the beauty of the waterfront, the Golden Gate Bridge, the sea lions in the harbor. Daly City sat in a valley, populated mostly by workingclass people, many of them immigrants. On April 3, 1984, Jim was arrested at a protest at a clinic there, charged with trespassing, and also battery.
Battery?
In California battery is a misdemeanor, like assault, petty theft, and public drunkenness, and therefore less serious than a felony crime, like sexual offenses and drug and property violations. But battery is a violent offense: deliberately causing physical harm to another person through physical acts.
Peaceful, prayerful Jim Kopp?
Perhaps he was merely sitting there cross-legged, reciting verse, and, when he was carried away, he resisted. Or maybe he felt a current running through him, physical, angry, one that inspired more potent action than peaceful resistance. Most everyone who met Jim was struck by what they considered his soulful, gentle nature: the boyish grin, the soft voice. Jim knew his friends felt he was incapable of violence. He also knew they were mistaken. Those who caught him in moments of candor, who looked square into his eyes, waited long enough for his self-effacing “who me?” routine to pass, could see flashes of the intensity and seriousness of purpose that went well beyond that of a conscientious objector.
Jim continued to read voraciously, and fell in love with a book called Story of a Soul, the autobiography of Saint Thérèse d’Lisieux, a woman who entered a convent at the age of 15 and died in obscurity at age 24. “At last I have found my calling,” she wrote in her journals. “My calling is love.” The core of her spiritual message was the “little way,” that any act, no matter how trivial, is infinitely valuable if done out of love. He studied the history of birth control, sterilization law. He started drawing connections between the Holocaust and abortion. It was all becoming so clear to him. Everything happens for a reason, and every event influences another.
Through the fall of 1984 he attended protests outside abortion clinics in the Bay Area. In September Jim was arrested for trespassing and battery. A month later, the same thing. Early December, assault with a deadly weapon. He relished the courtroom atmosphere. The strategy, the use of language, nuance. He knew how to play the game. Down the road, he would offer advice to other pro-lifers on how to navigate the judicial system. He was, he frequently reminded others, a lawyer’s son. In the fall of 1984, he formally received his master’s degree from Cal State Fullerton. He founded a group in San Francisco called the Lourdes Foundation, which opened a “Free Pregnancy Center,” and named himself its president. Jim billed it as a birth control referral and information center. The center gave pregnancy tests, educated women on the dangers of abortion and assisted pregnant women. It also showed graphic photos of aborted fetuses to patients, who were then also referred to doctors who opposed abortion.
On Good Friday, 1985, he marched in a pro-life procession that went nine miles from St. Martin Church in San Jose to Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara. Then he drove to south San Francisco to Juvenile Hall detention center. Officials only knew that this pleasant, bookish man was president of the Lourdes Foundation. They learned later, to their horror, that he was an anti-abortion radical—but not before he had an opportunity to take the stage before a group of female inmates and present his pro-life stump speech. Here was Jim, the missionary bestowing wisdom, saving women from so much pain that they did not understand—they had been brainwashed by the media, the liberal culture, the feminists. The young women were, he said, mostly young prostitutes, and three of them were pregnant. You do not have to get an abortion, he told them. You do not. God bless.
***
For some time, Jim had considered converting to Catholicism, perhaps even pursuing
Battery?
In California battery is a misdemeanor, like assault, petty theft, and public drunkenness, and therefore less serious than a felony crime, like sexual offenses and drug and property violations. But battery is a violent offense: deliberately causing physical harm to another person through physical acts.
Peaceful, prayerful Jim Kopp?
Perhaps he was merely sitting there cross-legged, reciting verse, and, when he was carried away, he resisted. Or maybe he felt a current running through him, physical, angry, one that inspired more potent action than peaceful resistance. Most everyone who met Jim was struck by what they considered his soulful, gentle nature: the boyish grin, the soft voice. Jim knew his friends felt he was incapable of violence. He also knew they were mistaken. Those who caught him in moments of candor, who looked square into his eyes, waited long enough for his self-effacing “who me?” routine to pass, could see flashes of the intensity and seriousness of purpose that went well beyond that of a conscientious objector.
Jim continued to read voraciously, and fell in love with a book called Story of a Soul, the autobiography of Saint Thérèse d’Lisieux, a woman who entered a convent at the age of 15 and died in obscurity at age 24. “At last I have found my calling,” she wrote in her journals. “My calling is love.” The core of her spiritual message was the “little way,” that any act, no matter how trivial, is infinitely valuable if done out of love. He studied the history of birth control, sterilization law. He started drawing connections between the Holocaust and abortion. It was all becoming so clear to him. Everything happens for a reason, and every event influences another.
Through the fall of 1984 he attended protests outside abortion clinics in the Bay Area. In September Jim was arrested for trespassing and battery. A month later, the same thing. Early December, assault with a deadly weapon. He relished the courtroom atmosphere. The strategy, the use of language, nuance. He knew how to play the game. Down the road, he would offer advice to other pro-lifers on how to navigate the judicial system. He was, he frequently reminded others, a lawyer’s son. In the fall of 1984, he formally received his master’s degree from Cal State Fullerton. He founded a group in San Francisco called the Lourdes Foundation, which opened a “Free Pregnancy Center,” and named himself its president. Jim billed it as a birth control referral and information center. The center gave pregnancy tests, educated women on the dangers of abortion and assisted pregnant women. It also showed graphic photos of aborted fetuses to patients, who were then also referred to doctors who opposed abortion.
On Good Friday, 1985, he marched in a pro-life procession that went nine miles from St. Martin Church in San Jose to Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara. Then he drove to south San Francisco to Juvenile Hall detention center. Officials only knew that this pleasant, bookish man was president of the Lourdes Foundation. They learned later, to their horror, that he was an anti-abortion radical—but not before he had an opportunity to take the stage before a group of female inmates and present his pro-life stump speech. Here was Jim, the missionary bestowing wisdom, saving women from so much pain that they did not understand—they had been brainwashed by the media, the liberal culture, the feminists. The young women were, he said, mostly young prostitutes, and three of them were pregnant. You do not have to get an abortion, he told them. You do not. God bless.
***
For some time, Jim had considered converting to Catholicism, perhaps even pursuing
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