In December of 1997 and June of 1998, the declining anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue attempted to extend its collective action frame of “saving babies” or “protecting children” by conducting a series of protests in Florida that included Barnes & Noble bookstores and Walt Disney World. While these activities made sense within the religious right's master frame of Christian Reconstructionism, the protests failed to help Operation Rescue improve its reputation or increase its membership. This article provides a contribution to the social movement framing literature by analyzing a case of failed frame extension and by taking the political context and tactics of the social movement organization (SMO) in question into account.
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