48 Abortion Protesters Seized in Tustin

Hours after Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry announced he was stepping down from day-to-day leadership of the nationwide anti-abortion group, his successors struck again, blockading a Tustin abortion clinic for much of Friday.

Tustin police said that 48 people were arrested for trespassing in the afternoon, after clinic managers complained that their patients could not enter the building.

Among those arrested was Tustin Councilman John Kelly, 28, who describes himself as an anti-abortion advocate.

Police said 250 anti-abortion activists participated in the noisy demonstration outside the offices of Doctors’ Family Planning Medical Group. Two hundred abortion rights activists also showed up, seeking to escort patients in and out of the clinic.

The demonstration was one of several being conducted by Operation Rescue around Southern California in connection with Easter Week.

Terry did not attend Friday’s rally. He announced on Thursday night to a group of more than 2,000 supporters in Anaheim that he would no longer be handling the day-to-day leadership of the group.

His successor--Keith Tucci, 33, former Midwest regional director for Operation Rescue--said Terry will continue to serve as a spokesman for the anti-abortion movement while working on outreach programs to Christian groups. He will also begin publicizing the addresses and home phone numbers of judges he believes have treated Operation Rescue unfairly, Tucci said.

Earlier this week, Terry, 31, of Binghamton, N.Y., pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges stemming from a massive illegal blockade of a women’s clinic near downtown Los Angeles in 1989. He was fined $700 and ordered to abide by a federal court order banning illegal blockades.

Terry was released in late January from a Fulton County, Ga., minimum-security prison camp after serving nearly four months on charges of criminal trespass and unlawful assembly.

Among those at Friday’s rally was San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith, a Democratic candidate for state attorney general, who supports abortion rights. He attended the rally in conjunction with the Feminist Majority, which coordinated the abortion rights demonstration.

Smith, looking somewhat out of place in the sea of protesters in T-shirts and blue jeans, left before the arrests began. He said he was attending to support “the rights of people to exercise their constitutional rights.”

During one TV interview, Smith was interrupted repeatedly by a militant anti-abortionist, who screamed into the microphone: “Killing children. Is that what you stand for?”