May 26, 1988 James C. Kopp Interview, Part 1

Editor’s note: About 10 years prior to James Kopp performing a post natal termination procedure of an abortionist in 1998, I had a chance to sit down with him for about an hour and a half for an interview. I recently, found the cassette tape of that interview while rummaging through my old cassettes a few weeks ago. After I listened to the tape, I was reminded of the deep wisdom and insight that James shared. I was so amazed at what he said, I decided to transcribe the interview and share it with you. This interview is quite long, so I will present it in several parts. Here is part 1.


MJ: There are a lot of things I don’t know about you just form a personal perspective. Could you tell us about who you are and where you are from and some basic background information before we start talking about rescue missions (sit-ins at abortion mills)?

JK: I was born in Pasadena, CA in 1954. I come from a family of five and I have one sister in heaven, and I guess part of my background includes the fact that my own immediate family has three single mothers. So to me, pro-life is very personal and the cost that mothers have to pay is something that I as a male could understand. I went to school in California, and I studied Darwinistic Biology as an under graduate many years ago, and was saved overseas in Francis Schaffer’s ministry and at the same time, through over Darwinism. But, I decided to finish up grad school even though by that time I started to think about pro-life and so I finished my Masters which was in embryology and fertilization. That started to get me into pro-life.

MJ: What year was this?

JK: I finished my Masters in I think about ’82. One of the reasons I got into pro-life was that… At one point during the Masters, I thought I might be interested in med school, so I became a pre-med, and I had some clinical experience. And, one day I was standing in the morgue of the Stanford Hospital and I assisted and observed autopsies there because I was in the pathology department and did my little bit of research at night. They brought in a baby that was 8 months from conception that had been aborted, for having Down’s syndrome. The Pathologist was particularly pleased to show me this baby because she knew that I was pro-life. She knew that I was in the morgue and she sent the baby in and she said, “You see enough of this kind of garbage and you really start to believe in abortion.” Those were the words she said to me, and I don’t think I will ever forget it. Up until then, I had some pro-life involvement intellectually, but it wasn’t until I saw that baby right in front of me, which was an absolutely beautiful baby that had been killed because it had Down’s syndrome. And, I heard those words and they just chilled me through my bones, “You see enough of this kind of garbage and you really start to believe in abortion.” Oh, and she also said, ”You pro-lifers really make me sick.” I was so stunned that I could not think of much to say but what happened is that I made a promise to God in my heart that I would try and do more. Up until then I had done political work in pro-life and my family has been involved in California politics for decades.

MJ: What year was this when you saw the aborted baby?

JK: That was 1982 also. The first rescue I did was in ’83 or ’84 and the first Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) that I opened was in ’84. So, it was after then I got on the pathway of CPCs and rescues.

MJ: You said you had your conversion overseas. Was this in Switzerland?

JK: Yes.

MJ: What was the name of the town?

JK: The name of the town was Huémoz-sur-Ollon. But the name of the ministry was L’Abri.

MJ: How many rescues have you done to date?

JK: I really don’t know the exact number, but it is somewhere between 15 to 20 I think. In terms of really big national type rescues with 100 or more people maybe 4 or 5 of those. And probably half a dozen lock-in rescues… maybe more.

MJ: Do you know how many arrests you’ve had?

JK: Well, let’s see... That’s right, some of the rescues did not involve arrests, so I have probably been arrested about 15 times. Not a lot.

MJ: Not a lot? (laughing) One of the things about you that is going against the grain of society is that a lot of people are soft and we have a lot of conveniences. And here, we have someone like you who has literally sold out everything for pro-life. I understand that you even took a vow of poverty at one time.

JK: (laughing) I don’t know about a vow.

MJ: That’s what John Witte told me.

JK: Well the hardest part was when I sold my trumpet. I used to be in the union and I put myself through college, or shall I say the Lord put me through college being in the union. And the hardest thing was when I sold my trumpet, which was an extremely good trumpet. That was how I made my living which was the culmination of my career as a professional musician. So that part hurt me, but ever since then it’s been downhill. I mean, in the sense that, once you…. I mean everyone has a trumpet if you know what I mean. Everyone’s got that one thing. You know, they will give up everything else, you know what I mean? And that trumpet meant probably more to me than anything else in terms of material things. I have already been moving in the direction of what I called, being judgment proof. You know, having no assets so that if N.O.W. (National Organization for Women) sues me, I would have nothing to fear. Which is the place I want to be in. So, I had been moving in that direction for a long time.

MJ: I could just see N.O.W. going after that trumpet. “We got to get Kopp’s trumpet!”

