CBS News: Builders Boycott Abortion Clinic (2003)

Weeks into the project, the contractor hired to build an abortion clinic hit a brick wall: Plumbers and carpenters would not work for him. Drywall installers and heating subcontractors would not do business with him. Cement suppliers for miles around would not touch the job.

He had been hit with a boycott organized by abortion foe and construction-industry executive Chris Danze.

The builder finally quit the job this month, stopping the clinic project in its tracks, in what national Planned Parenthood officials said was the first such boycott they have ever seen.

Danze, a 48-year-old who has protested outside clinics, compares the building of an abortion clinic to construction of a concentration camp during the Holocaust.

“We can’t just look the other way,” he said. “We can’t just take the blood money and run.”

The decision by Browning Construction Co., one of the state’s largest contractors, to pull out of the project stunned Planned Parenthood, which denounced the boycott and said it will press on with construction to discourage similar tactics elsewhere.

The privately funded $6.2 million clinic was set to open next fall. …

Danze, an owner of Maldonado & Danze Inc., a concrete-foundation contractor, oversaw a telephone and letter-writing campaign urging more than 750 Austin- and San Antonio-area businesses not to provide supplies or services for the project. He recruited contractors to join what he called the Texas Contractors and Suppliers for Life Association.

Soon, contractors were flooded with phone calls from the public warning them to stay away from the clinic project or face losing business.

Texas Right to Life, which claims 75,000 members, called contractors to thank them for not working on the project and to offer to share the companies’ names with the anti-abortion group’s members, spokeswoman Elizabeth Graham said.

Churches got involved, too. “When churches started asking me for lists of people who were working on the project, that’s when we turned the corner,” Danze said.

Danze said hundreds of subcontractors agreed to boycott the project, though not all of them said whether they were anti-abortion. Some simply did not want to get involved in a controversial project, he said. …

Tierney said one subcontractor, whom she would not identify, received more than 1,200 calls from around the country – many to his home – warning him not to participate. “This is not a simple demonstration of free speech rights,” she said.

James Browning, who runs San Antonio-based Browning Construction, said he got a polite call from Danze warning him about the boycott. Groundbreaking on the clinic was held in September, and over the next six weeks, the project ground to a halt.

“I never thought so many different trades would join in,” Browning said.

Among those boycotting were contractors in lumber, cement supply, foundation building, plumbers, heating and air-conditioning, windows, hardwood floors, roofing, insulation, landscaping and fencing, Danze said.

By the time Browning pulled out, clearing and excavation and some of the underground plumbing had been done, but the foundation had not been put in. …

Danze said he will track down any new contractors on the project and have scouts check the construction site three or four times a day.

“This is going to be a battle,” Danze said. “God does not want this thing built.”

LA TIMES: Antiabortion Effort Targets Unbuilt Clinic (2003)

Two months ago, construction crews were busy laying the groundwork for a $6.2-million Planned Parenthood clinic on the city’s south side. But the site is deserted now — gravel blows in the wind, a padlock clangs against a chain-link fence.

Work halted last month after local subcontractors were persuaded by anti-abortion activists led by a building supply executive to steer clear of the project or face the loss of future work. As pressure and controversy over the project grew, subcontractors stayed away and the general contractor — one of the largest in the state — pulled out.

Leading the boycott of the construction project is Chris Danze, 48, an executive at a concrete supply business and organizer of the Texas Contractors and Suppliers for Life Assn.

Contractors on the Planned Parenthood project “were given two messages,” Danze said. “The first is that it’s wrong to build an abortion chamber. The second is that it’s bad for future business…. We’re compiling a list. If you work on that project, you won’t be working on other projects.”

When ground was broken Sept. 23, Danze — an owner of Austin-based concrete supplier Maldonado and Danze — had already sent letters to several dozen local vendors. “Maldonado and Danze Inc., will remove from our list of approved suppliers, those suppliers who choose to participate in this new facility,” he wrote. … 

Some business owners who received Danze’s letter offered to send similar messages to their own associates, he said. Like a chain letter, word of the boycott spread.

About 750 central Texas subcontractors received letters asking that they turn away business from Planned Parenthood. Christian radio stations picked up the story and encouraged listeners to ask companies working on the project to quit. Contractor names and phone numbers were provided by Danze in widely circulated e-mails.

“The thing that’s different about the impact of this is how quickly these calls for action spread via e-mail and the Internet” said Parks of Planned Parenthood. “The calls that came in to the contractors were from all over the United States. We don’t know how many were from Austin.”

When local churches joined the boycott, business owners had a decision to make, said David Bereit, executive director of the Texas-based Coalition for Life. “There are 600 churches and three abortion clinics in the Austin phone book. The demand for church-building projects is greater than for abortion clinics. Builders have to look at the long-term potential of losing this business,” he said.

By November, general contractor Browning Construction Co. of San Antonio had lost its carpenters, heating and air-conditioning subcontractors, concrete suppliers and electricians. … 

Some of the subcontractors that backed out in November were overwhelmed with phone calls, she said. One got 1,200 calls on his business line. Another got several hundred at home. “They were inundated. I don’t think they knew what to do.”

Danze said the calls were an exercise of free speech and that callers were instructed to be polite. “I think it’s wrong for one person to make 1,200 phone calls,” he said. “But it’s American as motherhood and apple pie for 1,200 people to make one phone call. That’s the American way, you express yourself.”

The Concrete Coalition (2004)

It would be difficult to find a more dedicated pro-life activist than construction-company owner Chris Danze. The 48-year-old Austin, Texas, resident has spent the last two decades holding candlelight-prayer vigils at abortion clinics and picketing the state Capitol. He’s also helped build a maternity home and welcomed pregnant foster-care teens into his family of six.

