The Missionaries Take their Show on the Road

Missionaries to the Preborn Monthly Freedom Tour - 2002 Schedule  Check here to find out where and when the Missionaries were parading their hideous large posters.

Missionaries to the Preborn Deep South Tour  Itinerary of a multi-state tour from February 24 to March 7, 2003.

June and July 2003 tours of MTTP   The missionaries travel through Wisconsin.

For more about Milwaukee's Missionaries, go to Milwaukee Antis in the News.

To see other antiabortion groups' tours and campaigns, go to Tours, Campaigns, and Crusades.

Tales from the "Show the Truth" Tour - 1998

Show the Truth: Toronto, Ontario

In the Winter of 1997 the Missionaries to the Preborn announced on their website that they would be co-sponsors with Campaign Life Canada of a "Show the Truth Tour" that would take place on both the American and the Canadian regions around Lake Ontario in July of 1998. In newsletter accounts written after the campaign, neither side mentions the other by name.

• Missionaries Invade Canada   In a 700-word article MTP activist Dan Holman mentions that the Missionaries to the Preborn "co-sponsored a short-term mission into Ontario for Canada's second 'Show the Truth'Tour." Dan does not name the co-sponsor. MTP is the only group the author mentions by name. The people whom he quotes by name are all members of MTP.

• The Show the Truth Tour   Campaign Life Canada trumpets "1998 Show the Truth Tour a Resounding Success." The 300-word account in CLC's August Newsletter refers both to Canadian pro-life allies and Canadian prochoice opponents of the tour, but doesn't say a word about the Missionaries to the Preborn or any other Americans.

• The links between the racist right and the pro-life movement  November 24, 1998 - An essay in Arthur, an Ontario student and community newspaper.

• Confronting the "Missionaries to the Preborn"  from the website of Anti-Racist Action of Toronto.

• Thou Shalt Not Kill   Website of the CBC-TV program The National, with quotes from Matt Trewhella and Joan Clark. Also features a brief interview with the very embarassed head of a Canadian prolife group that had invited Trewhella without knowing of his extremist reputation.

The Head West Tour of 2001

Missionary in Pierre, South Dakota

In 2001 Milwaukee's Missionaries to the Preborn set out on a tour of Western States. They continued to deploy their giant gruesome signs, believing they would advance their cause by disgusting and offending the locals.

• Anti-abortion protesters make presence  October 17, 2001 - Account of MTP's visit to the U. of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. The local student prolife groups disavows MTP.

• Group protests abortion in city  June 8, 2001 - "While the protests are going on, cadres of teenagers pass out literature at area houses."

• Missionaries Tour U.S. to Protest Abortion  June 6, 2001 - An account of the Missionaries' campaign in Pierre, South Dakota.

• Anti-abortion group's tour reaches Boulder  "A Wisconsin-based anti-abortion group demonstrated in Boulder on Wednesday morning by holding up 5-foot-tall photos of aborted fetuses and shouting passages from the Bible."

• Sacrilege in Montana  "Mr. Steven Ertelt, Director of Montana Right of Life, an affiliate of National Right to Life Committee, opened his mouth and spewed forth a sulfurous stench against Christian missionaries who were on tour through that state." This is the opinion of Covenant News, which is "A Ministry of The Christian Street Preachers Alliance."

Wisconsin and Illinois Venues

Anti-abortion gathering draws attention in Beloit  August 2, 1997 - The MTP goes to Beloit, WI. Protester is arrested for calling a passerby "Nazi" and attempting to force literature upon her.

Tours in 2002

Abortion critics called too graphic  June 19, 2002 - Milwaukee's Missionaries to the Preborn visit Bridgeport, CT on the Unmasking Planned Parenthood tour.

Abortion Protest Backfires  June 21, 2002 - The Missionaries visit Montpelier, VT with their ugly pictures. The local TV website believes they discredited themselves.

Anti-abortion protest planned for N.H.  June 21, 2002 - "Rep. Phyllis Woods, a Dover Republican who founded an anti-abortion legislative caucus, said she discouraged activists from distributing graphic photographs that demonize those supporting abortion."

Abortion protest sees little response  June 23, 2002 - "A group of religious anti-abortion protestors who displayed large, graphic photographs of aborted fetuses on Montpelier’s streets and at the State House Thursday got a mostly cool response from residents and visitors."

A life-and-death fight  June 21, 2002 - The Brattleboro Reformer roundly condemns the touring Missionaries: "True to its character, Brattleboro refused to stand quietly by Thursday and allow a touring gang of anti-abortion zealots the unchallenged right to present its graphic denunciations of a woman's right to choose."

