185 Arrested While Trying to Block Abortion Clinics

A total of 185 Operation Rescue anti-abortion activists in Chicago and Boston were arrested Saturday for attempting to block abortion clinics in the face of counterdemonstrations by abortion rights advocates, police said.

In Chicago, 116 protesters were booked on charges of mob action and resisting arrest, police said.

The arrests began after a crowd of about 300 people shouting and carrying signs prevented the American Women’s Medical Center on the North Side from opening as scheduled.

“They are determined to shut us down,” said Karen Burns, a spokeswoman for the clinic. “We have a court injunction against what they are doing. I guess we will just have to go back to court.”

Some Operation Rescue protesters read Scriptures and sang hymns as they marched around the clinic. Others held signs, including one that showed an aborted fetus wrapped in an American flag.

About 20 members of an abortion rights group called Emergency Clinic Defense Coalition arrived at the clinic at about 11 a.m. to stage a counter-protest.

The group displayed banners and signs that read: “Honk if you’re pro-choice.” Several passing motorists honked their horns, but police told the abortion rights advocates they would be arrested if they did not turn the signs away from motorists. Officers cited an ordinance that prohibits using car horns except in the event of an “imminent emergency.”

In Boston, police arrested 69 anti-abortion protesters for blocking entrances to a women’s clinic there during a demonstration by an estimated 300 Operation Rescue members and sympathizers.

Abortion-rights advocates, including National Organization for Women President Molly Yard, staged a simultaneous counterdemonstration outside the GyneCare clinic. Participants said there were some pushing and shouting matches.

It was the fourth protest that the Operation Rescue anti-abortion group has staged at GyneCare in the last year, police said. All but one of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct and released, police said. One man was charged with assault and battery and was to be arraigned Monday in Boston Municipal Court.