Flip Benham

Philip "Flip" Benham (born April 16, 1948) is an Evangelical Christian minister and the national leader of Concord, North Carolina-based Operation Save America, a pro-life group that evolved from another pro-life organization, Operation Rescue.

Since 1980, Benham has been an ordained minister of the Free Methodist Church. He founded a Free Methodist congregation in Garland, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, which he led until 1992.

Benham has been active in the anti-abortion movement since the early 1980s, and he founded Operation Rescue's chapter in the Metroplex in 1988. He succeeded Randall Terry as national director of Operation Rescue in 1994, and renamed it Operation Save America in 1999.

In 1994, Benham confronted Norma McCorvey, best known as "Jane Roe" in the landmark Supreme Court abortion case "Roe v. Wade", at a book-signing. He shouted at her that she was "responsible for the deaths of over 33 million children," and six months later he opened Operation Rescue's national headquarters next to A Choice for Women, the reproductive health care clinic where McCorvey was working at the time. McCorvey initially resisted any contact, but eventually started to talk to Benham during her smoking breaks. During one friendly banter, McCorvey goaded Benham, "What you need is to go to a good Beach Boys concert." Benham answered, "Miss Norma, I haven't been to a Beach Boys concert since 1976."

McCorvey later reported that this seemingly innocuous response shook her to the core and that, quite suddenly, Benham became human to her. She later accepted an invitation to visit Benham's church and within a year, McCorvey changed her views on abortion from supporting the pro-choice movement to supporting the pro-life movement. McCorvey has remained pro-life.

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