PRO-LIFE MAN ATTACKED OUTSIDE APPLETON PLANNED PARENTHOOD
By Anna DeMeuse, Pro-Life Wisconsin Communications Director
Seventy-two-year-old Duane Van Boxtel has been a force for the culture of life since 2006 when he began praying outside of the abortion facility on North Gillett Street in Grand Chute, WI. Since Planned Parenthood closed those doors for good in 2016, Duane has been praying outside of the Planned Parenthood abortion referral center on Wisconsin Avenue in Appleton, WI.
For the past 4 years and 10 months Duane has dedicated his days to standing in the gap for the preborn. He recounts the many mothers and couples who have joyfully told him that they were choosing life, commenting:
“Thank you for what you said!”
“I’m keeping my twins because of you!”
“I’m having my baby – I can’t thank you enough!”
However, this past Friday, April 9, 2021, Duane was met with a very different sort of greeting. While praying on the sidewalk outside of Planned Parenthood in Appleton that afternoon, Duane noticed a man drive by, park, and approach him with purpose. The man neared Duane and proceeded to steal his cross pro-life display and walk away with it. At this point in time, it was not only Duane who stood up to him but also Planned Parenthood’s contracted security guard who was present on the sidewalks. Despite their clear differences in opinion on the issue of abortion, Duane remarked, “I’ve always treated him [Planned Parenthood’s security guard] like he was a brother in Christ.” So, both called out to the man saying, “you can’t do that!”
Duane followed the man to his car and said, “You’ve got to give that back!” The man refused, and after Duane tried reclaiming his own property by grabbing the foot of the cross, the man forcefully shoved the cross back into Duane knocking him on to the ground, flat on his back, with great force. Meanwhile the security guard was already on the phone with the Appleton Police Department who came within minutes to Duane’s aid, arresting the perpetrator.
“We thank God for the quick thinking of the security guard who called the Appleton police to come to Duane’s aid,” said Dan Miller, State Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “He saw the injustice of what was happening and acted on it.”
After trying and failing to get up several times due to excruciating pain, Duane took an ambulance to the hospital where he received treatment for damage done to the discs in his back.
“Duane Van Boxtel is what heroes are made of,” said Miller. "He is the embodiment of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. He not only stands in the gap for his preborn brothers and sisters in Christ but treats every employee of Planned Parenthood as members of the body of Christ. Maybe, by some miracle, the employees at this location will see that what happened to Duane is not all that different than what Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin does 4,639 times a year – they bully humans that are smaller in size by killing them.”
When we called Duane to check in on him today it sounded particularly windy on his end of the phone, so we asked what he was up to just days after he was attacked. He replied, “Oh I’m already back at Planned Parenthood. I’d be out here in a wheelchair or a walker doing whatever I can to save the babies.”