Anti-Abortion Activism: Joseph Foreman Outside Moments Coffee Shop
Watson Jones | February 2, 2023
Joseph Foreman is known locally today for his role in managing the Swannanoa coffee shop Moments Coffee Bar & Eatery. The shop, just seven minutes down the road from Warren Wilson College (WWC), is a popular spot. WWC students make up a large percentage of the shop's recurring customers.
Before starting Moments with his wife and family, Foreman was known on a much larger scale for his involvement in a different organization. Foreman, among other roles, was the former acting national director of Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion activism group, and has an extensive history of large-scale anti-abortion activism.
Operation Rescue primarily implemented tactics like physically blockading entrances to women’s health clinics that performed abortions, preventing access both for people seeking reproductive healthcare and medical professionals coming in to work.
The height of the organization’s activity was between its formation in the 1980s to the passing of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) act in 1994. The FACE act dampened the momentum of the anti-abortion movement by increasing the legal ramifications of physically obstructing entrances of abortion clinics.
The organization exists today in a collection of autonomous offshoot organizations.
Foreman took on the acting director title of Operation Rescue after the previous leader Randall Terry — a nationally known figure in the anti-abortion movement — was sentenced to several years in prison, according to a 1991 Washington Post report.
After being featured recently on The War Room — a podcast that discusses “tactics for strategic Christian living” — Foreman compared Operation Rescue to an “evangelistic crusade.”
“You get a bunch of people together, you explain to them the crisis they face, you give them one thing they can do to resolve that crisis, and then you ask them to come forward and do it,” Foreman said. “That's pretty much what Operation Rescue was.”
(He later added that the analogy was meant to illustrate Operation Rescue’s organizational style, and was not a “theological statement”).
Foreman, like others in the anti-abortion movement, typically refers to activities like this as “rescuing.” This terminology is commonly used by the anti-abortion movement when discussing physically restricting abortion access through active physical means.
Foreman’s first demonstration was with his family while they lived in Pennsylvania. After his first experience, he became steadily more involved with the movement.
“One of the reasons that I run a coffee shop is because it puts me in direct touch with all the people who, if we were rescuing today, would be the clinic defenders on the other side of the — you know — trying to keep us away from the abortion clinic,” Foreman said when reflecting on his lasting ideas and how theology plays a role in his current activism. “They're the ones that I want to reach. My heart goes out to them. And so I spend just an awful lot of time talking with them at many many different levels just trying to reach them for Christ.”
When discussing small-scale individual protest, Foreman said that individuals who protest abortion in any way are on “the front line of the assault on the gates of hell.”
“Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. . . that is the front line of the abortion war,” Foreman said. “What are you doing there to be intolerant to the murder of children?”
Phebe Finch, a sophomore at WWC, has worked in proximity to Foreman during her employment at Moments coffee shop. She said that she has felt uncomfortable in her interactions with Foreman, beginning with her interview and first conversations with him at the start of her employment at Moments.
Though Foreman is respectful and understanding, Finch said that it felt as if Foreman was often softening his opinions and obscuring deep beliefs to make them more socially acceptable.
“I've definitely noticed him trying to feel out what he can get away with saying,” Finch said. “I feel like that's a mask; I feel like a lot is in the dark.”
Finch avoids speaking about politics or social opinions around Foreman when possible. She said that this creates a difficult and tenuous workplace dynamic — “You shouldn't be scared to talk to your boss,” Finch said.
When commenting on Foreman’s interactions with customers, Finch said that she had often noticed him speak and act disrespectfully to people in the shop. She said that she has “actively seen him drive customers away” with upsetting behavior and remarks. This sentiment was echoed by other former employees, and similar remarks are even mentioned in some reviews posted to the shop’s Facebook page.
“I think he really just has no understanding — or just doesn't care — that what he says is offensive and uncomfortable,” Finch said. “Everyone just kind of brushes it under the rug.”
After learning about Foreman’s Christian anti-abortion activism from a co-worker, Finch said that continuing to work for the small family business was deeply conflicting.
