Escalating Protests at Abortion Clinics Turning Atlanta Into Key Battleground

Anti-abortion advocates, seeking to draw attention to their cause in this presidential election year, are turning Atlanta into a major battleground for what they hope will be a new nationwide campaign to overturn Supreme Court rulings in favor of legalized abortion.

What began as a one-time event staged by anti-abortion demonstrators during the Democratic National Convention last month has since escalated into almost daily protests at abortion clinics throughout this city. On Friday, 26 more protesters were arrested as they blocked entrances to a clinic, bringing the total number of arrests so far to 381.

Authorities said that as of Friday, 136 protesters remained in jail or in pretrial detention on charges ranging from criminal trespass to terroristic acts.

Most Refuse to Give Names

Most of those in custody have refused to give their names, identifying themselves only as “Baby John Doe” or “Baby Jane Doe.”

“When we first came here it was not our intent to make Atlanta a battleground,” said Anne Forman, a spokeswoman for Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion group that is heading the protests. “But for whatever reason, we believe the Lord has decided to turn this into something that could be another Selma, Ala.”

Selma, a small city west of Montgomery, the Alabama state capital, was the site of a bloody civil rights march that sparked passage of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The anti-abortion protests, which organizers say have drawn supporters to Atlanta from throughout the country, have won the backing of television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Falwell, who was in New Orleans on Thursday for the opening of a conference promoting traditional values, called on his followers to make civil disobedience a national priority in efforts to win an anti-abortion amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Presents $10,000 Check

The day before, he attended an anti-abortion demonstration in Atlanta and urged local ministers to join the protests here. He also presented a $10,000 check to Operation Rescue’s leader, Randall Terry, to help pay his legal expenses. Terry was arrested last week during a protest and charged with being a party to a crime.

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, president of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said that he would not join the protesters, and he denounced their comparison of their tactics with those of civil rights activists in the 1960s.

Daily coverage of the demonstrations has been featured on the “700 Club,” Robertson’s cable television show. The protesters typically block the doorways to abortion clinics and attempt to dissuade patients from entering by shouting: “Don’t kill your baby! We can help you!”

On Thursday, however, six protesters actually entered a clinic in mid-town Atlanta and blocked the hallway outside a recovery room. They were arrested and charged with terroristic acts--the first demonstrators to face felony charges.

Denise Buchanan, office manager of the Feminist Women’s Health Center, one of seven metropolitan Atlanta clinics licensed to perform abortions, said that the protests have failed to keep women from seeking abortions.

‘Not Stopping Women’

“It’s not stopping the women by any means,” she said. “They may not come in today but they’re rescheduling their appointments or going to other facilities if they can’t get into the one they want because of the protesters.”

She also predicted that the protests soon would lose steam. “I just don’t think their forces are going to be able to hold out,” she said. “The mainstream of America’s thinking is not theirs. People are stopping us on the street and saying: ‘Hey, we’re on your side. Those people are crazy.’ ”

Marion Lee, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Police Department, said that the protests have been “more of an annoyance” than anything else for law enforcement officers.

“You get the word very early that they’re going to be hitting a place,” she said. “We go out and . . . play it by ear. If they’re going to block the entrance ways, then we have to respond” by arresting them.

36 Held in Atlanta Jail

She said that 36 protesters are being held in the Atlanta jail and that another 26 who were arrested Friday are in pretrial detention at another facility.

An additional 74 protesters have been bound over to state court and are in custody at the Fulton County jail, a county official said. About 60 of that number were among the 134 protesters originally arrested during the Democratic National Convention.

State Court Judge Nick Lambros signed an order Monday forbidding arraignment of jailed anti-abortion protesters until they reveal their names.