Group of approximately 25 abortion opponents hold a prayer vigil outside Huntsville City Hall July 15, 2014, to protest a city ruling that Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives proposed new location at 4831 Sparkman Drive complies with zoning laws. When Operation Save America activist join local protestors, the clinic, now open, will be the site of one of their gatherings on July 17, 2015. (Bob Gathany/bgathany@AL.com)

Don't expect any Quran burnings or people chaining themselves to doors of the women's clinic when members of Operation Save America come to Huntsville, Ala., on Friday, July 17, 2015, to join the local pro-life protestors at the Alabama Women's Center, 4831 Sparkman Drive N.W. Evangelism -- not intimidation -- is what OSA has planned for Huntsville, both local pro-life and OSA leaders say.

"Intimidating? I don't feel I'm intimidating - I'm a 72-year-old woman and a sidewalk counselor," says Patricia McEwen, longtime spokeswoman for Operation Save America. "I don't yell at women. I'm working to bring them to saving knowledge of Christ."

Operation Save America has sent out Facebook invitations to 1,200 people nationwide to gather in Montgomery from July 11 through 18 to support proposed anti-abortion legislation and to support Judge Roy Moore's stand on traditional marriage. Some 114 people have responded to the Facebook event invitation saying that they will be coming, with an addition 81 clicking "maybe." McEwen predicted that about 300 people will participate there. About 10,000 people are on the Operation Save America newsletter list.

During the week of July 11-18, events in Montgomery will include protests at the women's clinic in Montgomery on Saturday, with a gathering Saturday night featuring Judge Roy Moore as keynote speaker. On Sunday, OSA teams will visit churches to invite people to the Sunday evening Solemn Assembly, which will be held at Fresh Anointing House of Worship, 150 E. Fleming Road in Montgomery. During the week, OSA teams will read the Bible through from beginning to end in front of different government buildings. A demonstration is planned on Wednesday for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has criticized some statements made by OSA leaders.

On July 14, some OSA teams will travel to Mobile to protest at the federal court which issued the decision legalizing gay marriage in Alabama. On July 16, a vigil will be held in Birmingham in memory of longtime Operation Rescue/Operation Save America activist David Lackey who died of brain cancer in 2013. The Birmingham team will then travel on to Huntsville for an evening dinner with Huntsville-area pro-life activists to be hosted by CrossPointe Church, 78 Hughes Road in Madison in preparation for demonstrations on July 17.

"We will have prayerful protests on Friday at all the appropriate places in Huntsville," said the Rev. James Henderson, listing those places at the Alabama Women's Clinic, the private office of OB physician Dr. Yashica Robinson on Madison Street and the Huntsville City Hall building. "We would not take part in a Quran burning. This alliance is for true family values."

Rev. James Henderson. (The Huntsville Times file/Glenn Baeske)

Kryptonite bicycle locks

Henderson, who lives in Priceville, Ala., is a longtime conservative Christian activist for moral laws in Alabama and past state director of Judge Roy Moore's unsuccessful 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial campaigns. Henderson spoke with AL.com on Thursday, June 11, from Montgomery, where he had been invited by Alabama House Rep. Howard Sandifer to open today's work session with prayer.

Operation Save America, which grew out of Operation Rescue, has eschewed some of the more aggressive moves of the parent organization, although, since 2001, the organization has, from time to time included a Quran with the gay rights rainbow flag in bonfires made of copies of Supreme Court decisions considered to be sinful. Evangelizing Muslims became a priority of the group after the 9/11 tragedy. Operation Save America volunteers also joined protests in Montgomery in 2003 when the monument honoring the Ten Commandments, placed in the Alabama Judiciary Building, was ordered removed.

What Operation Save America volunteers terms "prayerful protest" can seem like harassment and intimidation to the objects of their protests, says Kathy Zentner, a long-time pro-choice activist in Huntsville.

Zentner remembers when, in the early 1990s, Operation Rescue members blocked the doors of the women's clinic, then on Longwood Drive, by bolting themselves together and to the door with kryptonite bicycle locks.

"One of our escorts brought a ladder so that women needing to get into the clinic for treatment could climb in through a second-floor window," Zentner said. "The police had to bring special cutters to cut the protestors apart so they could arrest them. It was just a circus that day."

No bombs

Clinic blockades ended with the 1994 federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, but longtime Operation Rescue and now Operation Rescue America spokeswoman Patricia McEwen said that the blockades had a practical purpose.

"The purpose of that was to give the sidewalk counselors a lot of time - while they arrested the rest of us decoys - to get right up close and personal and talk to the women going into the clinic in a relaxed situation, with nobody rushing them in," McEwen said, speaking to AL.com from her home in Florida. "But it didn't work - the clinics would bring them in another door. There was a time for that tactic, but that time is up."

McEwen, 72, is retired as communications professor at the Center for Organizational Creativity and Innovation at the State University of New York, Buffalo. McEwen traces the leading of God to her opportunity to work for an organization that stands for what she considers to be biblical values. She said she and other OSA leaders are distressed that anyone confuses OSA activists with the independent radicals who have been responsible for shooting doctors or bombing clinics, including of the clinic in Birmingham in 1998.

"Eric Rudolph did show up at the house of my friend, (longtime Operation Rescue member) David Lackey (shortly after the bombing), but David recognized him and told his wife to call the police while he talked to him," McEwen said. "They almost caught him then, but he fled before the police got there. Rudolph was not a member of Operation Rescue. We got blamed for bombs, but we didn't do them."

"Rudolph did what he did out of hate," wrote the Rev. Flip Benham, then ORA director. "The devil himself was the one orchestrating Mr. Rudolph's bombings."

Pro-choice advocates stand in front of closed Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives during pro-life advocates' "Memorial/Grave Side Service for Babies Aborted in Huntsville" on July 1,2014. Pro-choice advocates have been offering services to escort women attempting to get into women's clinics in Huntsville for decades and are planning counter-demonstrations to those of Operation Save America on July 17, 2015. (Bob Gathany/bgathany@al.com)

Prepared for anything

Zentner said that she and other pro-choice activists are organizing responses to the OSA demonstrations in Huntsville. Zentner said she expects that the usual dozen or so regular protestors will be joined by another dozen or so from OSA along with local activists who participate in special pro-life events, such as the annual Stand for Life. Zentner said she and others want to make sure that any woman seeking treatment or abortion on July 17 is able to get into the clinic.

"OSA is an off-shoot of Operation Rescue, and they did some very nasty stuff," Zentner said. "In the last few years they have been pretty tame, but they are coming to Huntsville to - and this is a direct quote from their website - to 'Storm the gates of Hell,' so we have to be prepared for anything."