Feminists, Anti-Abortion Activists Clash in Square  June 28, 2002 - Missionaries to the Preborn get a vigorous reception in Harvard Square.

Students Protest the Protesters  June 25, 2002 - Students from the Pawcatuck School of Hair Design protested the visit of the Missionaries to the Preborn. MTP member Joy Ovadal did not call one of the protesters a slut: "I told her she is a fornicator."

Protesters 'Cleanse' Westerly after Graphic Demonstration  June 29, 2002 - "Using a silver pitcher to draw water from the fountain in Dixon Square, Tricia Hval was determined to clean away images that accompanied Monday's anti-abortion protest."

Full-Quiver Mission Storms New England  The Murch family's religious road show, called the "Full-Quiver Mission" joined with the Missionaries to the Preborn in their "Unmasking Planned Parenthood Tour" of New England in June of 2002. The Murch's give their own account, day-by-day, and also cite coverage by local media.

Local rallies graphic, peaceful  August 9, 2002 - "Missionaries for Preborn bring message to Ripon, Berlin, Wautoma."

Wisconsin Right To Life Has No Involvement With Group Displaying Large Posters Of Aborted Babies  August 7, 2002 - WRTL received phone calls asking if they were connected with the displays. They assure the public that "Wisconsin Right to Life is not in any way associated with the display of these posters or with any organization involved with that activity."

National Right to Life's Deception  July 1, 2002 - Jim Rudd of Covenant News deems NRTL a "a non-profit front organization for the Republican Party." Elsewhere in the publication, Covenant News declares that Wisconsin Right to Life is "affiliated with the devil."

A life-and-death fight  June 21, 2002 - The Brattleboro Reformer lays into the touring Missionaries to the Preborn. "True to its character, Brattleboro refused to stand quietly by Thursday and allow a touring gang of anti-abortion zealots the unchallenged right to present its graphic denunciations of a woman's right to choose."

"Like the Ku Klux Klan -- whose representatives were famously chased out of town 20 years ago -- they seek to legitimize hatred and bigotry by carrying Bibles."

Dead fetus images shock  October 10, 2002 - The student paper of University of Wisconsin-Stout covers a campus appearance of Missionaries to the Preborn.

Tours in 2003

• No Pretty Picture: Wis. abortion foes protest at BR hospital  February 26, 2003 - The Missionaries to the Preborn take their tour to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

• Abortion Posters Create Commotion  February 27, 2003 - Local TV station's report of Missionaries antis in Jackson, Misssissippi.

• Anti-abortion demonstrators line Broadway in protest  March 8, 2003 - In Nashville, TN, Missionaries to the Preborn stage their last demo of the 2003 Southern Tour.

• Omaha Police escort protesters off campus  April 11, 2003 - Dan Holman and George Wilson brought their shouting and their ugly pictures to the University of Nebraska at Omaha. As they were escorted away, Dan Holman called out "We'll be back, sinners!"

• Dan Holman's account of events in Omaha  "I personally have preached this message unhindered on hundreds of college campuses, and other public forums without prior approval," says Missionary Dan.

• Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474 (1988)  A case brought by antiabortion protesters Sandra C. Schultz and Robert C. Braun against the town of Brookfield, Wisconsin. The Supreme Court struck down town restrictions on picketing in a residential area. But the Court did also rule that picketers could not target only one single residence.

• Missionaries to the Pre-born, IOWA: April, 2003 Newsletter  After many years of antiabortion activism with Milwaukee's Missionaries to the Preborn, Dan Holman has moved to Iowa. Dan warns that "The spotlight is on the Catholic Church, but other churches have their fair share of pedophiles, fornicators, and adulators [sic]. Such is the fruit of the love gospel."

• Anti-abortion group's graphic display meant for all in Merrill  July 15, 2003 - In Merrill, Wisconsin "residents reacted with approval, dismay and some disgust Monday to grim images of aborted fetuses paraded around their community by abortion foes."

• Keokuk man must stay clear of clinic  September 9, 2003 - Court orders Dan Holman to keep his distance from the clinic, based on his statement that Paul Hill had "raised the standards" for antiabortion protesters.

• Court Restricts Movement of Abortion Foe  October 29, 2003 - "Court Order Restricts Anti-Abortion Activist Who Praised Doctor's Killer." Dan Holman declared while demonstrating in Florida on the occasion of Paul Hill's execution: "Some day, I hope I will have the courage to be as much a man as he was." "I haven't killed anyone yet, but I believe they deserve to die."