Younger set represented at protests on abortion

Christian coalition welcomes youths

By Anand Vaishnav, Globe Staff  |  July 26, 2004

The man driving the gray Honda kept his middle finger extended for nearly two minutes as he sat in traffic in the Theater District on Saturday. His target: activist Brandi Swindell, 27, and her compatriots, all toting placards with antiabortion slogans as they marched to the Back Bay.

''We're number one!" Swindell retorted in a reinterpretation of the man's gesture. ''We know it."

Amid the thousands of antiwar, pro-environment, and anticorporate protesters flocking to Boston to push the Democrats leftward, a much lonelier battle is being fought by Swindell and a few small bands of demonstrators on the right. For them, Boston is anything but friendly territory -- Kennedy country, the land of gay marriage, the only state to vote for George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election.

''I kind of thought we'd be shot at and stuff," joked Tiffany Porter, 19, who traveled here from Fredericksburg, Va.

Democrats who expect the small group of conservative, antiabortion protesters in town to be fire-and-brimstone preachers or elderly congregants from churches might be surprised to see who actually holds the signs: Like Porter, dozens are high school and college-age youths, some with Michigan State or Krispy Kreme T-shirts, others with rings on their thumbs and blue-tinged hair wrapped in bandannas. For the youngest of the nearly 300 Christian Defense Coalition activists in town this week, the Boston convention is their most high-profile protest yet.

Many of them look up to Swindell, touted as an emerging star of the Generation X antiabortion ranks -- not only because of the clarity of her convictions, but also because of her friendly attitude and her casual, slightly rumpled appearance.

''She's an attractive, young, single woman kicking butt for Jesus," said Porter, a religious studies major at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va.

Swindell, of Boise, Idaho, says she found her calling in the antiabortion movement after a friend and a family member each had abortions that left them deeply traumatized. She is the cofounder and national director of Generation Life, a group that believes abortion should be illegal and that young people should abstain from sex.

Swindell proudly notes that a website called Democratic Underground listed her group as No. 10 on its ''top 10 conservative idiots" list. (President Bush was No. 7; Ken and Linda Lay No. 1.) She also was photographed in Time magazine. On Saturday, she stood with activists holding gruesome photos of bloody aborted fetuses and signs saying, ''You can't be Catholic and pro-abortion."

''I feel responsibility on behalf of my generation to challenge the elite liberal extremists," said Swindell, who also likes snowboarding, hiking, and camping in her free time. ''It's important we represent the voiceless, the preborn -- that we represent our generation."

It also doesn't hurt strategically. The more that young people see activists like Swindell -- hoop earrings, sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail, faded jeans slightly ripped at the knee -- the more welcome they might feel in the antiabortion movement, said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition.

While they are here, the demonstrators plan prayer vigils near Senator John F. Kerry's home. On Saturday, under cool, gray skies, more than 50 marched to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, where Mahoney said Kerry's campaign staff was staying. Yesterday, they demonstrated outside a church Kerry attends on Park Street, and they have scheduled demonstrations at Planned Parenthood and prominent street corners in the city.

''Look at these pictures," Mahoney intoned through the bullhorn at the Park Plaza on Saturday, as marchers stood silently with pictures of aborted fetuses. ''You're going to be seeing them for the next few days."