Abortion Foes Beg Police to Close Clinic : Protest: More than 100 people are arrested when Operation Rescue resumes demonstrations after a 2-day break. No patients are turned away.

Abortion opponents shouted plaintive appeals to police to help them close a women’s clinic Friday, while more than 100 of their supporters were arrested after charging the back of the clinic.

Four abortion-rights demonstrators also were arrested.

The arrests came as the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue resumed demonstrations after two days of prayer and fasting. But the group’s two-week campaign to stop abortions at four Buffalo-area clinics was scheduled to end today, Operation Rescue leaders said.

Katherine Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation, an abortion-rights group, said the clinic targeted in Friday’s demonstration remained open and all patients got in.

“They’ve been at this for two weeks, and every single day the clinics are open,” said Kit Bonson, spokeswoman for Buffalo United for Choice, an abortion-rights group.

About 200 abortion opponents and 100 abortion-rights activists showed up Friday. Members of the two groups stood shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides of the road in front of the clinic, pushing signs in one another’s faces reading “Keep Abortion Legal” and “It’s a Baby, Not a Choice.”

John Hunter, a minister who is opposed to abortion, called to about 40 police officers who stood in the road between abortion opponents and the clinic: “Officers, how long can you stand there while they’re killing children behind you?”

The arrests occurred after abortion opponents surged through a parking lot at the clinic. Some hopped over a fence behind the clinic and 112 were arrested by police. The demonstrators went limp, forcing police to carry them onto waiting buses.

Those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct or trespassing.