Saving Babies and Not Counting the Cost: A Letter From the Oakland Jail

Will Goodman, prisoner of conscience.

This letter is basically a follow-up to the article I wrote about the Red Rose Rescues. Two Michigan participants, Monica Miller and Will Goodman were sentenced to jail for violating what can only be described as a draconian probation ruling. By their violating it,  another baby will live! The judge accused the two of being anarchists. They aren't. They walk in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, and the White Rose Student Movement that peacefully resisted the Nazi regime. They deserve our prayers and thanks. Their suffering will bring down many graces. 

I am confident they are praying for the judge and the prosecutor who will one day face the True Judge and have to answer for their actions in this case. To see a video about this event go here. I hope you'll send Will Goodman a letter in jail. If I get Monica's address, I'll post that as well. They both received 45 day sentences. Fr. Stephen Imbarrato is also in jail for a week in D.C. for a separate rescue. Please pray these heroes touch many of their fellow inmates while they serve God as witnesses for life!

My name is Will Goodman, and I am a prisoner of conscience at the Oakland County Jail, serving a 45-day sentence for nonviolent direct action to protect innocent lives at an abortion facility, and for civil disobedience in response to my probation, which took away my constitutional right of free speech. I was arrested holding a sign on a public sidewalk. The sign read "Peace Begins in the Womb."

On June 14, Judge Marc Barron (48th District Court) pronounced the sentence and, before a large crowd gathered at the courtroom, offered his opinion that my actions made me an "anarchist" and thus a "threat or danger to the community." Due to the public nature of his comments, I wish respectfully to provide a public response.

I am personally and philosophically opposed to all forms of anarchism, as it traffics in secrecy and violence, without respect for organized government or human dignity. I chose the path of nonviolence, after the example of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a means of fostering a true commitment to democracy, authentic justice and the objective rule of law.

I love the U.S.A. and the legal tradition which protects the rights of the innocent. If anyone might be called "anarchist," it would be the justices of Roe v. Wade, who threw away nearly two centuries of state law from virtually every state in the Union (including Michigan) that protected innocent human life in the womb.

Furthermore, it is very difficult to comprehend how one who understands the self-evident natural law truth "Thou shalt not kill" constitutes a threat to the common good of the people of Michigan. The real danger to society is found in the unchecked violence against innocent human beings, and the unjust courts who offer their juridical blessing to those committing the violence.

I respect Judge Barron as a person, but I am truly heartbroken by his handling of this case, a case that has at its heart the "self-evident truth that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," the chief among these being the fundamental right to life.

Sincerely a voice for the voiceless,

Will Goodman
(ID #423110)
Oakland County Jail
Annex-2E
PO Box 436017
Pontiac, MI 48343