Abortion Foes Foiled in Bid to Storm Clinic

Abortion foes tried to storm a clinic Saturday at the end of a three-day siege, but police and a fence kept them out.

Abortion protesters tried to storm the Delta Women’s Clinic, charging police lines in groups of three to 50. None got past state and city police and an $8,000 chain-link fence erected by the city.

There were no arrests, said police, who estimated the crowd at 800. Abortion foes also jammed telephone lines at the clinic.

Sixty-one people were arrested since the protest began Thursday, including 16 on felony charges, such as inciting to riot. A few were abortion-rights demonstrators arrested on misdemeanor charges.

Both sides claimed victory from the demonstrations.

Joe Slovenec of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue asserted that the protests increased the costs of having an abortion. But Ann Schiffman, a spokeswoman for abortion-rights activists, said almost all the women who had appointments at the clinic had been seen despite the protests.

In Milwaukee, 46 people, including 16 juveniles, were arrested on disorderly conduct charges Saturday as hundreds of people on both sides of the abortion issue crammed sidewalks outside two clinics.

Missionaries to the Preborn, a fundamentalist anti-abortion group, began its six-week protest on June 15. So far, 481 arrests have been made, most of them abortion foes.