But for most of his life, Danze kept his pro-life activities separate from his career-until this fall, when he discovered a new tool for protecting the preborn among his construction wares: concrete.

As Citizen went to press, he and his business partners were turning this mixture of gravel, cement and water into a potent weapon for defeating Planned Parenthood- and awakening their community to the brutality of abortion.

It all started when the Planned Parenthood Texas Capital Region (PPTCR) decided to build an abortion clinic just 15 minutes from Danze’s office. …

As Danze observed the groundbreaking festivities alongside other protesters waving “death camp” signs, he realized it would take more than picketing to stop this latest war on those in the womb. So he took a life-changing step:

“I sent a letter to all of my suppliers-of concrete, steel, wood-and told them that if I saw their trucks on this project, we would no longer do work with them.”

He’s not worried about the ramifications, Danze told Citizen, because it’s his constitutional right to choose business associates. And he bases his right to choose on biblical principle:

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ clearly delineates where we should be on this issue: We should be defending ‘the least’ of our brothers and sisters. And if these [preborn] children aren’t the least, then who among us is?”

Individual conviction quickly snowballed into a citywide movement. Many of the suppliers who received Danze’s letter recommended the same action to their colleagues-and within a few weeks, every concrete business within 60 miles had committed to boycott the Planned Parenthood job.

That’s a key victory because “if somebody can’t get to the [construction] job within an hour or so, it almost becomes impossible to pour the concrete,” explained Mark Hamilton of Rainbow Materials, one of the first businesses to join the protest.

Creating a “firewall of concrete suppliers” will prevent Planned Parenthood from laying its foundation, Danze added. “But if that firewall is breached, we’ll just continue doing whatever we can to slow [construction] down and make it more expensive.”

To that end, he and about a dozen boycott leaders formed the Austin Area Pro-Life Concrete Contractor and Supplier Association. Expanding on Danze’s initial efforts, the association sent another letter by certified mail to 750 CEOs of construction and building supply companies in Austin and San Antonio.

“We respectfully request your organization [to] consider declining invitations to supply materials … or provide services for construction of the [Planned Parenthood] buildings, “ said the letter, signed by 88 business owners and local residents.

One copy was hand-delivered to James C. Browning, president of Browning Construction-the San Antonio based company that was overseeing the Planned Parenthood “Choice Project.”

Creating Accountability

Browning didn’t return Citizen’s repeated phone calls; his secretary said he was “out ill.” But his company’s Web site says he serves on Christ Episcopal Church’s governing board and is a former chairman of St. Luke’s Episcopal School. A family-run business founded in the 1930s, Browning Construction lauds itself as a leader of the industry “built on integrity.” An online portfolio lists dozens of churches and hospitals it’s built.

In yet another letter mailed to more than 1,000 area churches in October, Danze recounted a phone conversation he had with James Browning.

“I told him I loved him as a brother in the faith, ” the letter said. “I told him I had no animosity toward him or his company. However, what Planned Parenthood was building was detrimental to families . … He listened attentively, but said very little . I quoted Scripture: ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?’ This was the only thing that he really reacted to. He said, ‘uh-huh.’ ”

Apparently, Browning was listening more than he let on. Six weeks after the boycott began, his company halted work on the abortion facility on Nov. 4. “We have requested that the construction contract be terminated because we are unable to secure and retain adequate … suppliers to complete the project in a timely manner, ” a company statement said. Since Browning is one of the state’s largest construction companies, its decision was reported by CNN and the Associated Press.

Frazzled Planned Parenthood representatives responded by accusing construction workers of “conducting a campaign of harassment and intimidation.”

But Danze wasn’t distracted; he only paused to proclaim “glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit”- and then pledged to continue holding other builders accountable.

“When they knowingly facilitate an abortion clinic to continue wounding women and killing children, they are culpable, ” he said. “If they don’t know what they’re working on, that’s different. But see, that’s my mission-to let everybody know what they’re working on and not let them get away with saying, ‘Well, I was ignorant.’ ”

To complete that mission, Danze and Co. are continually monitoring Planned Parenthood’s construction site, using CBs and mobile phones to alert each other when new vendors arrive.

“When a delivery truck … dropped off some lumber, ” Danze told Citizen, “I showed him a picture of a baby that had been killed by abortion. ‘This is what they’re going to do here,’ I said. ‘Go back to your boss and show him this picture … and ask [him] to please not participate.’

“We’re going to do that through the whole project … day in and day out, monitoring who comes in and praying in front of the building.”

In addition to Browning, they’ve persuaded plumbers, air-conditioning suppliers, dirt haulers, steel providers and even a portable toilet company to withhold services, Danze said. Every company that pulls off the job receives a thank-you call or note.

The construction industry’s dependence on relationships between suppliers and builders have aided those efforts. In a depressed building market, companies know it’s risky to offend their suppliers.

“[Our] industry is a fairly conservative group, ” Danze said. ”I’d say it’s probably 70 percent pro-life.”

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has vowed that its construction will continue. “We will get it done, ” spokeswoman Danielle Tierney told reporters.

But even if PPTCR completes its “death camp, ” Danze said, “we are not going to stop with construction. We are going to identify [other suppliers] who service the copy machine, do the janitorial service, do the pest control.”

Just as it requires a mixture of two very different ingredients-gravel and water-bonded with cement to make a firm, concrete foundation, this experience has taught Danze that it takes a mixture of two things he formerly kept separate-biblical principles and business relationships-bonded with faith to create effective Christian activism.

“You can’t just leave the gospel on the shelf when you walk out of church, ” he said. “You have to take it to the marketplace. That’s what we need to be doing. Otherwise, we cannot reform this culture of death.”