Arrests Soar in Abortion Clashes : Protests: Hundreds of abortion rights supporters foil attempts to shut down a Milwaukee clinic. Children are among those taken into custody.

On the eve of what is expected to be a watershed Supreme Court decision, pro- and anti-abortion forces faced off Saturday in the largest show of strength so far in a planned six-week protest at Milwaukee abortion clinics.

Several hundred chanting abortion rights supporters locked arms before the entrance of a downtown clinic to repel an estimated 700 anti-abortion protesters who tried to keep women from entering the facility. Hundreds of additional abortion rights advocates guarded two other clinics, but were not confronted.

Police made 143 arrests, bringing to 319 the total number of arrests during a week of demonstrations. Most of those arrested were anti-abortion protesters.

The campaign has been organized by a national group, Missionaries to the Preborn. It has brought fewer out-of-towners to Milwaukee than expected but nevertheless has stepped up a two-year struggle that has made the city one of the most hotly contested battlefields on the issue.

“This is not a protest,” said the Rev. Jim Pinto, an Episcopalian minister from Birmingham, Ala., who is helping to organize the campaign. “We believe we’re rescuing people, saving a life, and Jesus is going to hold us accountable for it.”

Once again Saturday, in a strategy that has set the Milwaukee protests apart from most others, dozens of children--some as young as 8 years old--were among anti-abortion protesters taken into custody. The practice of using children has been deplored as child abuse by abortion rights supporters, but vigorously defended by the protesters.

At about 8:40 a.m., a group of adults and children made their first dash toward the police barricades that sealed off the Summit Women’s Health Organization clinic. They fell to the ground limp when approached by police officers. Chanting abortion rights supporters, who had begun surrounding the clinic at 5 a.m., closed ranks and locked arms.

Anti-abortion forces sang hymns, prayed and held crucifixes and signs bearing slogans and pictures of aborted fetuses. At one point, they passed around a jar they said contained a tiny fetus.

Thirty-one of those arrested Saturday were juveniles. Unlike adults who are taken into custody, the children are released within hours of arrest. Organizers insisted, though, that this is not why children are being used.

“Our kids beg us, beg us, to rescue these children,” said the Rev. Joseph Foreman, a Presbytarian minister from Atlanta and president of the Atlanta chapter of Missionaries for the Preborn. Three of his children have been arrested.

“It breaks my heart that they’re putting children in jail now for an act of conscience,” he said.

Groups on both sides of the issue said an expected U.S. Supreme Court decision that could give states the authority to restrict or even abolish abortions would probably cause such confrontations to increase in number.

The high court is expected to issue a ruling before the end of the month in a Pennsylvania case, Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, concerning a state law that requires pregnant women to notify their husbands and wait 24 hours before obtaining an abortion. The case gives the court a chance to reconsider Roe vs. Wade, the landmark ruling that granted women the constitutional right to abortions.

If the court rules as expected, “it’s going to be a 50-front battle come this November” as both sides try to elect legislators who support their view, said Christine Korsmo, director of the Wisconsin chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League.

Here in Wisconsin, there is little doubt what will happen should states regain the right to restrict abortion. The governor and a majority of the Legislature oppose abortion.

But to the anti-abortion faithful gathered here, what the court does makes little difference to their demonstrations. They say their fight will go on.

“We’re not going to sit back and wait for the legislatures to change anything,” Pinto said. “We’re going to take over our country, city by city. We’re going to be out there. Any state where they’re killing babies, we will be there.”

The protests, which began Tuesday, have not been violent, although clinic administrators have complained of receiving death threats and of having their office vandalized. Leaders of the protests deny responsibility.

Korsmo and Marypat Blankenheim, spokesman for Planned Parenthood, said the local protests have fizzled. They contend that fewer anti-abortion demonstrators than expected have turned out and that they have been outnumbered by abortion rights supporters.

Foreman admitted that the 150 out-of-towners who came to Milwaukee were only about half of the number expected, but said generating large numbers was not the issue. He said Saturday’s protest numbers are not likely to be topped. Most of the out-of-town “rescuers” will leave now, and fewer activities will be held for the remaining five weeks of protest, he said.

Unlike Operation Rescue, a higher-profile anti-abortion organization that uses similar methods but attracts much larger numbers to its protests, Missionaries for the Preborn is more interested in creating full-time workers to apply constant pressure to abortion clinics. The group in Milwaukee has waged a constant if relatively low-key pressure campaign for two years.

“For two years now they’ve had missionaries for preborn children, 14 or 15 people rescuing full time,” Pinto said. “That’s unprecedented. That’s unheard of. Three times a week for two years. They’ve driven nine abortionists out of the city.”

Abortion rights supporters dispute that number, although they admit the anti-abortionists’ use of such pressure tactics as chaining themselves to doctors’ cars, picketing their homes and filing numerous malpractice lawsuits have caused at least two doctors to quit performing abortions.

The organization takes credit for nine, even though leaders admit that two doctors stopped performing abortions because they had died.

“We pray and imprecate the enemies of God,” said the Rev. Matt Trewhella, the Evangelical minister who heads a local group. “We pray for calamity to come upon those who inflict the innocent.”

Although Missionaries for the Preborn have been waging war on abortion providers in Milwaukee for two years, only last week did abortion rights supporters begin fighting back, using blockades and organizational strategies taught to them by the Los Angeles-based Feminist Majority Foundation.

Local clinic directors, activists and Planned Parenthood officials also learned from observing what happened last month in Buffalo, N.Y., where a planned two-week protest by Operation Rescue ended early because of the strong show of force by abortion rights supporters.

“Buffalo showed us that pro-choice people can offer protection without being confrontational,” Korsmo said.

In an effort to curb the use of children, the police began Thursday to cite parents for contributing to the delinquency of minors and threatened them with arrest. But that didn’t keep children from returning to be arrested Saturday.