“I struggle, morally, working there,” Finch said. “It tests my values. I've gotten backlash from my friends about working there, which is valid. But also, I'm a struggling college student — I need money.”
A former Moments employee and WWC student who chose to remain anonymous describes a similar set of interactions working with Foreman. We refer to him here by an initial. (P)
“I didn't learn any of the stuff about Joseph until late in the game, and it was one of the main reasons I left.” P said.
P spoke about how he was informed of this by a close coworker who left the establishment before P for similar reasons.
“[My co-worker at Moments] ended up knowing Joseph a little more comfortably because he helped him with the catering side of the business and things like that,” P said. “Suddenly, one day, he just told me that he's leaving. And I was like, ‘why are you leaving?’ You know, I thought things were going well. He was like ‘don't get me wrong. You guys are great. But I learned some real tough stuff about Joseph the other day, and I can't really handle that right now.’”
When the two later talked, P’s former coworker said that he had learned about Foreman's history of anti-abortion activism and demonstrations, leading him to quit the establishment.
When interviewed, Foreman spoke openly about his involvement in leadership positions with organizations like Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion movement as a whole, his larger philosophy and how he felt about the local community.
Though Foreman has not been an active participant in anti-abortion “sit-ins” or demonstrations since around the early 1990s, he said that debate and discussion around issues like abortion are still driving factors in his life, along with issues like government and religion.
Foreman hires a significant number of Warren Wilson students to work at the shop alongside him and his family. He reiterated the ideas he expressed on the “War Room” podcast about why he started a business so close to a college campus.
“That's why we started as close to Warren Wilson as I could get, even though it's a bad business location,” Foreman said when discussing his relationship with Warren Wilson.
“I've hired a lot of people from Warren Wilson— I just enjoyed talking with them,” Foreman said. “I mean, if I've had a mission, it's to try and show people who are extremely opinionated that, when there's people you don't like, as a general rule, there's a human side to them. Find out what it is. It's usually a very good side. A side worth getting to know.”
Foreman said that most of his effort in anti-abortion organizing when leading Operation Rescue was spent “trying to get all the groups to talk together and get along.”
“If you're more activist than that group, then you're going too far,” Foreman said. “If you're less activist, you're a compromiser. And everybody's like that.”
Foreman said that throughout his anti-abortion organizing tenure, he had been legally cited around 75 times. While a large number of those instances were “cite and release,” where protesters would be removed from the scene of the gathering by law enforcement and taken downtown before being released — some of them led to varying lengths of jail time.
“Most of those — probably about 30 of them — were overnight,” Foreman said. “Another percentage were one to three weeks, and then the rest of them. . . I shouldn't say the rest of them — three were about five months each. I usually ended up — which didn't bother me — away from the group, because I was a leader and so they didn't want me ‘fomenting’.”
When describing demonstrations that he organized and participated in, Foreman said that the common mode of protest was preventing entry to abortion clinics around the nation — essentially, picketing the door in a way that made entry or access to clinics impossible or limited.
“Anybody can get out,” Foreman said. “We would always let people out. The key is passive non-violence.”
Despite his extensive history of physical blockade demonstrations, Foreman said he rejects the viewpoint held by many Christian anti-abortionists that one should associate only with others who share the same convictions about issues like abortion.
“Of course as a human being I'd like you to agree with me, but, I mean, beyond that. . . The last way I'll ever do it is by giving you a list of your sins that you now have to live up to according to my standards,” Foreman said. “If the day comes that you feel like you ought to go right or left, that's going to be something God has to do with you. I can't — that's not my zone.”
Similarly to what the Moments employees said about obscured viewpoints, Foreman said that, though he believes in open debate and discussion, he does sometimes tone down his viewpoints when speaking to people at the shop.
“In Moments, I try to be careful who I talk about what with, just because people aren't ready to treat each other like humans,” Foreman said. “If you're on the other side of the fence, it must mean because you're somehow non-human. That's one of the first things we leap to, as people — if you're not in my group, there's something lacking in your humanity.”