JK: (Laughing)

MJ: We read about Samuel Rutherford, Dietrich Bonheoffer, Corrie Ten Boom, then we look at people in our day and age… and I ask where are our heroes? And we have Joan Andrews and a handful of others. But our generation desperately needs some heroes that will sell everything out and just be radical. In our day and age this concept is very foreign and I just feel that we have a lot of soft Christians now days.

JK: Yeah, I think I see where you are going, and I definitely agree. In fact, any time the Lord has asked me to make a sacrifice… and of course, I cannot make a sacrifice in my own strength. If I were to form the resolution that I should sell my trumpet, that would be no big deal. That doesn’t mean anything if it is in the flesh. But, if you were to pray about it and you are sure that is what the Lord wants, and if you go to him and say, “okay Lord.” Then you are offering it up to God and He’s doing it. I definitely think that we don’t offer up enough things to the Lord, we are hanging on to too many things. That, I don’t think too many people would argue with you, especially in the United States. In my opinion, part of the core of this whole problem is that there has never been a country in the entire History of the planet that has had such a very large number of people with such an average high level of freedom from war, poverty, disease, coldness, hunger and pretty soon when you get that isolated and that independent, God is just an idea after a while. God is out there working on the fine things like do I feel good. If you go into most churches these days, people are concerned with feeling good. They are not thinking about, am I starving? Or, is that guy starving? Have I heard the Gospel? Or, has that guy heard the Gospel? You can say the same thing about missions. There are very few people in this country who will do missions, same thing with pro-life. So I certainly agree… Oh, I know what I was going to say, I ramble.

MJ: That’s okay.

JK: The other thing I was going to say too is, long ago could have done what I call an arrest cycle. I have done two of them now. Or, one or two, I can’t remember exactly. But anyway, its where I come into a town and keep doing rescues until they give me a hard time. And during the hard time I assess and say to the Lord, “do you want me to continue in this town, or do you want me to go to another one? Okay? That is what I would call and arrest cycle

MJ: Okay.

JK: In St. Louis, (laughing) they rotated me out to another position before I got in jail for a hard time because in St. Louis you can get arrested 100 times and never see the inside of a jail cell for more than 6 or 8 hours, it’s really incredible in St. Louis. But, the reason I have not done perpetual arrest cycles, in other words, keep going until you get arrested more and more, is that I sense that the Lord has asked me along the way to stop and take the time to open up Pearson Centers. Or, Crisis Pregnancy Centers. If my whole goal in life, and this is not my whole goal, but if my entire 100% goal in life was to save as many babies as I could, that I physically could myself, I would do nothing but open Crisis Pregnancy Centers. I think there is more at stake than just, how many babies can Jim Kopp save. There is a slightly bigger picture, not much bigger. But anyone who sets themselves a goal, I want to save as many babies as I can. That’s not a bad goal, and I certainly would certainly never fault that, but I think there is a little bit more to it. Something that the Lord has been showing lately is that there is more involved than babies. In China for example, if you go and do a rescue in mainland China, you will be in jail for 25 years, and you will be a martyr and the Lord would certainly honor all your prayers, who knows on a mystical level?

JK: (cont’d) But practically speaking, you can’t do anything in China to really help save the babies until you do something about communism. And you can’t do something about communism without being good Christians in general. You have to have a body working together and part of the body working together is exhortation and a word of knowledge and all these things that are… You see what I mean? There is slightly more to the picture than physically, just how many babies can Jim Kopp save with the hours that I’ve got left in my life. That’s why I take the time out, or I dare say the Lord has asked me to take the time out in Delaware and maybe in Texas, California, New Jersey, New York state or wherever he sends me, to leave a trail of these CPCs and they become focal points for pro-life work. And they become stepping stones for people who want to step up into rescues. Most people can’t take that step straight from political work to rescues. They just can’t do it, they need a stepping stone in the middle. A place where they can meet the girls, get a hands on view of how terrible it is out there, how badly these women are being lied to, and pushed around by their boyfriends, and pushed around by the abortionists…

MJ: Isn’t that the truth. All in the name of pro-choice.

JK: Exactly! Get a real solid picture. Demythologize the pro-choice deal, and then they start to get mad. It’s like when I saw that baby in the Stanford morgue, I got mad. If you come to me after that and start talking about trumpets, I would say… Hey! forget trumpets! We are on another level. You know? And I’ll tell you something, most national leaders that I know, that I have had the privileged of meeting… it’s a funny thing, but they have had a similar kind of experience. Not the exact same experience, but something like it.