Anne Knight

Connie Youngkin, long-time local pro-life activist, and her husband, Tyler, will be leaving San Diego in January for Costa Rica to working with an international orphanage system. "We're just going to trust God, and He's going to show us each step of the way."

During the 1980s and 1990s, Youngkin's efforts for the preborn included rallies, demonstrations, pickets and rescues, running for public office, involvement in political campaigns, establishment of a crisis pregnancy center, ads in local newspapers, and participation in Operation Rescue's "Show the Truth" campaign-- displaying large posters with photos of aborted babies-- at schools, shopping centers, busy intersections and large public gatherings. She spent a total of nine weeks in jail for her involvement in rescues at abortion clinics, and she was taken to jail several times for display of the posters but was subsequently released.

Youngkin helped set up what is now Life Choices Pregnancy Counseling Center in Poway in 1984. Mary, a hotline counselor there, is one of its former clients and says that, after she had her baby, Youngkin offered free babysitting for her while she looked for a job. "Unlike the media stereotype of pro-lifers loving the baby and hating the mom, Connie is an example of being there for the mom and the baby," Mary said. Youngkin soon was doing sidewalk counseling and got involved with Operation Rescue when it came to San Diego in 1987. She ran against pro-abortion Republicans Tricia Hunter and Jan Goldsmith for state assembly in 1990 and 1992. Unsuccessful in both races, she lost by only about 150 votes to Hunter.

During this time Youngkin was blowing the whistle on the Poway schools' efforts to obtain personal information from students without parental knowledge. Her efforts earned her a place on the school superintendents' blacklist of the state's most "dangerous" parent activists. Connie ran for the school board three times from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, on a "back to the basics" platform. Beginning in 1995 she was out in public with her large signs almost daily for three years. "I think everyone saw our signs at least once," Connie said. "I know we've saved babies [because of our signs].... We went to every high school, every college and almost every junior high [in the county]." For the past few months she has worked with the poor in Tijuana as part of Spectrum Ministries in preparation for Costa Rica.

Youngkin's January 8th conviction for disturbing Mount Miguel High School, where she displayed pro-life signs and distributed pro-life literature on October 28, 1997, was unanimously overturned on September 29 by the San Diego County Superior Court. She said she entered the Spring Valley high school campus to establish a local legal precedent that would encourage other pro-lifers. Her advice: Those who engage in pro-life witness on a school campus should inform the principal's office as they enter the school and should be videotaped as protection against false charges. She recommends passing out literature as classes let out or during lunch periods. The legal basis for such activity is found in California Penal Code Section 626.8, and the California State Department of Justice's Law in the Schools, which she says, allows for entry and distribution of literature on campus provided that classes are not disturbed by it. More advice from Youngkin about this work: "Number one, trust God. Number two, don't be scared. Number three, hang in there, and remain vigilant."

"I know that the pro-life community-- not just me-- has made an impact." She is aware of five local abortionists who have stopped performing abortions, left town, or retired early due to pro-life activism. Connie joked, "I was thinking I'd do a fundraising letter for all the abortionists, telling them I'd leave sooner if I could raise my support [for her missionary work].

Cheryl Sullenger, sidewalk counselor and director of the California Life Coalition, met Youngkin in the mid-1980s. She and Youngkin have participated in many of the same pickets, demonstrations and sidewalk counseling activities. "Connie has given the pro-life community visibility. She has been a lightning rod for the pro-life community. She has kept the abortion issue in the forefront, in the mind of the public." Sullenger, like Youngkin, has picketed and demonstrated with aborted baby posters. "To this day [when displaying aborted baby signs], we run into people who say 'We saw you people down at our school' or some other place. We know it was Connie [and her associate] they saw. They may not like the signs, but at least it pricked their consciences." Sullenger laments that, currently, no one else is able to devote the time and put the dedication into this that she did. "Connie will be leaving a gap that really can't be filled," she commented. "We know that babies have been saved by Connie's signs, because a few people have told us that they decided not to have an abortion after they saw those signs. We knew it was because Connie [and her associate] were out [with the signs]."

Wayne Wilson has known Youngkin for about 10 years and worked closely with her in Operation Rescue, in pro-life political campaigns and on school board issues. He was in charge of OR's local branch for a period in the early 1990s. "Many of us were Johnny-come-latelies as far as real activism goes," Wilson observed. "Connie represented the stability and guiding light of the pro-life movement in San Diego. She kept it alive before Operation Rescue was ever heard of." He described her impact on the local abortion industry: "Connie was seen as such a threat that [after being arrested in a rescue], a judge in El Cajon set her bail at $375,000, because of who she was."

Sylvia Sullivan, Republican Central Committee member, met Youngkin through Operation Rescue shortly after she moved to San Diego in 1988. The heyday of San Diego's rescue movement was the late 1980s and the early 1990s, during which time the San Diego police used nunchakus on rescuers, including Youngkin and Sullivan. Sullivan characterized their subsequent trials as "kangaroo courts," wherein certain language prohibitions made it impossible for rescuers to defend their actions. "We [pro-lifers] could see that the whole city's political structure was skewed toward the Planned Parenthood types, whether it was the police or the courts."

In 1992, at Connie's urging, Sullivan ran for and got elected to the Republican Central Committee. Over the years Sullivan and Connie collaborated in many pickets and demonstrations. "She could always be counted on to greet, in the appropriate manner, any [visiting pro-abortion] official: Clinton, Boxer, or previous to that," Sullivan reminisced. "We can be praying that the Lord will raise someone else up.... It'll be interesting to see how many babies have been saved as a result of all of her efforts, and how many moms are happy that they have their babies to hold and didn't choose death for them."