Foreman continued with this idea, noting how witnessing “echo chambers” has influenced his thinking. He said that he had noticed echo chambers in some Christian anti-abortion media, along with many other movements.
“When you're in your own echo chamber, anything outside of that is not only wrong, it's stupid, it's dumb, it's harmful, it's a threat,” Foreman said. “And that's one of the reasons I never trust pro-life statistics. They're just as likely to lie to us. Why not? They're trying to save a baby.”
Later, Foreman again touched on this idea, saying that one of his overarching philosophies was individualism. He mentioned frequently that he opposed government control and regulations.
“The conservative people think I'm conservative, and I am on many of their issues,” Foreman said. “But not when it comes to the government — they're into tyranny. Not when it comes to women — they want to own them.”
Foreman said that his anti-abortion stance was not about controlling women and that he felt the anti-abortion movement should not exclude feminism.
“I don't blame anybody in the feminist movement for being fed up and [feeling like] It's not even worth trying to find out what a man thinks,” Foreman said. “Why, why should you? We've been finding that out for 6000 years.”
“The pro-choice movement is trying to liberate women from an intrinsically unfair situation to begin with, and give them choice, because having a baby is going to change your life,” Foreman said. “The pro-life side is fairly simple. Nothing really changes from conception to you right now — If I just took a cell, I wouldn't know what I was dealing with you, the conceived zygote or if I was dealing with you [the adult].”
Foreman later clarified this stance, stating:
“That's the other problem, the biology— the child is not a part of the body. It just isn't. It's a separate entity. And you could say, well, they're forced to be there. Well, that's true.”
[Content Warning - description of aborted fetus used in anti-abortion demonstration]
Foreman said that one of his anti-abortion demonstrations included tricking the then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton into looking at an aborted fetus they obtained from a clinic. This occurred at the 1992 New York Democratic National Convention where Bill Clinton received the democratic nomination for president.
Foreman traveled to New York with several other people involved in anti-abortion demonstrations. The New York Times reported that Foreman and two others were “arrested and charged with transporting a fetus into New York, removal of human remains from the place of death and improper disposal of a fetus,” after the demonstration.
“We got a room in Bill [Clinton]'s hotel where he was staying,” Foreman said. “He would go out and run in the morning. And so we went down at about six o'clock. [The aborted fetus] was in a clear clamshell.”
Foreman said that as Clinton exited his building, the man holding the fetus drew Clinton out from his security detail by asking for an autograph on some paper campaign material he was using to cover up the clear plastic box.
“As Bill goes to sign it, he says ‘Bill, what about the babies?’ (he mimes removing the piece of paper from on top of the clear container), and [Clinton] goes like this— ‘Oh, fuck you’ — and just sits down in his car and they drive off.”
Foreman said that they were not immediately stopped, and quickly returned to their hotel room with the fetus.
“So we walked back into the hotel, go to the room, I put everything — there was about four of us in there — I put everything back into the briefcase, made a phone call to a guy, took the briefcase out down the stairwell, and out to the side of the street,” Foreman said. “Guy pulls up in a taxi, I handed it to him, and I said, ‘see ya.’”
After this, Foreman said that the secret service came to their hotel room and they spent the next several hours answering their questions. Foreman said that no further legal action was taken at that time by any of the involved parties.
“At that point, the dead babies were very hard to come by,” Foreman said. “There's nothing that absolutely blows people away like seeing one.”
When talking about this event and the corresponding media coverage of it and other anti-abortion demonstrations, Foreman said that he was frustrated with how people depicted him online.
“About 2005 to 2010, somewhere in there, I went on the internet and looked for stuff that had been written, and it was just like. . . I had been turned into this neo-Nazi monster.” (Figure of speech)
Later, when discussing “cancel culture,” he said, “you say what needs to be said to destroy the opposition. You just do. And that's the way they do it. And like I told you, I never liked that. I just hate that whole way of looking at people and things.”
“I get why Warren Wilson's not real happy with me,” Foreman said. “I just hope they continue to drink the coffee.”