Abortion Rights Advocates Hold Counter Rally

Thousands of abortion rights advocates gathered Saturday on the banks of the Arkansas River to decry six weeks of protests by an anti-abortion group.

“We are going toe-to-toe with these bullies,” Patricia Ireland, president-elect of the National Organization for Women, said to the crowd.

A crowd that police estimated at 5,000 became quiet when ex-NOW President Eleanor Smeal told of a 9-year-old girl who reported to police that her father beat her for refusing to wear a red ribbon in support of anti-abortion demonstrations.

“But that little girl did not wear the ribbon,” Smeal said. “This is about people, no matter what their age, who will stand up to tyranny, to violence, to authoritarian dictatorship, to a patriarchy that only knows control at any price.”

So far, 2,600 arrests of anti-abortion demonstraters have been made since they began trying to block entrances to clinics that perform abortions. Many protesters have been repeatedly arrested. The protests were organized by the national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

Anti-abortion forces scheduled a rally for today featuring Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network as the keynote speaker.

Other speakers at the abortion rights rally represented Republicans for Choice, Catholics for Free Choice, the American Civil Liberties Union and Business and Professional Women USA.

About three dozen police officers kept watch on the crowd. Many participants held red, white and blue signs that read, “America Stands for Choice.”

As the rally ended, about five anti-abortion demonstrators taunted a cluster of about 200 abortion rights advocates on their way out. There were no arrests.

Police separated the groups and asked the abortion foes to go to the other side of the street.

“They’re for killing babies, it’s wrong and they know it,” Leon Gonzalez, of Denver, said after he was escorted away by police.